PRINTWil Reeves' Centro Cellar Studio builds local music community
Columbia musician and producer builds his career from the basement up with Centro Cellar Studio
August 5, 2010 | 12:00 a.m. CST
Wil Reeves grabs his computer mouse and clicks play. The sounds of heavy guitars, crashing drums and gritty vocals fill the mixing room of his Centro Cellar Studio. He turns and looks through a pair of dark-rimmed glasses at members of Columbia rock band Lunar Mansion as they listen to their song “Degenerate Heart.”
From student to musician to sound engineer, Wil Reeves was in constant motion leading up to the creation of his own Centro Cellar Studio.
1996: Reeves enrolls at MU to major in industrial engineering.
1999: Reeves forms his first Columbia band, Bockman’s Euphio, which later becomes Bockman with a new drummer.
2001: Reeves receives a degree from MU, begins the master’s program in computer science and releases a debut album with Bockman’s Euphio called Ladies and Gentlemen of the F.C.C.
2002: Reeves starts recording songs written by long-time friend Joe Stickley in his El Centro Court home, which begins Centro Cellar Studio.
2003: Joe Stickley’s Blue Print releases its album Friendship’s Quiet.
2004: Bockman’s Euphio plays at the first Wakarusa Festival at Clinton Lake State Park in Lawrence, Kan.
2005: He moves from El Centro Court to Worley Street and begins recording bands in his garage.
2006: Reeves buys his house on Austin Avenue and records in his living room.
2007: He remodels his garage for recording but still mixes recordings in his living room by bands such as Ursus Arctos (formerly Kodiak).
2008: Reeves and five other musicians record at a secluded cabin in Salem and name themselves Cabin Sessions.
2009: Construction begins on the addition to the studio, which is nicknamed “Pool Boy” for Reeves’ second job cleaning swimming pools.
2010: His son, Liam, is born in February. He hosts the “Breaking In” party in May. The fourth Joe Stickley album, his first collaboration with Sean Canan, is recorded at Centro Cellar Studio and released in June.
“Do we need to rework the vocals?” asks drummer Joel Herron, who sits on the sofa. Without saying a word, Reeves swivels around in his worn leather office chair. He mutes the bass, guitar and drum tracks that are displayed on his computer screen. They look similar to seismographic readouts. Lead singer Brandon Lang’s unaccompanied voice fills the room: “And I don’t need your degenerate heart / My mind’s wide open / Yours is closed from the start.”
Reeves makes slight adjustments to the levels with the Pro Tools software he taught himself to use almost a decade ago. He listens with an ear finely tuned from the years he has spent performing and recording as a musician. “It sounds fine to me,” he says after a long pause. “What do you think?” The members in the room nod in agreement and smile.
The recording is featured on Lunar Mansion’s newly released single, “Bike,” and will join a nearly finished first album, Nuclear Family. The band describes its music as garage punk, so it’s fitting that it recorded in a place once used for parking. Centro Cellar Studio is a remodeled structure atop the driveway of Reeves’ home. But Lunar Mansion chose the studio not based on the building, but instead on the owner, producer and sound engineer.
“By the end of the first day, Reeves knew how to talk to each of us, to push us without making us feel like we were screwing up,” bassist Josh Wright says. He recalls a song he and his bandmates were nervous to record — he won’t say which — that ended up being a one-taker. “He’s really in tune with people he’s working with,” Lang says. “He treats you like family.”
Reeves, 32, lives next door to the studio with his fiancee and 6-month-old son, Liam. However, his family extends beyond blood relatives to include a throng of musicians who have either played or recorded with him throughout the 15 years he has lived in Columbia. He began with a makeshift recording space in his basement of El Centro Court near East Broadway in 2002.
Since then, he has cut lumber, chiseled concrete and shoveled dirt to turn his home garage into a multiroom facility. He has also learned the trade of sound engineering through magazines, friends and hands-on experience.
“He’s not flying blind, and he researches for sure, but practice makes perfect, and he does it a lot,” says Andy Rehm, a musician who has recorded on several occasions at Centro Cellar Studio with his band The Hooten Hallers. “It’s all about getting the sound you want, and if it takes a lot of mileage to get the sound you want, you have to do it.”
Before his career as a sound engineer, Reeves played guitar and sang with the local folk-rock band Joe Stickley’s Blue Print. When the band needed to record its first album, it booked a session with Phat Buddha Productions in St. Louis. The rate, with a discount, was $50 an hour. After a short time in the studio, the members realized they would have to spend more time and money than they could afford. They needed an alternative solution. “Wil said, ‘Dude, I could do this myself,’” says Reeves’ friend and bandmate Joe Stickley. “He never looked back.”
During summer 2001, Reeves purchased music editing software and set up a computer in the basement of his house. He recorded the instruments in the living room, and the singers laid their tracks in the shower. Different parts of the house gave him different sounds, so he experimented as he went. Then Reeves previewed the recordings on computer speakers — nothing like the expensive monitors (speakers designed specifically for audio production) he owns now — while teaching himself the editing shortcuts and manipulation techniques he uses today. After six months underground, he finished the recordings, and his bandmates, who helped with the construction, were impressed with the final product.
“I’m still proud of it now as I was back then,” Stickley says. The group has recorded with Reeves on all four of its albums, including a recent project that two of its members, Stickley and Sean Canan, released in June of 2010: an Irish folk album called Loaded To The Gunwales that features Reeves on washtub and stand-up bass.
Canan sits on a stool in the recording room and plays banjo as Reeves watches from behind the soundproofed glass. He clicks the mouse and speaks into a microphone.
“Something sounds funky,” Reeves says. “Check the tuning, and I’ll let you finish the song.” Canan’s instrument doesn’t sound a bit offensive, but Reeves pushes for the recording he wants before finally ushering Canan into the room.
“He’s not a one-time Charlie,” Stickley says of the 10 takes for Canan’s banjo solo. Stickley shoots a devilish smile in Canan’s direction.
“What’s next?” Reeves asks.
“Vocals!” Canan and Stickley cheer. They have been throwing back Budweisers in preparation for the group vocals, a key element to the album’s Irish drinking songs. They invite a pair of friends who are seated on the couch to join them in the recording room, where the drinking continues, and lyrics such as “dirty old town / dirty old town” ring into the night.
Reeves has recorded for his own bands, a list that includes local groups such as Bockman’s Euphio, Cabin Sessions and Penny Marvel. When other musicians caught wind of his work, however, they flocked in his direction. “I was nervous, but at the same time, I was oblivious of it all,” Reeves says. “I loved the idea of possibly working with other bands, if anything to learn more about recording and to get better at it.” On the studio’s Myspace page, Reeves writes, “every band I’ve worked with has influenced me in some way or another.”
In 2006, Reeves bought a house on Austin Street off of North Providence and moved his equipment into the living room. Before he could build a recording space, he had to renovate the garage. Reeves bought and borrowed saws, sanders, drills and hammers. He enlisted his friends, many of whom are musicians, to help with the construction. They worked into the night and hung lights in the bare rafters to guide their work. As the studio took shape, it was painted fire-engine red.
“It’s a studio made for musicians, by musicians,” Reeves told his workers, who are also his friends and bandmates. He paid many of them in studio time, so the musicians used the newly soundproofed space to record.
Reeves relied on his background in industrial engineering to create a link between the studio and his home. Audio cables ran underground from the small, single-room building to the house. A video camera captured images of the musicians in the studio and sent them to Reeves’ computer.
This method worked for a couple of years, but Reeves felt that his control room should be in the studio and not the living room. Despite the awkward rigging, more than 60 bands had recorded at Centro Cellar Studio by 2007, and there would be more to come.
The atmosphere of the house changed when Reeves found out he was going to be a father. He wouldn’t be able to host musicians in his home or review recordings on his powerful monitors with the sleeping baby nearby. His life was about to get more hectic, but Reeves undertook his most demanding project yet: building an addition to the studio from scratch.
The first order of business was to dig out a foundation. Trucks rolled up the driveway to dump concrete and unload lumber. The piles of dirt on the front lawn grew taller until they towered overhead. Reeves even made a Craigslist post that advertised “free dirt.”
Besides those who came to collect on his online offer, Reeves again had help from Columbia’s local musicians. “We were there for Wil and for the studio,” says drummer Ted Carstensen, whose band, Ptarmigan, worked with Reeves on its album Our Ancient Friends. “We also wanted to be the first ones to record there.”
When the newest walls and roof were standing, soundproofed and secure, Reeves’ friends were eager to test the space. The doors weren’t yet cut, so the musicians crawled through the empty window frames with their instruments. Ptarmigan was second to use the new studio. Columbia prog-rock band Malone got there first.
Piece by piece, the latest evolution of Centro Cellar Studio took shape, though Reeves won’t say it was the last. “It’s not that cut-and-dry,” he says. “There will always be something to fix, more improvements to be made.”
The soundproof glass, heavy doors and padded walls were installed in time for Reeves’ newborn son to arrive to a quiet home — but not too quiet. To christen the studio, Reeves held a party in May with bands playing live. “He’s like any one of us,” says drummer Junior Garr, whose funk band, Z.A.P., is currently recording at the studio. “He’s an old head, you know. He does grown-up, responsible stuff, but he still knows how to have a good time.”
Because Reeves has a close working relationship with the musicians he records at Centro Cellar Studio, bands such as The Hooten Hallers look forward to the studio’s welcoming vibe. “You don’t feel like you’re in a museum, and that’s extremely important,” Rehm says. “You know, like a parent’s house is a museum, like you can’t touch anything. It’s not like that. You can sit on the couch or chill out in the backyard while your friends are doing a take. He’s cool with whatever you need to do.”
Jim Beam is passed around the recording room as Lunar Mansion, joined by a group of seven friends, prepares for a hidden track called “Take It Easy On Me.” The song, a crowd favorite, calls for listeners to respond to Lang’s conversational vocals and chime in with rowdy interjections such as “Welp!” The instruments and singers are typically recorded separately, though this is a session for what the band calls “gang vocals.” The Columbia quartet blasts off with fast drums and driving guitar riffs, followed by a series of whoops, high-fives and beer swigs from friends. Reeves’ voice comes over the speakers.
“That sounded pretty good,” he says. “Let’s do one more.”
Videos by Centro Cellar Studio bands
1. "Bike" performed live by Lunar Mansion
2. "Cooks Pine Mountain" by Joe Stickley's Blue Print
3. Penny Marvel live at Mojo's
4. The Hooten Hallers live at The Underground Cafe
Great article. Wil is great to work with, and is an awesome guy in general. Glad to see him getting the attention he deserves.
Posted by Nick Friedman on Aug 5, 2010 at 10:16 p.m. (Report Comment)
Hey Nick,
Thanks for your comment. I'm pleased you enjoyed the article.
Best,
JB
Posted by Jess Blumensheid on Aug 6, 2010 at 9:09 a.m. (Report Comment)