Sound City

---

Okay, you ready? Yep.

We're rolling.

We were just kids... with nothing

to lose and nowhere to call home.

But we had these songs...

And we had these dreams.

So we threw it all in the back

of an old van and just started driving.

Our destination - Sound City.

Watching the world through a

windshield, there's no looking back.

We left everything behind.

When you're young, you're not

afraid of what comes next.

You're excited by it.

We were driving a van that could

break down at any moment...

Going on tours that could be

canceled at any moment...

And playing music with people

who could disappear at any moment.

We had no idea that the next 16 days

were gonna change our world forever.

But I remember pulling into the

parking lot and thinking, "Really?

This is Sound City?"

You know, it's weird, like,

when you walk into Sound City,

you either love it or you hate it.

Looks kind of dumpy.

It's a sh*t-hole.

Everything was secondhand.

It was something of a time

warp, I think, or something.

Brown shag carpet on the

wall - that's the kind of thing

that you would do to your van.

It was like, "Well, the place

is already kind of trashed, so

anything goes, you know?"

It was dirty.

Didn't really feel like I wanted

to sit on any of the furniture.

You could record there and

not come back for 15 years and

walk in, and it's the exact same

as the last time you were there.

The parking lot used to

flood, and it used to make a

wave that came up the hallway of

Sound City.

Sound City was like, you

know, you could put your

cigarette out on the floor.

A bottle of Jack Daniel's got

spilled all over the carpet.

"Who cares? It's Sound City.

Who cares?"

I always say, you could, you

know, piss in the corner and

nobody would complain.

It was just a little more

f***ed-up than I thought it

should be.

But walking down the hallway and

seeing all of those platinum

records on the wall...

Tom Petty.

Fleetwood Mac.

Rick Springfield.

Neil Young, man.

Cheap Trick.

The Chili Peppers.

Rob Halford.

Pat Benatar.

Kansas.

Guns n' Roses.

Nine Inch Nails.

Nevermind.

Hot-blooded

Foreigner.

Slayer.

Ratt.

Johnny Cash.

Carl Perkins.

Metallica.

R.E.O. Speedwagon.

Time for me to fight

Michael McDonald.

Mick Fleetwood.

Buckingham Nicks.

Like a rainbow in the

dark

Stevie Nicks.

Masters of Reality.

Frank Black.

Brisbane.

Rick Rubin.

Kyuss.

Weezer.

Dude, how many f***ing amazing

albums have been made there?

Vincent Price, Telly Savalas.

We would record anything.

Anybody would walk in the door

that could pay the bill.

Tom is this big, tall, lanky,

gomer-y kind of guy that just

fell off the turnip truck.

He wants you to think that,

anyway.

First time I was ever walked

in a recording studio.

First time I'd ever even seen one.

Southern man

I was with a west Virginia

holding company that was

buying little businesses.

Joe Gottfried and another guy

had started Sound City in 1969.

He was actually the vocalist for

the U.S. Army.

When he was in the army, he was

stationed at a hotel in

Manhattan.

A friend of his, Joe Leahy, who

was a big-band leader and had

done music for CBS, and they

were the two main guys in the

studio when I came in, in 1970.

Keith Olsen was the

chief engineer.

The only reason why the

studio business survived was

because the building ownership

was Tom, and Tom would not

foreclose on them.

They were about one week away

from being closed by the IRS.

They owed taxes.

It was kind of chaos, to be

honest with you.

But there was an opportunity to

get into the entertainment

business.

This is Beatle land, formerly

known as Britain, where an

epidemic called "Beatlemania"

has seized the teenage

population, especially female.

The big pot at the end of the

rainbow is signing an ex-Beatle.

We'd have had a zillion dollars,

you know?

Hi-fi and stereo equipment

created an industry with an

annual income today of

$2.5 billion.

Somebody at Sound City came

up with this idea - "We could

start a record company".

So that was my goal, to

produce some records and have a

hit record and make a lot of

money.

That was the whole reason we

bought it.

Sound City - it was funky.

It was in the Valley, but we

only used the Valley to get to

Hollywood.

The Valley was just this flat

expanse of too many houses

already.

You know, so it was, like, kind

of not happening at all.

Neil Young pulled in fast in

a very old car, smoke billowing

out of every window.

Behind him was two L.A.P.D.

officers, guns drawn.

You know?

Okay, move over to the rear

of the car.

Place your hands on the trunk.

I attracted police a lot

because of the cars that I was

driving.

And I didn't have a license, you

know, because I was Canadian.

I wasn't even supposed to be

there.

About five minutes later,

they just got in their cars and

drove off.

I made the record in my

house.

Most of it, I did in my house.

And then we went to Sound City

with Briggs, my producer, and we

put down a piano song called

"Birds" there.

Then, we did the vocals, and

then they sounded so good that I

said, "Well, hell, let's just

sing everything".

So it's really a hybrid record.

I can love

I can really love

I can really love

My dad and Joe were partners

in crime. They were very close.

They were thick as thieves.

Tom was, like, the business

guy and stuff like that, but Joe

was the heart of it all, really.

Sweetest guy in the universe.

Absolutely one of the nicest,

truest people I've ever known.

He wasn't a guy in a suit who

was counting money and just

trying to rip off as many

musicians as he could.

That wasn't his thing.

He loved the fact that bands

were coming in and making great

records there.

Joe was always, like, positive, more

optimistic. Always, "The next big thing's

gonna be out there".

Joe gave me time to learn and

to hone what I do.

He was quite a guy.

When we bought the studio, we

were struggling for a year or

two, and we could see we

couldn't just get the premier

acts.

You needed state-of-the-art

equipment to get the top acts

with the top budgets.

So it was my goal to do that.

This guy, Rupert Neve,

designed these next-generation consoles.

I had flown to England, and I

saw one once, and they were like

this, you know, built like a

brick sh*t house.

He was, you know, a genius

engineer.

There's only four like this in

the world, and this is the only

one that was custom-ordered from

the factory by Keith.

There is something about

the Neve sound

that my ear has always been attuned to.

They're mathematically crisp

and very, very good.

They're just very solid.

It's like a tank or something.

The Neve thing is - there

just weren't that many made,

because they're so handmade.

This Neve board that you talk about,

you know, this is not my world.

Engineers have to spend, like,

hours on the

kick-drum sound.

Please, I would rather have a

blood transfusion.

But I do remember that there was

Rate this script:0.0 / 0 votes