In mid- 2003, Williams was recording music for the
soundtrack of the musical
biopic De-Lovely at
Air Studios, in London. During a break in recording, he encountered Stephen Duffy, who was also working on music in the same building, inside a smaller studio. Though Williams had previously met Duffy and spoken to him about a potential musical collaboration, they had never written music together before. Duffy later recalled: "Literally a month after I'd finished
Keep Going, Rob knocked on my door at AIR and said 'Shall we write a couple of songs?'". Williams started writing and recording demos for what would become
Intensive Care on 12 June 2003 at Air Studios alongside Stephen Duffy, days before kicking off his
Weekends Of Mass Distractions Tour, in support of his previous album
Escapology. On that particular day, Duffy played Williams a backing track and Williams started creating the melody and lyrics of the song "
Sin Sin Sin". After the first writing session with Duffy, Williams decided that the song which was to become Sin Sin Sin, sounded nothing like what he had done previously and that he does not wish to continue doing the type of music he had done up to that point. Williams came up with the idea of developing a character and wearing a
wig and
prosthetic nose during the promotional campaign of the album. Williams wanted to release his next record, after the release of his
Greatest Hits album, under the pseudonym Pure Francis, an imaginary American alcoholic from
Orange County who has moved to
West Hollywood, that Williams likened to
Neil Diamond. Williams' hope was to craft his best album, without any comedic elements to it and with Neil Diamond,
Kraftwerk and
Depeche Mode influences. His early idea for a title was
Diamond. Duffy agreed to Williams’ concept. During the next session, Williams and Duffy wrote the song A Place To Crash. Duffy later admitted that it was "amazing fun" writing and recording songs with Williams and described the process as follows: "We jammed. We spent hours just kind of… he played bass, I played guitar, he played the synth, I played the maracas. So everything came from a completely different place." Writing and recording continued throughout the summer of 2003. The album's lead single, Tripping, was written in late 2003 in Los Angeles. Williams wrote the bass-line for the song and the falsetto chorus line, with Duffy programming electronic drums and writing the "want you to love me" chorus section. Thus the song's initial idea was born. By March 2004, the songwriting duo had already recorded several demos including "Sin Sin Sin", "
Radio" (which would be released on the Greatest Hits compilation in late 2004), "Ghosts", "Tripping Underwater" (which would later become "
Tripping"), "The Trouble With Me" and "
Misunderstood" (which would also be released on the Greatest Hits compilation in late 2004). A Place To Crash was initially a contender for the Greatest Hits compilation. In January and February 2005, Williams and Duffy wrote Make Me Pure and Advertising Space on acoustic guitars. Duffy explained that, contrary to the songs they had written up to that point, which had an electronic sound to them, Make Me Pure was the first song they recorded using live instrumentation. He added that it was written very quickly, in a matter of hours. ==Release and promotion==