From Sun Records to Studio One, Meeksville to Kraftwerk's Kling Klang, some of the most visionary music of the last sixty years is linked forever with the specific studio in which it was recorded. There's a special alchemy associated with these places - more than just rooms full of mics recording sound, they breed a magic and myth of their own. Just the names alone are enough to send a shiver down the spine of most music fans.
So, then, to The Steamrooms. Being the well-informed pop scholars that they are, Isle Of Wight six-piece A Band Of Bees knew that before they could record their third album they first needed to build their own studio, somewhere they could find their own sound.
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Forsaking vocalist/producer Paul Butler's shed (where 2003's Mercury-nominated debut was hatched) and Abbey Road (where they made 2005's Free The Bees), the band duly spent a year constructing their wood-lined sonic laboratory in the basement of Paul and fellow founding member Aaron Fletcher's Isle of Wight home. With walls and floor of pine, it looks most like a Scandinavian sauna. They started jokingly referring to it as The Steamroom and the name stuck. Then the band set out equipping the place, filling it with vintage instruments, amps and recording equipment to get exactly the right sound. An early 1960s mixing desk was recovered from a Swedish radio station, while serious eBay habits were developed.
"Basically we've built our own budget version of Abbey Road at home" says Paul. "But the plan is to use it to get our own individual sound from whatever's recorded in there, so that any of our friends' bands from the island could come down there and record and it'll still sound like a Steamrooms production."
With the studio built, the band was ready to embark on their densest and most far-ranging record to date.
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