nalick initially decided to go to college before pursuing her dream of music, continuing to record her songs on a rainbow brite cassette recorder. but she soon met a photography professor, who had a student with parents in the music business. nalick agreed to pass along a low-fidelity six-song demo tape, and soon enough, was introduced to christopher thorn and brad smith, the founding members of blind melon now turned production team, as well as eric rosse, best known for his production work for tori amos. in october 2003, putting her college plans on hold, she signed on with columbia records. nalick went into the studio with thorn, smith, and rosse as producers, together with mix-engineer mark endert (fiona apple, maroon 5, and gavin degraw). she recorded with a group of musicians that included smith on bass, thorn on guitar, rosse and zak rae on keyboards, lyle workman and stuart mathis on guitar, and joey waronker and matt chamberlain on drums. the result was her album "wreck of the day", released two years later.