for a few days, officially joining on Stevenson's birthday of September 10. After settling his affairs in Washington, D.C., he moved to Los Angeles that October. He and Alvarez moved into the Descendents' headquarters, a storefront along the Pacific Coast Highway in Lomita, California that housed the band's living quarters, practice space, and office. Egerton later recalled: For me, meeting Bill, beyond my massive love for the Descendents' music, was my massive love for Black Flag's music, and he had been in both. So the idea that it was Karl, my oldest friend, and I joining this band that was so huge to us, it was like living on a cloud. We were like "Uh, what just happened? Uh, we just joined the Descendents. This is gnarly." After practicing for a few weeks, the Descendents headed out on the second Enjoy! tour from late November 1986 to mid-January 1987, playing small shows for little money and sleeping on people's floors. "Those first tours were very grueling in the way that it is when you're not used to it", recalled Alvarez. On their return to Los Angeles they began writing songs for the band's next album. Writing As with previous Descendents albums, all four band members contributed to the songwriting of the new record. With their shared history and eclectic musical tastes, Alvarez and Egerton brought new ideas to the band. "We already had a kind of highly evolved vocabulary of licks and riffs", recalled Alvarez. Egerton remembered "What was interesting about putting that band together at that time was that there were two already functioning chemistries that existed: Milo and Bill, and me and Karl." "They had all these really cool experimental, instrumental deals going", recalled Aukerman. "Stephen came in with these crazy songs, this kind of King Crimson-eque thing, and I was like 'ooh, okay. Alvarez wrote "Coolidge", which deals with a failed relationship and the realization that "I'm not a cool guy anymore, as if I ever was before". "That's proven to be one of our identifying songs", said Stevenson 26 years later, "Here he is, new to the band, he walks in and writes one of the songs that would define us." Egerton's contributions were primarily instrumental; he wrote the music for "Impressions", "Iceman", "All-O-Gistics", and "Schizophrenia", and co-wrote the music for "Van" and "Uranus". "Stephen harnessed the job of trying to expand some of the melodic