WORKING ON HIS STUDIO TAN — Studio Red owner Adam Lasus hunches over the controls in between recording sessions. (Photo by Gregg Kirk)

Low-Budget Studio Puts out High-Quality Sounds

June 1990, Big Shout Magazine
By MIKE BRENNER

A sing hangs on producer/engineer Adam Lasus‘ basement wall, listing the rules of Studio Red. It reads as follows:

1. Do not, I repeat, do not fuck with the engineer.
2. All tracks to be one-take Charlie.
3. No food, except Mexican, of course.
4. No more spilled drinks.
5. No rank cigarette smoking.
6. No bitching if the engineer fucks up.
7. Get rid of your own garbage.
8. No farting in the control room.
9. Easy on Jerry (Lasus’ roommate).
10. Enjoy yourself and please help keep Studio Red the clean and beautiful place we all want it to be.

Below the sign and a ripped Replacements poster, littered around the small basement that doubles as Studio Red, are old Danelectro amps, odd percussion instruments, broken guitar strings, a broom, a bottle of vodka, and boxes of 8-track master tapes.

Each box of tape has a band’s name written on the side: “Go To Blazes,” “Tornado Five,” “Dumptruck,” “Wishniaks,” and “Falling Ushers” are just a few that catch the eye.

Behind the boxes, through a small door, lies Lasus’ control room. The small room is equipped with what abnormal control room usually has: an 8-track (soon to be 16-track) recording deck, racks of outboard gear, 2-track mastering decks and a computer.

Twenty-one-year-old Lasus sits behind the board, listening to Tenth House run through an echoey, funk-laden rhythm track. He has a “studio look” about him. His face is shadowed with whiskers and his longish red hair (hence the name of the studio) is in disarray and somewhat matted to his head. But he looks happy, nonetheless.

And well he should be.

By turning his near-South Street apartment into Studio Red, Lasus has created a studio that’s both affordable, geared for bands, and manned by someone who knows about music and musicians, rather than schematics and sine waves.

Without any advertising at all, the studio has already attracted a large amount of Philadelphia talent, as well as Boston’s Gigolo Aunts and Dumptruck, among others. But there’s a long, winding story behind this small studio.

Lasus’ recording career actually began in the summer of 1987, after the fairly nasty breakup of Urban Fall, in which Lasus played bass. Urban Fall was a fairly successful band at the time, especially considering that the members were just out of high school. The band’s 4-track demo, recorded by Lasus in a friend’s bathroom, sold 900 copies and was played on WMMR, WXPN, and WKDU.

“The whole breakup was a pretty epic thing at the time,” remembers Lasus. “It was a big ego battle. We recorded this 24-track album on spec, there was some label interest, and then it all broke apart. I kind of got thrown out of my own band.”

After a six-month period of emotional jet lag, Lasus began considering what he wanted to do next. Through the success of the Urban Fall demo, he found he had gotten a reputation as someone who knew about the process of recording.

“At that point, I just started traveling to bands’ houses with my 4-track and mikes and recording their demos.” says Lasus. “I wound up recording a band called Wicked Pygmy like that.”

Lasus introduced Wicked Pygmy members Jim Moran and Dave Frank to singer/guitarist James Hostetter. The trio added Andy Chalfen and became the Wishniaks, who would later record and release a single, “Wicked Pygmy Summer.” It is Lasus’ involvement with bands as a musician, soundman, roadie, and supporter that led to the creation of Studio Red and the beginning of his work as a producer, rather than any desire to become the next Mitch Easter or Don Dixon.

“I don’t really know what a producer is, but I suppose the label has been pined on me,” Lasus says. “I’m getting more comfortable with it. I told a few bands that they didn’t have to credit me with production on their demos, but they did anyway, so I guess I produced it.”

The more Lasus talks about recording, however, the more he starts to sound like a young producer.

“I can’t really work with bands I don’t like,” he says, explaining that sessions get too intense to have to deal with music or people that he doesn’t especially jive with. “Bands I like and I can work with and enjoy the music and get behind them and they respect me and I respect them — that’s just an awesome feeling.

“Dumptruck made a good point to me when they said, ‘You’re only as good as the music you’re recording.’ I’ve been lucky to work with a lot of talented musicians.”

While some bands might be somewhat leery of recording in the casual atmosphere of a basement studio, Lasus feels it’s good for diffusing the less enjoyable moments of the sessions.

“I like recording in a low-pressure situation,” he says. “It can get too intense sometimes. I like to bring bands up to the living room and put on some Bugs Bunny when things get too intense.”

“Musicians relax and play better when they realize they’re not in an uptight, ultra-modern studio where the click is constantly running,” he adds.

“Every band has uncomfortable situations, emotional situations in the studio,” Lasus says. “The more bands I’ve recorded, the more I’ve learned how to deal with that.”

He sometimes recommends a shot of vodka (or suitable substitute) when the vocals sound a bit strained.

The loose atmosphere hasn’t affected the sound quality, though. Lasus has been able to capture the raw rock sounds of a Dumptruck-type band as well as doing a beautiful, shimmering production of Falling Ushers’ demo, which has more of a Crowded House/Australian feel.

“I’m very picky about guitar sounds,” says Lasus, who at times favors having lots of “subtle Beatles shit” floating around the mix. “I have a few old tube amps that give great sounds. If you go to an expensive studio, they’ll put their $1,000 AKG mike on an amp, and that can sound fine, but a $100 Shure SM57 shoved right up against an old amp on 10 can’t be beat sometimes.”

These days Lasus can also be found behind the board at Khyber Pass. He tries to keep a band’s live sound in mind while trying to get a good studio feel.

“I try to see what bands can or can’t pull off live, and that’ll affect my production,” he says. “I’ll see a band live and they’ll have all this energy, and then in the studio, there’s nothing. Sometimes I just record without baffling anything and get the band to pretend it’s live jamming jut to capture that kind of energy.”

Lasus plans to continue to record and produce as much material as possible. Ex-Dumptruck guitarist Kevin Salem has been working with him, as have some ex-Three Colors (Boston) folks. The Wishniaks were recording some new songs at the time of this writing.

With Philly’s best underground bands going to Studio Red and good players coming down from Boston — where there’s no shortage of studios — Lasus must be doing something right in that basement of his.

I forgot to ask him what his rates are. If you’re interested in recording (and enjoy watching Bugs Bunny), give him a call.