"Artistically (and in many other ways), the band was liberated by the fact that they'd never sign to a major label. "In a way, we were cheating because we didn't have that light at the end of the tunnel," Prescott says. "And who knows? We were human--if the light had been there, maybe we would have turned crappy quicker. It's a really hard thing to say. Now I'm glad that it was like it was."