Brighton Electric Studios

Brighton Electric, the busy music studio which is quietly becoming one of city’s key music landmarks, is loved by Robert Smith.

His band, goth-pop legends The Cure, often pick the grand old tramway building next to the Brighton and Hove bus depot as the place to work.

Last spring, Smith booked out half the building to practice and put the finishing touches to the epic three-hour sets they played at 18 summer festival headline slots.

“There were flight cases piled up everywhere,” says studio director James Stringfellow as we chat in his cluttered office, his favourite Darth Vader costume leaning on a filing cabinet and rock ephemera scattered everywhere.

“They have such a big crew to set everything up,” he continues, explaining his office is soon to be demolished to make way for a new wooden bar for the entrance and a 1970s-themed lounge and cafe, “then Smith turns up late in the afternoon and they’re all ready to go.

“His voice is so powerful. On record he can sound a light singer but he actually has a really powerful voice. There is a surprising difference on record and in person. It’s amazing how the recording process can thin it down.”

It can’t be bad having the lipstick-wearing Lovecat’s vocals echoing down the hall when he heads to the office?

“They were recording at the same time as practising for a live DVD. So there were cables running through the building and the doors had to be open. It was the set-up they were going to take on stage so we heard everything. It made my day when they played Just Like Heaven.”

Florence Welch stopped by a couple of weeks ago to lay some vocals down on Felix White’s (The Maccabees) solo record.

“She came in and recorded some vocals after a shopping spree round Brighton. She is great, has such a strong voice and is a lovely person.”

Nick Cave recorded his half of a duet with Debbie Harry of The Gun Club’s The Breaking Hands at the studio and Jack Peñate dropped by to sing on White’s solo record.

We walk upstairs past framed and signed records, dedicated to “Ol’ stringbean”, from The Go Team, British Sea Power, Charlottefield. Stringfellow points out a locked room where Willy Mason stores his gear.

The name-dropping could go on. But that’s not the point.

“I try to avoid meeting the clients. You don’t say, ‘Hi, I’m the studio producer.’ We try not to make any differentiation between artists who are and are not famous. The music industry is pretentious enough without us adding to it. We treat everyone with the same respect.”

Stringfellow set up Brighton Electric, which has 17 rehearsal rooms across four sites, with just £700 14 years ago.

His band at the time, Death To DJs, had nowhere to rehearse so they built their own studio. Other people used to mix their material but it never sounded right so Stringfellow made a studio upstairs.

When the band finished, he rented out the rooms on a residential basis on monthly contracts. The set-up allowed Foals and Bat For Lashes, then unsigned and unknown, to develop.

“We’ve gradually grown as the clients that use us have grown. Their demands have grown. They have become more professional artists. So we have matched that, met that demand and grown too.”

Stringfellow’s ambition was to create a high-end studio in Brighton in response to the rise of the SFA – or self-financed artist.

“I knew it was coming with the fall of the major labels and there has been a collapse in the recording studio industry over the last ten years, too.

“One of guys who helped design this studio owned Eden Studios in Chiswick, where the Sex Pistols did Never Mind The Bollocks and The Killers did Hot Fuss. He said in 1985 he was charging £1,000 a day and in 2005 couldn’t get £500 a day.”

Stringfellow says Brighton Electric is bucking the trend: it is growing while other studios close.

The reason is the company has diversified. It does rentals, management, has dabbled with a label and, on a busy day, 50 bands visit its rehearsal rooms. Then there is the pièce de résistance.

“There was a film with Sound City – a Dave Grohl vehicle about a studio in LA where Nirvana made Nevermind – and the console they have in that film is a 1970s Neve console the same as we have here. It’s like the Aston Martin of studio consoles. It sounds fantastic.”

A Neve has been installed in Brighton Electric’s newest premises, Brighton Acoustic. Its owner asked Stringfellow to join the project and his refit has created a writing space in the converted Ovingdean barn with sea views. Snow Patrol are due to work there later this year.

The link to the Northern Irish band is producer Dan Swift, who is another new addition on Brighton Electric’s books. “The one piece of the puzzle that was missing was having the right pilot at the controls.

“Dan has worked with Snow Patrol, Kasabian, The Futureheads. He moved to Brighton about three years ago and I think he thought his career had run out of steam.

“With the collapse of the studios, there was a huge drop in album budgets. An indie label used to spend between £50,000 and £75,000 on a first newly signed artist album. Now that budget is more like £5,000, including producer and studio, so it’s really tough out there.

“But having Dan on board has been fantastic. We’ve now got someone who can really bring the best out of all the high-spec equipment.”

Brighton artists will be the ones who benefit, he adds.

“It’s not a high profit business because musicians are generally skint. That is one of the reasons we are popular: we don’t charge a lot. We never wanted to charge a lot. That is part of the ethos.”

He calls the place a musical community hub for Brighton.

Hobby bands who want to have a beer, hang out with mates and make a racket are as welcome as young bands and students starting out. There are teenagers whose parents drop them off for an afternoon’s creative expression and dreamers who think their time is about to come.

“We’re keeping our head above water thanks to bands like The Cure booking in but we manage to keep it affordable so local artists can come.

“That is what it is about: bringing high-end recording equipment to people on a low-end budget. So you or I could book into a studio and make OK Computer if we wanted to.” He grins, “If we had the songs…”

He knows the industry inside out. He’s dismayed at the changes in the recording business – the 360 deals where a record label offers its management services to artists without taking risks and the brands preferring to sign one artist for £1 million rather than 20 bands for £50,000 each.

It’s a confidence crisis. So he’s diversified. More bookings for short stints to use the studio’s expensive gear most people can’t afford to buy – £5,000 microphones which get the perfect sound – and hiring out pro-audio equipment and a splitter van.

The enormous site has also been helped by the government.

“We have a room at the end and we put on events. It’s the best thing the Tories have done for this country. I don’t agree with pretty much everything else they have done but they have allowed you to have music until 11pm with up to 200 people present without any licence.

“Franz Ferdinand used to do it when they first started. They used to put on parties and have enormous beer raffles and rent a warehouse and sell tickets.

“We do it occasionally for events. We might be raising money for charity, or having fancy dress party, or doing something for our clients.”

• Brighton Electric Studios is in Coombe Terrace, Lewes Road, Brighton. For more information, call 01273 819617