L.A. Recording Studio The Record Plant to Close After 50 Years
(Photo by: Peter Titmuss/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
Fifty years ago, the Record Plant was riding high at their lavish recording studios at 3rd and La Cienega, recording the world’s greatest musicians in an ultramodern facility chock full of rock star amenities. This week, according to multiple social media posts and former employees, the legendary studio, which relocated to Sycamore Avenue in Hollywood in 1985, is set to close.
The latest casualty of what was once a thriving industry in Los Angeles, the Record Plant was the vision of founders Chris Stone and Gary Kellgren, who built their first studio together in 1968 in New York to record Jimi Hendrix’s masterpiece, Electric Ladyland. They opened an outpost in Sausalito in 1972 (the Manhattan studio closed in 1987; Sausalito stayed open until 2008).
The following year, in 1969, they expanded to Los Angeles and converted an existing studio into L.A.’s poshest place to make music magic, luring an incredible roster of artists including John Lennon, Stevie Wonder, Michael Jackson, Madonna, Prince, Celine Dion and Mariah Carey and just about every A-list star from the second half of the 20th century. More recently, artists including Bruno Mars, Lady Gaga, Beyonce, Jay-Z and Ariana Grande worked on hit records in the studio,
Tom Butler, Ben Johnson, Ancky Johnson, Chris Stone, and Gary Kellgren opened The Record Plant in Los Angeles in 1969.
Photograph by ChStone
“It feels like Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory,” says musician Day Mori. “I’m always wondering what mysteries take place behind that gate.” In the early years it was a hedonistic playland open 24 hours a day and catering to a star’s every whim. The Los Angeles Times reported in 1975 that the facility provided a steambath environment for Bill Withers, pinball machines for The Eagles, and expert engineers at 2 a.m. for Bill Wyman of the Rolling Stones. Aside from the latest equipment, the studio provided hotel suites for artists, a hot tub for “wives, girlfriends, and groupies,” along with waterbeds, fishtanks, bondage gear and mirrored ceilings.
Photo: Courtesy Whitney Taber
“By the time I was attending sessions there the vibe of the place was a bit Disco Stu,” says music agent Richard Kraft. “I always imagined decades-old cocaine embedded in the music faders.” Other classic studios, including the Capitol Records mastering division, have closed and United Recording Studios (once Ocean Way recording) laid off their staff last year and operates as a rental studio without staff. The long-closed Grandmaster Recorders in Hollywood reopened as a restaurant themed to the former studio. And rumors have swirled around the shaky future of Sunset Sound, which has been plagued by issues concerning nearby homeless encampments.
“There is no money in the recording music business,” says Gary Myerberg, a longtime engineer at East/West and Ocean Way. “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 A.I. what song you want to make and it’ll make it.”
Even the most basic offerings of a studio are moot for many musicians. “The need for a big room is pretty minor at this point,” says guitar technician Jesse McInturff. “There are less and less rock bands and you could record Taylor Swift in a vocal booth the size of a closet.” McInturff, 40, says his 20-year-old music students dream of going to a place like the Record Plant, which he says, “never existed for them.”
