Watch Big Boi, Iggy Pop Discuss Studios That Changed Their Lives
Every great recording studio has its own distinct aura, and in the latest promo clips for Converse Rubber Tracks’ initiative to open 12 such spaces to burgeoning artists this fall, Big Boi and Iggy Pop pitch the qualities that make Atlanta’s Stankonia and Berlin’s Hansa Tonstudio unique.
For Big Boi, Stankonia is “the place where all the funky things come from,” as evidenced by the countless hits Outkast recorded there throughout their career. “It has a certain vibe, a physical energy,” the rapper says. “A certain something special about the building that’s holding the energy together.”
Pop captures a similar sentiment while talking about Hansa Tonstudio, in which he recorded several solo LPs and worked extensively with David Bowie. “It’s just a nice, old, large, lived-in kind of a place,” he says. “But it’s really important to find a studio in which you can carry on your relationships with each other, make yourself at home, and give yourself a feeling of, ‘Wow I’m gonna do this.'”
That homey vibe also overwhelms Stankonia — Big Boi recalls sleeping in front of the mixing board when he was 16 — and that history and comfort, the rapper says, can be inspiring: “All the things that have happened in that space, you have a chance to get some of that. And the gratification is, ‘Damn I didn’t know it was gonna turn out like that!'”
Converse Rubber Tracks will host a total of 84 recording sessions for new and emerging artists as part of the program. Along with Stankonia and Hansa Tonstudio, the participating spaces include London’s Abbey Road, Los Angeles’ Sunset Sound, Seattle’s Avast Recording Co., Reykjavik’s Greenhouse Studios, Jamaica’s Tuff Gong Studios, Sydney’s Studios 301, Rio de Janeiro’s Toca Do Bandido, Vancouver’s The Warehouse Studio and Converse’s own Rubber Tracks studios in Brooklyn and Boston.
Online registration requires a ranking of the artists’ top three studio preferences as well as a brief biography. Registration will be open through June 24th, and applicants will be notified in early July.