With your studio, Presto, there was no moment of, "Okay. Now we're going to build a studio." It just kind of gradually evolved?
Yeah, the last thing I actually did in the basement studio was this band from Belgium that nobody has ever heard of. Some of the older Bright Eyes stuff — like Fevers and Mirrors, was recorded in the basement, and that was the last Bright Eyes thing we ever did there. Cursive, a rock band that's on Saddle Creek — their Domestica record was recorded in the basement. That was the first rock record I'd ever recorded that I felt responsible for. A lot of this stuff was my brother and myself working on it together. There was a point that finally did come where we said, "Okay, let's take this seriously," and we decided to start looking around for spaces. The thing that really pushed it was that I bought a Studer 2" machine that I couldn't fit in the house. I had to leave it in storage. Now we had to find an actual space, because you can't tear that thing apart to fit it through a door. You either have to make a new door, which is what we talked about doing, but this was a house anyway and it was sort of a pain in the ass.
And your parents lived upstairs?
No, this was in Lincoln. My parents still lived in Omaha. This was just a house that my brother and I lived in.
So, then the next incarnation was Presto?
Presto, right. I couldn't think of a name, and the place that we found used to be a studio. A guy named Dave Snyder built the studio there and never quite finished it. It was actually designed by Fletcher from Mercenary Audio. I had gone on tour with Bright Eyes and came back from Lincoln about two months later — I was driving my car downtown. I always kept my eye on Dave's studio, just to see if he was doing anything and who would be recording there. So I drive by and in the window it said, "For Rent." So I was like, "Holy shit. That could be a good break for me." So I called the number and we had a lease in a couple of days. It was almost a fully built studio and it was such a perfect thing — and I had always liked Dave — he was a friend of ours.
That was about five years ago and now you're moving it?
No, it's still there. We haven't moved it yet. We're going to build a new place because Presto is in a flood plain and they're tearing out all of the street that I'm on and making a little creek that goes through. That probably won't happen for another twenty years. They've been talking about it for twenty years now, but it really became serious about three years ago where they said, "You're going to have to be out in six months" and we were like, "What?" Then six months would go by and we would never even hear from them, being the city — so we've been there. It's been good. The rooms sound all right, but there are some problems with them. They weren't built exactly to the specs that they were supposed to be. So, I bought this house in Omaha and behind it is a full size indoor basketball court — so it's five thousand square feet and the ceilings are thirty-something feet. Connected to that is an indoor swimming pool. It's all one big, L-shaped building — the guy must've liked to recreate. Connected to that is a four bedroom guesthouse. When I saw this listed, I thought, "That sounds ideal." I [thought] I could put a studio in the basketball court because you've got five thousand square feet and you could leave the pool — right now the pool is empty, but it could work.
Is it square? Could you skateboard in it?
You know, you could skateboard in it. It's kind of an L- shaped pool, though. I don't know if that's good or bad.
I was in Iceland two weeks ago at the Sigur Rós studio, which is inside a swimming pool. Maybe you could do that too...
Right. I saw that, it seems pretty cool.
So that's the future of Presto then?
We just got permission because it's not zoned properly. Even though this is not going to be a commercial studio, it's going to be a project-oriented place. I'm not going to advertise for it. We've never really advertised studio stuff as far as a commercial studio goes. So, that's sort of the future of this. I've hired Wes Lachot to design it.
Oh, cool. I know Wes.
