Kaye flew from his residence in Upstate New York to the UK to start recording. The band met Kaye at Crescent Studios in Bath to record "Chain Mail", which was released single in January 1986. Stutter was produced by Kaye, and engineered by Gil Norton, at Amazon Studios in Liverpool between January and March 1986. The band lived in a house in Runcorn, which was run by the parents of one of the studio's staff members. As Sire had given them a small budget for the sessions, to save as much money as they could, band members took to cycling between the house and the studio. The band spent some of the money buying equipment they lacked. Throughout the sessions, arguments broke out between the band and Kaye, often because they wanted to record the songs live as a full-band. Whelan sympathised with Kaye and Norton and said that Booth would not allow any effects to be used on his vocal takes. Many of the takes ended abruptly because of an out-of-tune instrument or a wrong note being played. The live set up annoyed Kaye because there was a lot of bleeding between microphones, such as the drum mics capturing a guitar sound. Booth and Whelan also argued, and Booth, Glennie and McDonagh exacerbated the situation by disappearing for hours at a time to meditate. Because of constant singing, Booth's voice suffered towards the end of the process and was strained and out of key. Gott said they were unable to bring out the potential in some songs, highlighting "Johnny Yen", as Kaye and Sire were too focused on "So Many Ways" sounding like a hit single. Both Gott and Whelan felt "Johnny Yen" could have single potential had they been able to dedicate more time to it. Composition Musically, Stutters has been described as folk rock. James initially wanted to title the album Lost Innocence, before deciding on Stutter. In retrospect, Glennie said the band were making the songs sound "needlessly complex", which he attributed to working on them for a long time. The album's opening track, "Skullduggery", talks about insects eating peoples' brains. Its subtext dealt with possession; Booth explained he was adamant that he would "go mad before [I turn] thirty". Booth wrote "Scarecrow", a song with a 6/8 time signature, in 1983, having been inspired by Patti Smith; it includes a reference to the biblical figure