Maida first brought up the idea of a concept album after excerpts from the book began influencing his songwriting. Passing time on the road, he had amassed a backlog of songs and had begun to record demos. He jokingly suggested an album title of Kurzweil. "That was not the most graceful sounding name in the world, so we went with Spiritual Machines instead," Turner said. While the other band-members were less enthusiastic about the idea due to its weighty subject matter, Maida and Turner decided to pursue it and Turner contacted Ray Kurzweil via email to ask for permission to use the title of his book for their project. Kurzweil's excitement at the prospect prompted them to invite him to record spoken excerpts from his book for the album and a correspondence developed. “I think it’s amazing that Ray Kurzweil sent us a bunch of pieces, and for whatever reason, they really tie in with what we were trying to say on this record,” said Maida. Recording and production Unlike the band's three previous albums, most of the songs on Spiritual Machines were written solely by Maida. “I think that because this record happened quickly, we just ended up using a lot more of my songs this time,” stated Maida. “Whatever happens, happens, and if there are good ideas lying around, we use them.” Also unlike on their previous albums, this one was recorded sporadically piece by piece with songs being added as others were discarded. Raine had made several vocal demos at his new home recording studio before the Spiritual Machines idea had come into play. Many of these demos were used for the final recordings and Raine was given production credits. “It was more a means to an end." he explained, "I would start off with a 4-track, then move to an 8-track, then go to digital. I have a ProTools system set up in my basement, so I just try to finish songs and get them out of the way so I don’t build up this backlog of ideas. We just sift through that stuff, as well as the stuff we do in rehearsal and just pick the best ideas and go. It wasn't like I said I wanted to be a producer or anything, it’s just that the demos I was making came closer to the finished product on one or two occasions, so now, I’m