Mike Stephenson in his recording studio.
Mike Stephenson, owner of Classic Recording Studio in downtown Bristol, Virginia, engineer and producer, came to recording out of necessity.
“I was in a band, and we wanted to make a record. But at the time we were young and didn’t have much money. There were great studios around then, including Classic, but we couldn’t afford more than one day of recording, and we knew we wanted to spend a lot of time recording and perfecting our songs. I was working at Morrell Music in Bristol, and I would work my days off for credit towards recording equipment. We eventually had enough to record, and I did our first record.
“After other local bands heard our album, they started asking if I’d record them. After years of taking my gear to practice rooms and recording bands, the owner of Morrell Music, Curtis Morrell, offered to help me fix up the top floor of the old Morrell Music building, which was a studio in the ‘70s. We fixed it back up, and it became the first studio I owned, Sonic Designs. I had worked off and on at Classic Studio, which had been a working studio since 1982. When the owner of Classic retired, I took it over. That was roughly 13 years ago. It all just happened organically. I originally saw myself as a working musician, but recording became my passion and I focused on that,” Stephenson says.
That passion has resulted in working with musicians, composers and two Grammy nominations.
“Being nominated for a Grammy was a lifelong dream and being nominated for two was mind blowing. Now I’m a voting member of the Grammys also, and all that is unbelievable. It validates all the years of hard work. So personally, it has been exciting and has made all the hardest years of struggling to get somewhere in this business worth it. I hope it gives the studio continued success and visibility within the larger music world. As I construct the new version of Classic, I hope it’ll give artists of all calibers a comfortable and great sounding home for their records,” he says.
There are lots of challenges to running a recording studio, as with any other business. Rising leases because of rising property values have been a challenge and recently, Classic was sold by the realty company that had acquired it along with several other buildings. Stephenson had always tried to find ways to keep the price down for the customers, but says, “Sometimes you have to adjust to the surroundings to survive.” He is moving Classic to a new location which is just down the street from where it was. It will be a much bigger space and allow him to do even more and bigger type sessions.
“I think what makes my studio stand out from others is the fact that I always tried to give people the best recording they could get at the best possible price. I always kept prices low, because I remembered being that kid that would have loved to record in these big studios but couldn’t. I wanted as many people as possible to be able to use a real studio. I’ve never cared what kind of music we were working on. I wanted it to be the best it could be. I think over the years it’s been clear that a lot of people appreciated that approach. I’ve done thousands of records. It wasn’t always easy to cover the bills. But that was never the purpose of the studio for me.
“I’ve been fortunate enough to work with a vast array of talented artists over the years. But since I took over Classic, things started to really escalate. Classic was actually the studio where Kenny Chesney recorded his first demo. That was before I took it over. And some of the remaining Carter family recorded at Classic. I was fortunate enough to meet and record some early albums with 49 Winchester. Also, through meeting world renowned cellist, Dave Eggar, we have worked with so many artists. Lots of times we are adding to tracks they have recorded already, but sometimes they come into the studio. We have worked with everyone from Norah Jones to Lewis Capaldi. The songs we worked on for Capaldi went number one on his album. I’ve done tracks for Robert and Dean DeLeo of Stone Temple Pilots. We have done movie scores for Howard Shore, who scored ‘Lord of The Rings.’ And we did a fantastic record with Lee DeWyze, who was American Idol season 10 winner. He came to Bristol for six weeks, and we recorded, mixed and mastered his newest record here. There are so many artists we’ve been lucky enough to work with, I couldn’t possibly list them all. We did recently record three songs for the soundtrack to ‘Terrifier 3,’ which became a number one movie,” Stephenson says.
Recording is a mixture of technology (both analog and digital), atmosphere, skill and knowing when to speak and when not to.
“Technology advances so quickly, if you tried to stay current on that, you’d never stop buying something new that was meant to be the latest and greatest thing. My studio is a hybrid of analog and digital, so I have the classic sound of analog gear with the convenience of digital recording.
“I think the atmosphere of the studio has a lot to do with how an artist reacts to it. If the artist isn’t comfortable, they won’t give their best performances. So, while I try to have the studio sounding the best it can, the aesthetics you create play just as big a part. A studio has to be super nice but also feel homey to the artist, or it can be very stale and make the artist feel very clinical. So, I always try to make great acoustics, but also make the artist feel as though they’re not scared to touch anything. They will be there a long time, so they need to feel comfortable and not like they’re in a museum or hospital.
“The best way I’ve learned to foster creativity between artists and producers as an engineer is to know when your opinion is needed or wanted and when it’s not. If I’m engineering an album but I’m not the producer, it’s my job to make what the producer hears a reality. If my opinion is wanted, I’ll be asked. I never say, that can’t be done. My answer is always, we will find a way to make that happen. If you make the artist sound great, they are comfortable. If I’m producing, I never want the artist to feel like I’m just trying to take over their song. Songs are like children to an artist. I always want the artist to feel in control, even if we are changing arrangements or words or changing keys. Whatever it is. I want the artist to feel as if they sparked the idea to change it. Barking orders at people has never really worked that well for me. So, if I can make it feel collaborative, things usually go a lot smoother,” Stephenson says.
Since Stephenson started working in the musical field, there have been many advances in home recording equipment. When asked if that affected his business, he explained that it necessitated some adaptation.
“I think the advent of better home recording equipment has made things somewhat different. But usually, an artist doesn’t want to be responsible for great engineering and production while trying to play their best and have great songs. Sometimes an artist is great at all those things, but usually it boils down to I get better demos from their home recordings that can then be used as a guide to get a great recording of the song. I think it does make it possible for a home recordist to get a great sounding recording, and I started off that way also. But in the end, unless an artist wants to take the thousands of hours it takes to learn how to make instruments sound great and learn all the software, they use it as a songwriting tool. Of course, there are styles of music where it’s entirely plausible to use pre-recorded instruments and sounds and no one is really performing on an instrument, and I think songs can be put together that don’t need a studio, but there’s still the mixing step that isn’t as easy as it seems and mastering, so I still end up getting songs at that stage to finalize. I think home recordings initially changed things for studios, but we just had to adapt to what an artist needed,” he says.
After decades in the business, Stephenson says that the best advice he could give someone looking to get into the industry “learn to be a people person. You become a therapist of sorts sometimes when working with artsy people. Your demeanor will keep customers coming back. Beyond that, don’t rely on a certificate or degree to get you a job at a great studio. Experience means so much. Do live sound. Record bands anywhere and any way you can. You learn all the mistakes by making them and learning how to fix them or not make them anymore. ‘Sound’ can’t be taught. You have to learn it by doing as much as you can. Eventually, that will get you in the place you want to be.
“My long-term vision for the studio is to do more and more label work while still helping the local artists of Bristol and the surrounding region. I think the wealth of talent in our area is one of the best anywhere. There are so many great songwriters and players here that deserve to be seen and heard. But I also enjoy producing and engineering the label artists that I’ve gotten to so far,” he says.
For more information about Stephenson, visit Facebook and look for Classic Mike.
