The album served as Starr's attempt at a commercial comeback following the success of The Beatles Anthology project.

Starr enlisted the help of many of his musician friends in making Vertical Man, including Scott Weiland, Brian Wilson, Alanis Morissette, Ozzy Osbourne, Tom Petty, Joe Walsh, Timothy B. Schmit, Steven Tyler, and his former Beatles bandmates Paul McCartney and George Harrison.

[2] Beatles engineer Geoff Emerick mixed the tracks,[3] and Starr and Mark Hudson served as producers.

"[5] In February 1997, Hudson and Grakal visited Starr in his Beverly Hills residence for a songwriting session.

[2] The result of this meeting was a song called "My Love", which was promptly renamed to "Everyday"[6] after Starr commented that McCartney had already used the title.

[6] Starr and the Roundheads recorded the tracks "What in the... World", "La De Da", and "Mindfield" on 20 July at Whatinthewhatthe?

"[6] On 15 October, the same day Starr was in Paris to watch McCartney's daughter Stella's fashion show, string overdubs were added on to "I'm Yours" and "King of Broken Hearts" at AIR Studios, located in London.

[6] On 11 November at Village Recorder Studios, Baxter also added keyboards to three tracks: "I Was Walkin'", "La De Da" and "Sometimes".

[11] On 17 November, Tyler flew from Amsterdam to Los Angeles to overdub harmonica to both "I Was Walkin'" and a re-make of "Love Me Do".

[6] Brian Wilson, as well as Barbara Bach's cousin, Christian Phillippe Quillici, overdubbed backing vocals to "Without Understanding" on 25 November.

[6] After arriving in Los Angeles on 30 November, up until 11 December, Geoff Emerick worked on mixing five tracks at A&M Studios ("One", "Mr. Double-It-Up", "Everyday", "I'm Yours" and "What in the...

[6] Also on this day, Starr was announced to have signed with an EMI subsidiary label, Guardian Records, to release his new album[3] on the planned date of 21 April 1998.

[6] Harrison's guitar overdubs were sent to Starr via mail and arrived on 22 December, after which he went with the Roundheads to Village Recorder Studios to hear the results.

[13] Later that day, Hudson and Grakal met with Mercury's Danny Goldberg, with whom they made a deal to release the album.

[13] On 23 April, Starr removed Tyler's vocal at Mercury's request, as Aerosmith was due to have tracks released on the Armageddon soundtrack.

[6] With the recent Beatles Anthology having introduced the group to newer and younger fans, it was reasoned that Starr would benefit from the exposure;[6] McCartney's Flaming Pie had done very well upon its 1997 release.

[21] With Starr newly signed to a worldwide major label deal with Mercury,[13] he was hoping for a similar reaction.

On both 13 and 14 April 1998, Starr held interviews to help promote the album,[6][13] which was originally to be titled Thanks for Comin', before being changed after looking through a book belonging to Barbara Bach's daughter, Francesca.

[6][13] As a result, filming moved to the streets of New York City,[13] where Starr was shot sitting on a bench with an umbrella.

[6] The video is intercut with Starr and his backing band performing the song, along with footage of McCartney singing the chorus from the previous September.

[29] Attendees at the Beatlefest convention who had pre-ordered the album were given a 7" single of "La De Da", which included a non-album track "Everyday" as the B-side.

"[23] On 5 April 1999, Hudson and Gordon made a single edit version of "La De Da", which Starr approved on 9 June.

[34] All tracks written by Steve Dudas, Mark Hudson, Dean Grakal and Richard Starkey except where noted.