Music
RBMA co-boss Torsten Schmidt picks out his most memorable moments from the past decade and a half.
One of the lasting legacies of the past 15 years of Red Bull Music Academies are the recording studios that have been left behind, many of which continue to operate to this day.
“We’re interested in creating creative encounters for our alumni, former lecturers and extended family,” explains Many Ameri who, along with his partner Torsten Schmidt, oversees the eight Red Bull Studios across the world.
“These studios are something we use when we want to develop new projects, but without the pressures of having to create a physical, sellable product at the end of it. Studio time often comes with a ticker of how much money you’re burning while you’re in here. That’s not the case here.”
That fostering of creativity has already produced many memorable moments over the years. Here are five of Torsten’s personal favourites...
Tony Allen & Theo Parrish, Red Bull Studio, London (2010) “They were using the studio to rehearse for a concert that would take place in Lagos, Nigeria, to celebrate Fela Kuti’s birthday. Both of them are absolute characters and they both have very particular diets. So there’s only a small window when they actually do something, but when it happened, I remember Tony began producing Theo in a way I’ve never seen. He really worked him hard and it was a very productive session. They still work together even now I think.”
Mark Pritchard & Om’mas Keith, Red Bull Studio, Cologne (2009) “They were both in the studio and as the night progressed, Om’mas started talking about the, erm, boisterous adventures he’d had walking through the Cologne night and the people that he met. All the while, Mark was sitting there and quietly recorded what Om’mas was saying, then chopped his words up into a track. A couple of months later, the track (the eye-wateringly explicit Wind it Up) came out and I’ve heard it plenty of times at the end of various nights ever since.”
Russell Elevado, Red Bull Studio, Toronto (2008) “Russell mixed the last D’Angelo album (Voodoo, released in 2000) and the follow up is the most eagerly awaited soul recording of our generation. Russell was lecturing in 2008 and in a very private moment, he told us he had something to show us and started playing us new and unreleased D’Angelo material. It was a church-like scenario and it was amazing just to know he was alive! Almost every time he’s been around since, he has given us our own private listening session. It’s become like a Red Bull Studio ritual but still, no one knows when the album will be out for real.”
Mannie Fresh & Trevor Horn, Red Bull Studio, Madrid (2011) “Trevor was lecturing that year and he bought along the original master tapes to [Frankie Goes To Hollywood’s] Relax. We put it up on the main desk so everyone could have a go at creating their own personal remix. I wasn’t sure how well that would go across with someone like Mannie, but to everyone’s surprise, he really knew his stuff about disco. It was a pretty high-energy remix he managed to create."
Scott Ian, Red Bull Studio, Los Angeles. "I’m not sure when this happened, but if you go to the LA studio, there’s a wall that everyone signs. I walked in there one day and I saw an Anthrax logo, but it looked even worse than the logos I used to draw on my biology text books at school. I asked the engineer who drew it, and he said it was [Anthrax, guitarist] Scott Ian! Apparently, he couldn’t quite remember how it looked and had to look it up on the internet. It was funny to imagine such a perfectionist doing something so… human."
Get more from Red Bull Music Academy New York 2013 right here.
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