Following the release of the standalone "Closed for Business" EP in October 1997, the band found themselves short of songs going into the studio sessions at Olympic Studios for second album "Six". Suffering from writer's block, Draper took inspiration from books Chad had taken out with him on tour, such as 120 Days of Sodom by Marquis de Sade, The House at Pooh Corner by A. A. Milne and Dianetics by L. Ron Hubbard by quickly scanning them to get the gist of the books and then forming lyrics based on them. Many of the musical ideas were assembled during soundchecks on the previous US tour. Chad admitted that the band "had all these ideas that we came up with on tour, but we didn't have any complete songs. For the album, we simply recorded all the musical snippets, and then figured out key and tempo changes that would link the sections together". With the lack of complete songs going into the album sessions, Draper set out to put together enough material at the weekends in the band's rented accommodation in Barnes so that there was enough material each week for the band to work on. Through constant touring, the band were now confident to record as a band in the studio and set out to replicate their live sound and make the album heavier and more guitar based in contrast to the more commercial sounding drum loop and synthesiser based sound of the debut.