Whenever you drive up the lengthy lane to Rockfield Studios there’s a second, simply because the bushes open and the farmhouse seems, when the air modifications. You may really feel the historical past earlier than you see a single microphone stand. For producer and engineer Nick Brine, that feeling has by no means gone away.
Rockfield has been operating for over sixty years. Nick has been there for greater than half of that. He arrived as a sixteen 12 months previous child in 1993 and ended up proper in the course of a few of the most vital British data of the previous few a long time.
That is the story of how Rockfield formed Nick, and the way Nick helped form the sound of contemporary rock and Britpop.
A sixteen 12 months previous and the strangest job interview
Nick’s Rockfield journey began with a really Rockfield form of interview.
At sixteen, contemporary out of faculty, he got here for a gathering with studio founder Kingsley Ward. He walked in, sat down and waited for the same old questions on expertise, ambitions, favorite data.
As a substitute, Kingsley spent an hour telling him how horrible the music enterprise was.
“You don’t wish to work within the music enterprise. Go to college, turn out to be an architect.”
No CV, no questions, simply an older studio proprietor gently attempting to speak a youngster out of a life in studios. On the finish Kingsley merely stated, “In the event you resolve you wish to do it, give me a hoop.”
By the point Nick bought residence he had determined. He referred to as, and that was that.
He sat his final college examination on the Friday, did the interview that very same day, and began work at Rockfield on the Monday morning. He had no concept what his job can be or what was ready for him within the management room.
Baptism of fireplace: Sepultura and Andy Wallace
On his first day Nick walked into the Quadrangle studio and located himself head to head with Andy Wallace.
Wallace calmly welcomed him to the workforce, advised him he can be producing the session and to ask something he preferred. The document was Sepultura’s Chaos A.D.. For a sixteen 12 months previous metallic fan, it was the definition of a baptism of fireplace.
Nevermind was nonetheless contemporary in everybody’s minds. Wallace was already a legend. Rockfield was buzzing. Nick, who barely knew what his function was meant to be, discovered himself thrown right into a full scale main rock album.
He did effectively. The in-house engineer Simon Dawson observed, and promised to get him onto the subsequent session.
The “subsequent session” turned out to be The Stone Roses.
Fourteen months with The Stone Roses
The Stone Roses had booked six weeks at Rockfield.
They stayed fourteen months.
The band had been making what finally turned Second Coming. Nick, nonetheless a youngster, was tape-opping and logging reels for an album that already had 5 years of fabric behind it. There have been 50 or 60 reels of tape, with limitless takes and variations.
Periods on that scale merely don’t exist in the identical manner now. There was no web, little or no distraction, only a band, a studio and a number of time.
For Nick, it was the best schooling you might ask for. He watched producer credit shift from John Leckie to Paul Schroeder and finally to Simon Dawson himself. As Simon moved from engineer to producer, Nick moved up into extra engineering accountability, particularly in the direction of the tip of the mission.
Most significantly, there was downtime. At weekends the band would go residence, and Kingsley advised Nick to carry his personal band in. The Stone Roses’ gear was all arrange. Simon stayed on as a one to at least one tutor. Each weekend Nick was monitoring his band, studying the desk and the room inside out.
After twelve months of that, he was not only a tape-op. He was an engineer.
Studying on tape on the tail finish of an period
Rockfield stayed firmly tape-based proper into the mid 2000s. There have been no in-house Professional Instruments rigs. If a band needed digital, they employed it in.
That meant Nick realized his craft completely on tape. Tape modifying, drop-ins, razor blades, the lot. Even now he nonetheless tracks to tape when he can, utilizing traditional Studer A80s and an 827 for album tasks earlier than modifying a little bit in Professional Instruments after which going again to tape for combine.
He treasures what that period demanded from bands and producers: performances, dedication and creativity.
“When you’re on tape it’s a must to get performances out of individuals. You can not repair every little thing later. It’s a must to seize one thing actual.”
Britpop arrives: Ash, Boo Radleys, Blue Tones, Supergrass and extra
As soon as The Stone Roses lastly left, Rockfield exploded once more. Each indie band of the nineties appeared to be queued up on the gate.
The Charlatans, The Boo Radleys, The Bluetones, Supergrass, Teenage Fanclub, Tremendous Furry Animals and numerous others got here by. The success of these data meant Rockfield was booked strong.
Nick met Ash when producer Owen Morris got here in to make their album 1977, together with the hit “Woman From Mars”. Ash had been about the identical age as him, ending their A-levels whereas he was working full time on the studio.
At that time, he was nonetheless solely seventeen or eighteen and already choosing up engineering credit on The Stone Roses and Ash data.
A cassette from Mono Valley: Oasis enters the image
Throughout the lengthy Stone Roses periods, two lads from a band down the street at Mono Valley walked up the drive at Rockfield with a demo cassette. They had been big Roses followers and requested Nick if he may give their tape to Ian Brown.
The band was Oasis. The lads had been Liam Gallagher and Tony McCarroll.
Nick handed the tape over to the Roses, noticed Liam and the band popping again to examine whether or not it had been heard but, after which began bumping into them down the pub. At that time they had been simply one other Manchester band attempting to get observed.
Producer Owen Morris ended up ending Positively Perhaps and, after that album exploded, he advised Nick he was taking him on as his engineer.
Nick had one thought: I hope he will get the subsequent Oasis document.
What’s The Story, Morning Glory and Be Right here Now
Oasis needed to document at Rockfield as a result of they had been big Stone Roses followers and knew the Roses had made their document there. They particularly requested for Nick, however he would have been there anyway, working with Owen.
Nick engineered on What’s The Story, Morning Glory? and Be Right here Now, the second and third Oasis albums. Morning Glory was recorded at Rockfield. Be Right here Now sprawled throughout a number of main studios, together with Abbey Street, Air, Grasp Rock and Ridge Farm.
For a nineteen 12 months previous engineer, the dimensions of the periods was surreal. Months at Abbey Street and Air, string sections in large London rooms, press intrusion, followers on the gates, and nights that ended along with his resort room designated because the unofficial occasion suite.
“Everybody else may go to mattress, besides me. I used to be the bottom rung on the ladder, so my room was the occasion room. You can solely go to mattress when the final particular person left.”
Alongside the insanity, there was work, and there have been moments that may turn out to be folklore.
The Wonderwall on the wall
One of the crucial well-known tales from Morning Glory is the recording of “Wonderwall” exterior at Rockfield.
The thought got here from Owen. Nobody may fairly clarify what the track was “about”, so Owen determined they wanted an precise wall.
Moderately than merely placing Noel Gallagher on a low boundary, they discovered an previous stone wall on the Rockfield grounds. Noel was hoisted up onto a stool, given a step ladder to climb, and handed a guitar. An Neumann U87 and one other mic had been arrange, rigorously coated as a result of it was drizzling with rain.
Kingsley wandered not far away to discover a world well-known guitarist sitting on his wall within the Welsh drizzle, birds and crows throughout, microphones uncovered to the weather.
These birds you hear in the beginning of the album are from the outtakes of that exterior recording, flown onto the entrance of the document. That take turned the information observe for Wonderwall. The wall, fairly actually, turned the Wonderwall.
The smashed Fender and the Takamine with a narrative
In the event you Google Nick Brine, one of many first issues you will see is a narrative a few Takamine acoustic.
Throughout the Be Right here Now periods at Abbey Street studio two, after a very heavy night time, Nick was downstairs organising drums whereas a commotion erupted upstairs. Guitars had been being smashed in an argument. Certainly one of them was clearly his.
He stored his head down, patching and getting ready the subsequent track. When Noel arrived and noticed the harm he went straight to the purpose. One guitar was his, the opposite turned out to be Nick’s finances Fender acoustic, a gift from his mum.
Liam insisted he ought to take Nick to Denmark Road to purchase a substitute. Noel argued that he knew extra about guitars and must be the one to decide on. In the midst of all this, Noel all of the sudden led Nick right down to his guitar rack, pulled out a Takamine and stated:
“You bear in mind this guitar from Rockfield, proper?”
It was the Takamine Noel had used all by the Morning Glory periods. He had taken it as much as his bed room at Rockfield, written songs on it, taken it to Mustique for the Be Right here Now demos, and used it on the recordings the place Johnny Depp performed.
Noel handed it over. Jason the tech fetched the case. Similar to that, a modest Fender purchased by Nick’s mum had changed into a guitar that carried a bit of Britpop historical past.
Nick nonetheless has it. His mum nonetheless claims it as hers.
Rockfield, Sabbath and the birthplace of heavy metallic
Rockfield’s story shouldn’t be solely indie and Britpop. Lengthy earlier than the nineties, Black Sabbath got here as youngsters, with a younger Ozzy Osbourne working with Kingsley within the early days of the studio downstairs and up within the attic rooms. Iggy Pop, Hawkwind, Motörhead and lots of others got here by within the seventies.
Google “most well-known heavy metallic studio on this planet” and you will see a quote from Ozzy:
“Heavy metallic was born at Rockfield.”
Nick has spent evenings with Lemmy on the Rainbow in LA, speaking about nothing however Rockfield. He has seen how deep the studio’s popularity runs within the rock and metallic world. It’s woven into these early Sabbath periods, into Lemmy’s recollections, into the way in which musicians discuss in regards to the place in all places he goes.
Tractors, courtyards and creativity with out pattern packs
A part of Rockfield’s magic is the area itself. The Coach Home and Quadrangle stay rooms, the well-known drum hall, the courtyard, the fields and barns, even Kingsley’s previous tractor, all turned sound design instruments within the days earlier than pattern libraries.
Nick talks in regards to the drum hall as the key weapon on many nineties data. That lengthy, reflective area, miked up on the far finish, gave these explosive snare sounds you hear on data from bands like The Verve.
The courtyard turned a drum room too, with kits arrange dealing with one another and microphones within the 4 corners, capturing reflections off the stone partitions. With no neighbours to disturb, bands like The Beta Band may play exterior for hours.
If a producer needed a sound “like a thousand slaves dragging a rock”, they didn’t attain for a plug-in. They dragged out Kingsley’s plough, recorded birds, rain, chains, regardless of the track wanted.
There have been different hidden areas too. Kingsley’s brother had a home up on the hill with a barn filled with previous Rockfield gear, together with an early Trident console and tape machines. Nick’s band rehearsed there. He reduce demos for Rockfield label artists. Even Robbie Williams ended up down there, writing with Liam and dealing with Owen in complete isolation on the very begin of his solo profession.
From £29 per week to freelance producer
Nick began at Rockfield on £29 per week. Working round 100 hours, biking residence at 4 within the morning if there was no room to sleep on the studio, he was successfully incomes about 29 pence an hour. Ten kilos of that went straight to his dad and mom for digs.
He would have finished it without spending a dime.
Because the nineties rolled on and he started working extra with Owen in different studios, he needed to go freelance. The label world was altering, budgets had been shifting, and bands typically needed him to supply their data of their common studios when Rockfield was absolutely booked.
By nineteen or twenty he was a contract engineer and producer, nonetheless very a lot an in-house man at Rockfield but additionally travelling to American studios, studying totally different consoles, workflows and studio cultures.
He additionally had his personal band, The Dragonflies, with offers in London and finally a shot at Atlantic Information in America. Producers on the desk included David Kahne and Tom Dowd, two reverse ends of the manufacturing spectrum. That album didn’t fairly occur, however the expertise pulled him additional into songwriting and co-writing.
Tape to Professional Instruments, and what has been misplaced and gained
The arrival of Professional Instruments at Rockfield was usually unceremonious. Someday Nick walked into the management room to seek out bins stacked up.
“What’s that?” “That’s Professional Instruments.” “What are we going to do with it?” “I have no idea.”
They set it up and began slicing and copying tracks, realising rapidly that this was a brand new world. It made some issues simpler. It definitely allowed for extra “extra”, as Nick politely places it, on a few of the wilder periods.
Nevertheless one thing was misplaced as effectively. The persistence it’s good to look forward to a tape to rewind. The main focus that comes from understanding you can not endlessly repair every little thing later. The creativity of getting to invent sounds as an alternative of reaching for a pattern pack.
Nick nonetheless misses a few of that.
Why Rockfield nonetheless issues
At the moment Nick has his personal studios in Spain and a room half an hour from Rockfield. He works in many alternative locations, throughout many types. But Rockfield stays his first alternative when he can get in.
He loves the sensation as you drive up the lane after thirty two years and nonetheless get that very same buzz. He loves displaying new bands round and watching their faces because the historical past hits them. He loves pushing up the faders within the Coach Home or the Quadrangle and listening to a band play stay in a room that has held everybody from Sabbath and Queen to The Stone Roses and Oasis.
“When these faders go up and there’s a band in that room, that’s the buzz. That’s strolling out at Wembley. That’s the cup closing for me.”
In an period of laptop computer rigs and quick periods, Rockfield is a reminder that locations matter. Rooms matter. Tales matter. And other people like Nick Brine, who gave their total youth to studying the best way to seize performances in these rooms, are the threads that join one era of data to the subsequent.
Rockfield isn’t just the previous. It’s nonetheless the current. It’s nonetheless the place bands go to chase that feeling.
And if you’re fortunate, you may nonetheless discover Nick there, strolling up the drive, able to make the subsequent piece of historical past.
