WDET News
- Long Time Detroit Recording Studio Closes
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Feb 9, 2010Automotive & Business
A long time Detroit recording studio is closing its doors.
White Room Studio started in a basement in the mid 80s in Grosse Pointe before it moved a few years later in to a place in Capitol Park. For 22 years in the Detroit location, numerous artists – local and national – came through to record.
John Smerek is the studio’s head engineer.
“If it’s jazz it would be Marcus Belgrave, Benny Moppen, Regina Carter. If it’s hip-hop it’s D-12 and Obie Trice. If it’s indie rock, the Jesus Lizard and the Breeders. And if it’s commercial success and number of records sold it’s Kid Rock.”
The Kid Rock record “Devil Without a Cause” was recorded at White Room Studio in 1998 and has sold over eleven million copies. Smerek says White Room is closing because the owners… Mike and Andy Nerha… want to focus more on selling musical and recording equipment. Smerek says he and a partner were originally going to buy the studio and continue working in the space in Capitol Park… but the building has been bought by the City of Detroit for redevelopment. He says the loss of the building will mean the loss of a particular sound.
“The thing that that space had to offer was not only a selection of gear that I would say would rival anything outside of Nashville, as far as the Midwest goes… but that room itself… there were maple floors throughout, high ceilings and more than one person that had come through there… independent engineers and producers had commented that it had a New York loft kind of feel and it was a comfortable place to work.”
Smerek says he’s working with the city’s economic development corporation to find a new building that will suit his needs.
He says he hopes to open a new studio with much of White Room Studio’s equipment by the end of the year.