following Violator and had been spending time with up and coming alternative rock bands such as Jane's Addiction and Soundgarden, which inspired him to create a rock-oriented record, leading to creative differences with the rest of the band. Not helping was that Gahan was dealing with drugs at this point. The band also began to jam together, something which they had not previously done in terms of album writing, only for fun. The lack of success of coming up with musical ideas from such jams led to intense frustration. Unlike the previous albums, there was very little pre-production, where the band would listen to demos created by Gore and then suggest ideas to establish a creative framework. Flood recalls the lack of pre-production as a big mistake that adversely affected the early recording sessions. Due to these frustrations, the first recording batch of four weeks was largely unusable, which Wilder described as "a complete fucking waste of time" in a sarcastic toast to Flood at the airport on their way back home. The lack of progress increasingly frustrated everyone involved. Flood compared the collective effort of Violator where the band would contribute as a whole, and while there were disagreements, it was in recognition that it was for a greater good, whereas in the making of Songs of Faith and Devotion, the band members were highly adamant of their own individual ideas, leading to considerable tension. Flood described the atmosphere as "like pulling teeth" and emotionally draining. Gore, Gahan, and Daniel Miller shared his sentiments, comparing the party-like atmosphere of creating Violator to the stale atmosphere on Songs of Faith and Devotion. Though Wilder would say the band members had drifted as far apart as they had ever been, the emotional stress contributed to some of Depeche Mode's best tracks, including "In Your Room" and "Walking in My Shoes", which many felt were indicative of Gore's greatest works. Gahan downplayed his role on the album, stating the only thing he felt he contributed was what he considers his greatest vocal performance for "Condemnation". Conversely, Wilder praised his role, stating that on previous releases, Gahan's studio contribution was often only vocal performance, and thus did not get in the way much; but during the recording of Songs of Faith and Devotion Dave often offered a lot of positive encouragement, and Wilder's creative differences with Gore were actually the real source of