Eric met John Harvey Jones, Chairman of ICI (Imperial Chemical Industries), on a Concord trip to New York. He invited Eric to visit the ICI plant in Billingham England in the hope that he might be creatively inspired. The first thing Eric saw was a street with miles of pipes, no people, no trees and a sign that said 'Ammonia Avenue'. He felt it was a great rock and roll name as evocative as 'Heartbreak Hotel'.

Although until then the music business had not been so dependent on promotional videos, there was now the problem of how do you have a visual representation of a non-performing and faceless group. The record company had the brilliant idea of having an animated video, the first of its kind, for the song 'Don't Answer Me' which was the lead single. It was later nominated in the first annual MTV awards.

Some time after the release, Eric had the pleasure of presenting John Harvey Jones with a gold disc in appreciation of his original introduction to Ammonia Avenue.

The cover of the album is a mandala split picture using a four part split of a photograph of the Avenue itself in Billingham.