It was late 1999, I was living in Palm Desert with Dave Dinsmore. Dave had just left Unida and Alfredo Hernandez was in town and had just left Queens of the Stone Age. I had a rare break from touring with Fu Manchu. The three of us started jamming in our house. I had just gotten out of a bad relationship and the songs were just pouring out of me. Frank Kozik heard that we were jamming, called me and said he wanted to release whatever we came up with. Within two weeks we were already recording on an 8-track reel-to-reel machine. I took the recordings to brother Shneebie in LA for mixing. He said the music was great, but the recording sucked. He asked to re-record it. I asked when? He said now. We re-recorded it on the spot and finished it all in 2 days. We decided on the name CHE and called the record Sounds of Liberation.