In December 1978, rock band Genesis began a period of inactivity following their 1978 world tour and singer and drummer Phil Collins's decision to try to save his failing marriage.

[1] He began to prepare material in early 1979, and used a growing number of short musical ideas, of two or three minutes in length, which he had begun developing several years earlier but which remained unused.

[3] Among the new experiences Rutherford faced in making Smallcreep's Day was picking a group of musicians to perform the music and explaining the different parts to them which he said was "an unbelievable amount of work".

[2] He did not know many potential candidates, and invited drummer Simon Phillips to play based on his reputation and his capability of handling the "very fast and furious" parts, yet unsure of his approach for simple beats.

[3] Rutherford also enlisted his longtime friend and original Genesis guitarist Anthony Phillips on keyboards, who had taken further music and piano lessons since his departure from the band in 1970.

[2] The original plan was to have Chris Thompson from Manfred Mann's Earth Band do the vocals, but Rutherford thought his voice was too well known and the singer was unavailable due to other commitments.

[2] Rutherford then acquired Noel McCalla of Sniff 'n' the Tears who was once considered as the replacement for Genesis singer and frontman Peter Gabriel after he left the group in 1975.

[3][4] Rutherford played all lead and bass guitars on the album which included an acoustic 6-string Ovation, an electric 12-string Alvarez, his custom made Shergold double neck bass, a Fender Stratocaster for lead parts, an Ibanez,[3] and a Roland guitar synthesiser, from which he acquired a string sound that reminded him of a Polymoog synthesiser.

[2] He named former bandmate Steve Hackett and Genesis's live guitarist Daryl Stuermer as influences on the choice of guitar electronics and effects and acquiring a natural sound, respectively.

[3] Rutherford had read the book roughly three years prior to starting work on the album, noting it had similarities to the Gormenghast series of fantasy novels by Mervyn Peake.

[1][8] He later noted a strong contrast in themes between the factory and machine-oriented imagery on his album and the more romantic and fantasy-inspired Genesis songs typical of the time.

[13] Around the time of its release, Rutherford expressed an interest in making another solo album having already gone through the process and said he had gained a lot of self-confidence in his work as a result.

Titled "New Genesis solo no revelation", Du Noyer claimed it was "probably the biggest heap of pretension-riddle piffle I've had to plough through in ages", criticising its display of overblown musical themes and lyrics.

[11] In a retrospective review of Brown's novel, Lawrence Person comments of the album that "The music is good but [Rutherford] gave the story a happy ending, rendering it a rather aggressive exercise in point-missing.