12. Ibiza, Por Favor!

 

Confessions of a Studio Rat

One mans journey through a world of recording studios and musicians in the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s – without a net!

IBIZA, SPAIN (1985)

I still find it bizarre how these things happen, but I (with my background in jazz, and big band recording) was somehow invited to fly out to Ibiza to record an album with a famous (I’m told) Spanish heavy metal band. At this point in my career I had learned that travel was a blast, especially when someone else was paying for it, so I was like “Sure, why not?”

The studio was part owned by the drummer from Judas Priest, and that may have had something to do with its popularity, but it was veeeery popular with the Spanish heavy metal crowd. As studios go, it was pretty state-of-the-art for its time: designed by Westlake Audio, horrible green shag pile carpeting on the floor and up the walls, lotsa glass and live rooms, MCI console and machines, all the usual accoutrements. It was actually quite a beautiful building with lots of accommodation and recreation rooms, located away from town in the middle of nowhere with great views, and staffed by crazy people. I could make this work. It sure made a change from recording pretty much anything else I had been doing up until then.



After I finished the first project, I was asked to record some more bands. Mercifully, I don’t remember many details, but I had entered a different world. A typical recording day would start around noon, when band members would begin to turn up for breakfast in the dining room. They seemed to like everyone to sit around the big table and eat together (the studio even had house boys who did all the maintenance, cleaning and waiter service at meal times, but check this: The band came down for breakfast all dressed in their stage gear! I’m talking leopard skin leotards and full makeup. At breakfast! On to the studio for a day of organized mayhem with enough artificial stimulation of the nasal kind to ensure nobody got bored. There was a house engineer on-board during all this, too. This amazing guy was an American who spoke fluent Spanish and had a wonderfully dry sense of humor. I remember a comment being made by the Spanish producer after another tortuous guitar solo. “Pretty tasty!”. Dennis turned to me and muttered “Yeah, if you haven’t eaten for a week!”

I continued doing projects for these madmen because it was simply too much fun. Days spent on the beach, nights in the clubs, bars or worse, and some record making thrown in to make it all legit. I was hooked. One day I was relaxing, reading a Spanish heavy metal newspaper. Inside it was the top-20 Spanish heavy metal charts. I saw that I had recorded all 10 of the top 10 albums! That’s when I knew I had to get back to London and rescue my career.


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