Belfast's Oh Yeah

Belfast's Oh Yeah Music Centre is a 14,500 square foot complex, an assortment of variously shaped and sized rooms over three floors. It is a place of intriguing sonic possibilities — something the owners of Start Together Studio have been quick to exploit — and a building with a rich and intoxicating past, having played an important role in the city's musical history. The Outlet Recording and Distribution Company occupied the space previous to its current incarnation, and the shell of their original recording studio remains situated in the middle floor. In the 1970s Outlet helped nurture Ireland's always popular country and traditional music scene, the studio being the birthplace of recordings by a wide range of acts, from the ridiculous (Hugo Duncan) to the sublime (Horslips). The Outlet studio struggled on until 2003, the staff working to the very final hour to finish one last recording. Then the power was switched off. In 2005, former assistant editor of theNME and a respected music writer and broadcaster Stuart Bailie — with the support of local luminaries including Snow Patrol's Gary Lightbody and Ash's Tim Wheeler — set about realising a vision that the building could provide a musical hub for Belfast's ever-burgeoning, increasingly vibrant musical fraternity. The centre was named Oh Yeah, derived from the affirmative power of the Ash song title. Rocky O'Reilly, one half of Belfast's celebrated electro-pop act Oppenheimer (with Shaun Robinson) and a recording engineer of many years standing,moved into the Oh Yeah building in 2007. Up until this point he had assembled an enviable recording CV working on numerous renowned Northern Irish recordings with a dizzying range of acts. When O'Reilly first set up base at Oh Yeah the building was little more than a vacant shell. He quickly found a deserted corner and set up a clandestine operation that would serve him for the purpose of recording Oppenheimer's second album, Take The Whole Midrange And Boost It. Given the success of this project and realising that it could be a viable commercial endeavour, O'Reilly decided to utilise the space for the recording of other acts. Start Together, named after the title and sentiment of the 1999 Sleater-Kinney song of the same name, was born.

Soon, O'Reilly invited his long-time friend Ben McAuley to join him in his new initiative. Like the Start Together founder, McAuley had vast experience both as a musician in his own right [most recently with Three Tales] and as a respected engineer of other artist's work. Prior to Start Together, he had made an indelible mark with recordings for the bright and all-too briefly burning post-hardcore act Gaju and for singer-songwriter Pixie Saytar on her laceratingly melancholic The White Book album. Having subsisted for many years on a basic ration of recording equipment in an assortment of bedrooms, houses and rented spaces, McAuley was ready to lay down roots in a proper recording studio and welcomed O'Reilly's invitation to become a part of the newlyminted Start Together. The final member of the team, Barrett Lahey, moved to Belfast from the US in 2005. He met O'Reilly at a Tilly and the Wall show. Coincidentally, Lahey had in fact recorded briefly at Jackpot! Recording Studio and went on to "hang around" and occasionally tape operate for Michael Lastra at the legendary Smegma Studios in Portland, Oregon. He continued to record throughout the Northwest in a bewildering assortment of chicken coops, closets, truck cabs, garages, walk-in freezers, abandoned boats, warehouses and train cars. Start Together Studio has officially been in existence since December 2007. In that short space of time it has played a pivotal role in delivering some of the most exhilarating music to come out of Northern Ireland in the past decade. Though somewhat differentiated by their working methods and approaches to recording, the three inhabitants of Start Together are still very united. Crucially, all three see their role not simply as engineers, producers or facilitators, but as chroniclers, capturing the sound of a vibrant and invigorated generation of Northern Irish musicians. Here, they tell us about their work to date and future ambitions for Start Together.

You each work with all manner of artists of differing levels of ability and at contrasting stages of their careers. Would you say that there is a common philosophy or ethos that you apply at Start Together in working with these various acts?

O'Reilly: We only ever want to work on projects that we genuinely care about. If we don't feel something is musically right for us, we'll say no to it and send them to another studio. We're not here to make money — we're making money to be here.

We've cut some ridiculous deals with artists to make records. I've personally worked on projects that have almost bankrupted me. We want to be involved in documenting the music of Ireland at this time and doing it with a certain style. There are certainly good enough artists here.

Do you think that this is a particularly healthy time for Northern Irish music?

O'Reilly: I definitely think it is. Even judging by the calibre of acts that I've personally had the opportunity to work with this past twelve months — In Case of Fire, And So I Watch You From Afar, mojoFury and Tom McShane to name just a few. There are great magazines like AU, radio outlets like BBC's Across The Line and Electric Mainline, and promoters bringing bands like The Flaming Lips, Headlights and Genghis Tron to Northern Ireland and putting Belfast artists on the stage with them. There are indie labels, like No Dancing and Smalltown America, putting out music they love from our little country — it's without a doubt the most exciting time I've experienced in Belfast.

Lahey: There are good bands playing everywhere, but the concentration of good artists in Northern Ireland at the moment is so striking. I believe that part of the reason for this is that there's really fuck all else to do in Ireland! You can't even really take up canoeing or mountain hiking or outdoors-type activities. So what else are you gonna do but go play music?

What sort of facilities and equipment do you have at your disposal at Start Together?

O'Reilly: We work from both analogue and digital platforms. We're running Pro Tools HD 3, we have a rack of really nice preamps and compressors by Avalon, Universal Audio, Chandler and API amongst others. We also have a great assortment of microphones, drums, organs, guitars, amps, synthesizers and an almost obsessive mix of old tape echoes. We're a collection of touring musicians who spend our afternoons off in music and charity shops digging out the most bizarre new toys we can find. We've also got a bunch of great rooms to work in. But it's something that we never really tend to shout about, because it's not the most important thing — the most important thing is the interaction between us and the artists that come to record here.

McAuley: Yeah — it's all great stuff, but we don't make it the focus of the recordings. As Rocky says, it's all about the people in the bands and what they do and about making sure that we get the best possible performance from them.

How do you go about fostering that connection between you and the musicians?

O'Reilly: It depends on the project. If it's a band who wants to track eight songs in one day, well, you're going to set them up in a good room and you're going to mic them up well and do the best you can in the limited time available. However, what I really love is when I get a artist that is willing to spend four to five months experimenting with layers and pushing the boundaries of what they think their band [is]. That's ideal for me — it provides the opportunity to create something new. But we can facilitate everything in between. The best thing always is musical interaction — it's like getting to be a member of the band. That's why it's important to work with artists that we care about — generally I'd say that 80 to 90 percent of the work that I do here, I go get it.

So you would actively go out seeking artists to work with?

O'Reilly: Absolutely. I don't wait for them to knock on the door — I seek them out and I bring those artists here. Over the last 12 months I've probably recorded only two acts that've just walked through the door. All the other acts — I've gone out and seen them play, hassled them, got them into the studio, shown them around and let them record a track for free. I pester them in the nicest possible way. We're all very active in the music scene — we go to shows and watch artists, other people see us performing with our own bands and it all comes together.

What characteristics are you looking for in the artists you work with?

McAuley: I don't know about the other guys, but for me, the most fun I have is when a artist is full of ideas. They'll come in and want to do a lot of stuff and I'm just there to take away obstacles, to facilitate whatever they want to do. Like Panama Kings — they are the sort of band who'll have a new idea every two seconds. I feel like I can just be there to set the stuff up and then sit back and press 'Go'. That's great — it allows me to just concentrate on making their music sound as good as it possibly can.

Lahey: For me it's a pretty organic experience. It takes a little time to feel out what the musicians you're working with want. When you're in the studio you can't hide behind any façade — you have to learn to put the musicians at their ease. You can create the environment where they feel like they're in their own house, or wherever they normally create music, rather than have them clock watching or being overly conscious that they're in a studio. We've all been in a position where we've been working on a project and they've run out of money, but you just have to make sure it gets finished and that you send them home with that final recording they can be proud of.

Is there a distinctive sound that characterizes each of your work?

McAuley: I wouldn't try and make the material I record have a "sound", but often it's difficult to avoid putting your signature on the recordings.

O'Reilly: I think much of it comes down to the rooms we have here — the sound that you get from recording in these rooms is something that comes through. There are certainly tricks and layers that are evident in my recordings. I think first and foremost we want the artist to shine through. Still, there are ways that I like things to sound and you will probably hear that time and again. I like the rooms to do a good bit of work — capturing the movement of air in a room is something I always try and do. Also, unless I'm going for an effect or a really dense mix, I like to hear that the drum kit is in a room being played by a drummer. I like to put a wall of noise, floor to ceiling, on top of what I'm trying to do whilst still allowing the natural elements to shine through. A lot of the music I've been involved with has been a hybrid of electronica meets pop rock. We've all got our own little things.

Lahey: There are projects that come in and immediately you just know which one of us should work on it. I seem to work with a lot more acoustic stuff.

Of all the acts that you've worked with, are there projects of which you're particularly proud?

O'Reilly: The most ambitious record I've worked on was the In Case Of Fire album. It started in a bedroom in Portadown, in a small house in the middle of the countryside — just us four idiots tracking for however long it took us. Those guys set some of the highest goals I've ever [seen] set — they were perfectionists about everything. I don't know how many months it took, but we eventually got them what they wanted — material that was layered and huge, ferocious and filled with so many different elements. Interestingly, during the process they were dropped by their US label and left to foot the bill for recording. We decided pretty instantly to not worry about the money and to finish the record to a point where they could do something with it. Within a few weeks of that they had a management deal, a major record deal, a publishing deal and were out on tour with some of their favourite bands. Since then they've been living in another world, reworking some of what we did and re-recording new tracks with Gil Norton. Seeing where all this has got to and hearing backwards glockenspiels or broken synthesizers we recorded in their mum's bathroom all over their new record is such an exciting and magical thing. For me it's the perfect example of how working hard, believing in yourself and never giving up despite the people that try to trample on you will lead to everything you've ever dreamed of coming true. It's been an honour to be a part of that with those three guys.

McAuley: I'm really happy with the Robyn G. Shiels album [the forthcoming The Blood of the Innocents]. There were a lot of really long days, but I can actually listen back to it without disliking it. For me that's a rarity. I think the songs were really strong and it's the best thing I've worked on. There is a particular song on the album that we did, "Hello Death" — we hadn't planned to record it that particular day, it was about one or two in the morning and Robyn had wandered out to the big room out there. He began playing the guitar and singing and we dragged the drums out and placed about five microphones in the room and got him to play it live. It sounded great and we got it in one take. It wasn't particularly ambitious, but it was a song created out of a different way of working and it sounded good.

Lahey: At the moment I'm recording The Sabre Jets. It's pure rockabilly, so that's really fun. I'm having lots of fun recording that type of music. I'm really happy with the second Robert Holmes EP [Hazard Hill]. It was almost thrown together, but in a nice way. I didn't really take it all in at the time and listening to it now is a really nice experience. It's all about having the ambition to find the sweet spot in the material. I don't necessarily think you need all the best equipment to be able to make great music — just a couple of [Shure SM]57s and Behringer preamps. There are no rules.

O'Reilly: At the end of the day music fans don't hear compressors and they don't hear microphones. They just hear the song presented in its final form. Whatever it takes to get you there is what you should be doing.

What do you envisage for the future of Start Together?

O'Reilly: Ultimately I want to hear music that means something to me and to help get the artists that create that music to have a finished album. I want to record albums without a label being involved. I don't want to be involved with clueless A&R guys — people who know nothing about music, but are determined to tell us what albums should sound like. I'd like to help people out and to allow them to exist creatively in anyway we can.

Lahey: Similarly, I tend to want to ignore the whole music industry thing — what is that these days? I don't think it really works and I don't really want to be involved in that. It just seems like a lot of Northern Irish artists right now are doing well for themselves — it's a really positive atmosphere to work in and everyone's excited, which is really good.

O'Reilly: What we all want is to be able to look back on this when we're about 60 years old, be able to flick through 100 albums and when we put them on to be able to say, "Fuck, that was amazing."

www. starttogetherstudio. com www. ohyeahbelfast. com