Portrait in its final incarnation was made up of Nick Walsh, guitarists Rob Bruce and Kevin Gale, bassist Frank Currell, and drummer Alex Munro.
It was at one of those gigs at the Siboney Club in Toronto's Kensington Market area that manager John Boyes saw the band performing.
The band started to demo some material that was to be produced by Bob Potter (Scorpions, Hawkwind, Marianne Faithfull) at Toronto's Comfort Sound and shopped by RLM to major labels.
Both the EP and full-length album were produced by Paul Gross and co-produced by Anthony Vanderburgh and recorded at Toronto's world class facility studio Phase One.
Slik Toxik toured throughout North America and released four singles which helped the album reach gold status in Canada and placed No.
As an indicator of their openness toward their fans, they were invited to be one of the last acts to play Toronto's popular Rock And Roll Bar, The Gas Works, on its closing night.
In 1992 they played at 'The Great Canadian Party', a Canada Day festival with The Tragically Hip, Spinal Tap and 54-40 at Molson Park in Barrie, Ontario, and they toured North America as opening acts for Kim Mitchell, Faster Pussycat, Yngwie Malmsteen, and Black Sabbath before doing their own headlining tours with Sven Gali and Big House as their opening bands.
Hard rock had undergone profound changes in the period between Slik Toxik's formation in 1989 and 1994 when they reconvened to create their second album.
At the 1994 post-Juno Awards party an intoxicated Pat Howarth stole and smashed a limousine, which led EMI to question the stability of the band as well as their viability in the changing hard rock climate.
It was at this time that EMI also suggested that Slik Toxik be moved to one of their subsidiary record labels with less money, less support and still carrying a huge debt load.
The final touring line up consisted of Nick Walsh, Rob Bruce, Neal Busby, Adam Headland and guitarist Scott 'T-Bone' TeBeau.
Singer Nick Walsh and lead guitarist Rob Bruce formed the modern rock/hard rock band Raised On Mars, and together they released a self-titled debut.
Walsh went on to form the hard rock band Revolver with long time musical partner Laurie-Anne Green.