Simon Trought & Soup Studio

A studio in the basement of a ukulele shop in London? It seemed like a nutty idea, but there it was, and owner Simon Trought, along with Giles Barrett, had been knocking out some of London's coolest records during the last few years. The Television Personalities, Let's Wrestle, Allo Darlin', The Wave Pictures, Comet Gain and others ventured out of this basement with happening tracks. But when I showed up it quickly became apparent that a studio move was in order, and in December 2010 the new Soup Studio opened up in London. I wish I'd been there for the beer-fueled opening party!

You've been in this space for five years? The ukulele shop has been upstairs?

Simon Trought: Yeah. We moved in at the same time. I had another studio space further up in north London and a band came in to record. I got to know them quite well, and the drummer from the band is Matthew Reynolds, the man himself: "The Duke Of Uke."

Giles Barrett: I've never seen him drum in all this time.

ST: I know! Yeah, he was a great drummer as well. Just, like caveman style. He had this madcap idea to open a ukulele shop. He saw that I was unhappy where I was. He had this basement space [and said], "Let's move it down here."

It's a tiny space.

ST: Yeah, it's worked out fine. Like, up until about a year ago. Now a lot of bands come down to look 'cause they've heard stuff we've recorded, so they want to record here and then they come here and think... it's not an insult, but they just can't fit in here. You know, their band's too big, they've got too much gear, you know...

Right!

ST: ...nowhere to store cases, even. The big projects that we've done, I've taken a lot of stuff out and put it in my flat. You know, everywhere is a case, everywhere is a body...

Have you had to work at alternating times with the store?

ST: No, no! It's fine. Yeah, the door's always open! That's the good thing.

Do players drop through?

ST: Whenever you've got a session on there are always other players coming down to hang out.

GB: The one problem we do have is [that] they have a ukulele class upstairs, in the evenings. You know, the floor's pretty good except if you have 20 people tapping their foot in unison.

ST: Yeah, [if you're] trying to do some quiet vocal or something...

That's when you do the electric guitar overdubs. (laughs)

ST: Yes, yes.

GB: Exactly.

ST: But it's been good. Matthew loves the studio being down here. That's why he's so tolerant of it. He wants people to know it's here.

How did you guys both get your start in recording? I assume as musicians?

Both: Yeah.

ST: I always had a little Tascam Porta 05 at home. My dad's a guitar player and had a little hobby room in the house and it was great — every Christmas I'd get these hand-me-downs. Uh, you know, a guitar he didn't want and then finally the 4-track when I was about 12 or 13. I had that all the way through college, recorded all the bands I was in at college. The fun, stoned bedroom recordings and just nonsense. I've got boxes and boxes of old cassette tapes with load of crap on them, but I don't want to get rid of them!

Of course! [To GB] What was your story?

GB: I started on computers. Like, my brother's in a band. I started recording him when I went off to university. Then a band who was really ready to do a good record — they've since been signed and stuff — they were called the Maccabees. I was like, "Oh, shit! I better hire a room real quick!" I was playing in a band called Hexicon. We came and recorded down here with Simon. Three years ago now?

ST: I think so, yeah.

GB: ...and it just happened to be just as we were getting evicted from our old place around the corner. There was a big studio complex above an Islamic school, so, they tolerated us for a while, but they decided that we weren't to be in the same building. But then it just so happened that Simon needed some more help down here.

Do you just do different sessions, bring in different sessions here or...

ST: Yeah, he's great! Giles had a good collection of mics and a nice set of speakers and some juicy bits. We pooled it all together. Since then we've been just splitting the time down here, as we can, and just trying to fill it up.

How does work come to you guys?

ST: It first started when I had the first studio space about 10 years ago. I was in a band on a label and for our second album we persuaded the label to give us a couple of grand to buy a [Digidesign] Mbox and rent a room for six months in Bethnal Green. That went well. We recorded the album and then the label, Track And Field, sent some bands my way. Then the six months came up, end of the lease. I just thought that was it. But I just borrowed some money and got a new space and that's been it ever since.

Were you working another job at the time, I assume?

ST: I sold books in a bookshop and I used to work for artists, stretching canvasses and making sculptures. After another studio move again, a few years later, then it was full-time. There were enough bands just from the scene.

Do jobs come though in conjunction with the shop?

ST: Yeah, since I've been down here and it's been great. People have been seduced by the shop upstairs. "Wow! There's a studio here!" And I've [gotten] to record some amazing bands, like one of them, The Wave Pictures. The guitar player, David, is a great, amazing player and he fell in love with the shop and recorded a few albums down here. Good, rootsy stuff, you know?

GB: He was kind of pushing the ukulele revolution for a bit before he got sick of it.

ST: Yeah, yeah, he did. He was spearheading it.

GB: He would really, like, wail on the ukulele, too.

ST: Yeah, he used to rip it up. Yeah, ridiculous guitar solos on the ukulele.

"You only need to put the mics a few meters away to make it sound big, you know? They don't have to be 20 meters away."

Is the new space is gonna be in conjunction with the Duke Of Uke shop?

ST: No, we tried. We knew this place was gonna end late last year.

What's wrong with the landlord?

ST: He wants his property back. To be frank, the rent was quite reasonable here when we moved in. Now it's quadrupled.

Just because of the neighborhood changing? It looks like new shops and stuff around here.

ST: Yeah, if you'd come down here two years ago even, it was still kind of scruffy. There wasn't any boutiques or coffee shops.

There's gonna be a new Duke Of Uke shop and a new space for the studio?

ST: Yeah, we looked at so many places that had the same good shop and then a good-sized basement. You just can't get basements with good ceiling height and that's something that I've been yearning for the last few years. And losing bands because of not having a more conventional studio. I need to make a living at the end of the day, so as cool as this place is it's been a little, uh...

I gathered it was a little make-do kind of space.

ST: Yeah, people can't believe when they've heard stuff that's come out of that room and they think it's been recorded in a really beautiful, big studio. You only need to put the mics a few meters away to make it sound big, you know? They don't have to be 20 meters away.

This place definitely seems to have a sense of community. How do you feel that's gonna translate when you move into a different space? ST: It's a small concern, but I think it'll be okay. The community isn't just specifically about the space, it's all about these venues where we hang out in London and play gigs and everyone's in everyone else's band and we're still all gonna be together.

Have you found a good area to move to?

ST: We've done pretty well. It's an artist community that's been there since the '90s [Cable Street Studios]. When I used to work for artists I used to go there and help people in their studios there. There's a bar there. It's all musicians and artists. It's a really old Victorian, riverside kind of building. Good, old courtyards, archways, brick.

That'll be a nice area to be in.

ST: Yeah. It's gonna be nice to be tucked away, I think. You know, it's good being in the center of the universe, in Hipsterville in the middle of Whitechapel, but sometimes as fun as it as and it makes people really excited to hang out here, you lose a lot of focus. They're buying records and they're shopping and it's like, "We're making fucking records here!" It's like, "Where's the bass player?" "Oh, he's having a curry with someone." That's amazing, but maybe to just have a little more focus sometimes would be helpful.

I saw your name on the back of a Television Personalities record [A Memory Is Better Than Nothing] I just bought. I thought that you did a really good job. I feel that Dan Treacy [TVP’s leader] is somebody who has done records where he wasn’t handled well. Like Privilege, with all the horrible synths.

ST: Yeah. There were other people in the band who had grander production ideas than he did, I think, and he’s probably too drunk to care. It was a project. I mean, I can’t remember. We recorded so much over a period of uh, three or four years… literally, like a hundred songs, maybe. It’s all a mixture of stuff done over quite a long time, I think. We were only supposed to do one record for the first Domino contract that he got. Out of those sessions and a few more, I think five albums came out. Probably some of them not quite as above board as the other labels would have liked.

Oh, you sold it to them and we paid for the recording?

ST: Yeah, he’s the master of that. He’s really good at that.

It doesn't hurt. But then again, if you're too isolated, going to get something to eat becomes this big, major operation.

ST: Well, that's what's put me off a lot of spaces. We've turned some down that were good but it'd be the other end of the spectrum. Some kind of desolate war zone. No decent coffee anywhere. But this place has got a great bar and it puts gigs on. It's like a good kind of underground venue.

That sounds pretty perfect.

ST: Yeah.

Do you have some interesting projects coming up before you move?

ST: I'm kind of looking forward to being a carpenter for a couple of months! I've started doing some live sound recently, just as a bit of, you know, spending money. There's a band I record called Treetop Flyers — amazing kind of big, Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young harmony country band — they're the band that took me to Glastonbury and they're going on tour around England for a couple of weeks. I'm gonna go with them and do their sound. And I just can't wait for bands like that... You know they recorded down here and loved it but kind of want to go somewhere big. I'm just glad to be able to now accommodate all the bands that have got really big, but now are too big for me. I can kind of get them back now because they want a better tape machine, they want a better space to work for two weeks rather than, like I said, [being] all crammed down here. It is people's concern, even though it shouldn't be, really. It's the end result that counts.

There's a lot of fears involved in making records and music and the fears can evidence themselves in different...

ST: Some bands don't get on. Some bands don't like being in the same room. Good bands. Really good bands who get on, musically, but they really wouldn't want to sit next to each other and hang out for three weeks. Let's Wrestle loved recording here. They made that good album with Steve Albini, but they came straight back after that tour of America — came straight down here and recorded another EP. Sounded absolutely amazing. Even for them — 'cause they've got such a nice, loud, grungy sound — to have a little bit more room around them to get a slightly sweeter sound — I can't wait. I just want to give them a bit more now.

transcription by Chris Garges