Recording began in Renzi's basement in Herndon, VA and would continue into the middle of May. During the next few months, Philip Hamm, GUM!s then brand new bass player, learned the bass lines for the songs from his apartment 3 hours away in Philadelphia. It was during these first months, however, that the real magic happened.
    Peter Hamm, GUM!'s vocalist and lead guitarist, came up with the idea of adding multimedia to CHEW in the form of a music video and song lyrics. Chris Renzi, who drums for GUM! took it one step further, adding the idea of a video game into the mix. Later, Chris came up with the idea of packaging the CD with actual gum, which would come to be Tiny Size Chiclets, provided by Warner Lambert, the makers of other gum products such as Chiclets and Bubblicious.
    The multimedia came to be much more than expected. It would contain interview segments, a music video for Emily Ann, one of GUM!'s more popular songs, "GUM! Wads": a target practice game designed by Chris, and much more. The compact disc was designed to play in a music CD player as well as a PC or Macintosh computer. It was slowly but surely changing from just a rock album into a unique look into the minds of the musicians.
    But with the good points there were also bad ones. CHEW was originally scheduled for release on July 4th 1997, a date that was missed by almost 6 months. In addition, two songs were struck from the list, and another one added (See sidebar). The recording dragged on into May, and by June the CD had been mixed and mastered and the CD-ROM portion was well into production.
    By June, the layout of the CD had not even been considered. It had been last on the priority list and now came to bite the members of GUM! in the foot. They were almost finished with the content, and now they had to worry about what to put on the cover of the CD.
    Then, on a hot day in August, Patrick Hamm, GUM!s other lead vocalist and guitarist, stuffed a total of 20 pieces of gum into his mouth while band mate Chris laid on the hot cement and snapped pictures of Patrick stepping into it. It was a photo shoot that was expected to take several tries to get perfect. It ended up perfect on the first. CHEW now had a face, or rather a foot: Patrick's green canvas high top sneaker to be exact, shot from the side as it sat in mid step with a huge stringy wad of gum stretching from sole to street. With a little digital wizardry from Peter, the shoe soon bared the band logo on its side.
    Soon after, GUM! got a package in the mail from Brian Steckler, who was responsible for mastering CHEW. He sent a letter and a DAT tape. The letter Stated that he had been "Playing" with our tracks and had come up with a little something for us to use as we wish. The DAT tape contained a remix to the song "Call Me". It took about three seconds of listening for GUM! to decide that this was to be added, and "Call Me: LA Remix" became track 13 of CHEW.
    The holidays came and took over, and work on the CD came to almost a complete standstill. The band morale was at an all time low. It had been months since GUM! had practiced, played live, or even thought about anything besides CHEW. It was decided that practices would re-commence, and slowly but surely the songs, and the band, got back into shape.
    On a cold day in January 1998, GUM! sent off the final version of CHEW to be reproduced. The finished product contained 12 songs (with a bonus track), a music video, video game, song lyrics, and some hidden surprises, as well as a package of chewing gum underneath the shrink wrap. A full year had passed since the first microphone was set in front of the guitar amps, and what was left was more than any of the members of the band had even imagined it would be. It had become an object that appealed to all the senses, not just hearing. Home spun rock and roll with a high tech twist, CHEW was created by only these four individuals (with a little help from their friends) who made real their hopes of putting on disc what they, themselves are in real life: Rock and roll with flavor.