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Early Doors
In reality, commercial recording studios are
never wholly finished, but Matthews could be
forgiven for wanting to get going. All it took
was a little outside intervention – mixing former
Fame Academy winner David Sneddon at the end
of 2006, as it happened. “I was in the hardware
department of Jewsons when they called,” notes
a still smiling Matthews. “The live room was still
a carcass at that stage, and they brought their
own Pro Tools rig, because we didn’t have one
at the time, but that’s what made me go and get
the Genelec 1038Bs when I did – quite prematurely.
They did a white noise test that was specifically
calibrated for the Genelecs, and we had an
unprecedented response for the monitoring.
“So we did David’s stuff, which was good fun,
and then the following year we kind of opened
the doors, as it were, but nothing formal to
advertise the fact that we had started – just a
couple of bookings from people, saying that they
wanted to come and work here.”
Over time, plans for the studio had necessarily
changed, from being purely personal to
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MONKEY PUZZLE HOUSE TO THE MANOR BARN
commercial, and incorporating residential
accommodation: “I already had two twin rooms
upstairs at one end of the studio, in order that
the people I was working with had somewhere
to sleep when they came to stay, but now what’s
happened is that people who are booking for
four weeks or longer are asking for their own
individual rooms... They want a double bed so
their wife can come with them, and so on; that’s
something I didn’t really think about because I
was never going to run this studio commercially."
Finally Making It
Super-successful independent Brit prog-rockers
Porcupine Tree had just left the building (at time
of writing) – satisfyingly satisfied, too. And the
Porcupines aren’t the only ‘residing’ notable
names to sing Monkey House Puzzle’s praises:
“One of the last sessions that we did here was the
Whybirds with Elliot Mazor; it was good to have
him come over here from America and choose this
studio, because he’s a really prestigious producer,
and he really loved the place – the acoustics, and
the whole working environment. He has vowed to
come back, which, bearing in mind that he built
Neil Young’s studio in northern California and has
his own studio in New York, is quite special.”
High praise indeed; success can, of course,
breed success, as Matthews knows only too
well. Fortunately for him, Monkey Puzzle House
is on a roll of sorts: “We’ve been at 100% since
August last year – that’s weekends as well, bar
a week off at Christmas; then there’s a charge
for accommodation as well, so it’s not bad – not
making a dent in my mortgage, but only because
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I never finished the building off, plus a few other
things that I’m trying to invest in as well. I was
going to run everything through tape, but the
money is just not there. I’ve got staircases stuffed
with two-inch tapes underneath them with the
prospect of using it again, but I don’t even have
a two-inch tape machine here! It’s going to be an
acquisition soon, because, hopefully, the budgets
are becoming a bit more proportionate to the rest
of the facilities that are here.”
Ironically, maybe Matthews’ Monkey Puzzle
House might ultimately benefit from the demise
of those classic studios of yesteryear and beyond:
“The big studios closing is a massive shame, and
the main change for us would be that we might
be able to nudge the rates up a little... It’s quite sad,
really, but it’s just an indication of the budgets that
are out there – the revenue that’s being generated
by the whole swing round from a tour being there
to promote a record, to a record existing as a nonprofit-making
medium to promote a tour, which
doesn’t bode well. But you’ve still got to record it;
you’re just going to try and do it proportionately
to what your takings are going to be.”
For now, though, Matthews and Monkey
Puzzle House engineer extraordinaire Tom Peters
– Matthews’ reliable right-hand man since 2004,
before the studio building even existed – clearly
have their work cut out. �
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INFORMATION
Monkey Puzzle House
� +44 (0) 1359 245050
� www.monkeypuzzlehouse.com
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