However, the bonus tracks were included without lead vocalist Johnny Gioeli's approval or knowledge.

Furthermore, lead vocalist Johnny Gioeli was recovering from a throat infection at the time, although his voice still sounded quite powerful on stage.

Gioeli revealed in a 2002 interview regarding II that he had attempted to get the original Hardline lineup back together for both the new album and the Gods Festival, "Deen was contacted first and although he was interested in doing it he was petrified that Neal would be angry if he did it.

I contacted Neal directly and he was all in favor of doing solos on the record based on him liking the songs.

I just recently got word back from our keyboard player Michael that Todd would have been interested doing the record.