The revered Record Plant studio in Los Angeles is set to close after 55 years, reports stated.
The groundbreaking facility – one of the first to feature a “living room” environment for artists instead of lab-like conditions – has been a key part of rock history since in opened in 1969. But commentators suggested it had become a victim of technological changes in the music industry.
Fleetwood Mac notably recorded Rumours at the Record Plant, after the Eagles had tracked Hotel California in the same place. Guns N’ Roses later worked on Appetite for Destruction there, too. Other clients included Black Sabbath, Kiss, Billy Joel, Deep Purple, Queen, Judas Priest, Whitesnake and Nine Inch Nails.
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It was the second of three such studios opened by Chris Stone and Gary Kellgren, who’d set out to offer musicians a more comfortable environment to work in – a concept that became almost universal in the industry. Since its revamp upon moving to 1032 N. Sycamore Ave in 1985, the complex also included extensive VIP luxuries.
“[I]t was a hedonistic playland open 24 hours a day and catering to a star’s every whim,” LA Mag reported last week. “[T]he facility provided a steambath environment for Bill Withers, pinball machines for the Eagles, and expert engineers at two a.m. for Bill Wyman of the Rolling Stones…[T]he studio provided hotel suites for artists, a hot tub for ‘wives, girlfriends and groupies,’ along with waterbeds, fishtanks, bondage gear and mirrored ceilings.”
Longtime studio engineer Gary Myerberg said: “There is no money in the recording music business. That’s basically like a flyer for your show. I don’t think there’s much hope for the recording industry in L.A. … If you want to go to the studio and spend $2,000 a day, just take that and buy a laptop and a sample library or tell AI what song you want to make, and it’ll make it.”
Local guitar tech Jesse McInturff added: “The need for a big room is pretty minor at this point. There are less and less rock bands and you could record Taylor Swift in a vocal booth the size of a closet.”
When the Eagles got ‘A Little Unruly’ at the LA Record Plant
Among the stories collected on the Record Plant Diaries website is a conversation with Hotel California producer Bill Szymczyk, discussing why the scribe near the center on the original vinyl edition reads “Is it six yet?”
“I made a rule after it got a little unruly on Hotel California,” he recalled. “I said, ‘All right, guys, we have to get in here at two o’clock in the afternoon and we’ve got to get work done until 6, so I don’t want any ingestion of anything other than coffee. You know what I mean.
“So in the middle of doing takes they’re all out in the studio…and you’d hear them muttering over the monitors, ‘Is it six yet?’ And somebody else would say, ‘It’d better be,’ or ‘It’s six in New York.'”
The original New York Record Plant opened in 1968 and closed in 1987, while the Sausalito branch opened in 1972 and closed in 2008, then reopened under new management in the 2020s.
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Gallery Credit: Allison Rapp
