 While working on their debut album, "Miike Snow" (2009), the band focused on creating structured pop songs and completed most of the process themselves, apart from mixing.For the "Happy to You" sessions, they worked with several other musicians, feeling they had more creative freedom and could "plan the process more".The band went to the studio with the goal to complete an album, as opposed to their debut album which was "a bunch of songs that ended up on album".