The Toadies were shocked and disappointed with Hell Below/Stars Above's poor commercial performance, with Todd Lewis blaming Interscope's lacklustre promotion for the album's low sales. "The label was doing the usual label thing: 'If you don't sell X number within X number of days, then you suck.' Especially these days; it's just so competitive. So that didn't help, I'm sure. But, you know, that would have gotten better eventually, or we would've done another record and it would have gotten better then. I really believe in this record. That's the shame of it. I was really looking forward to getting out and beating people over the head with it, to convince them how good it is, because I really, really believe in this record."
