The Studios

The 60's

The 70's

Meyer Ln. / W.E. Studio Main Room

The 80's

Larry's "home studio" console

For some reason, no matter who’s garage, den, or living room we set up to rehearse in, the neighbors just didn’t seem to appreciate what we were trying to accomplish! It got to a point that, apparently, we needed a more “sound proof” place.

The first place that was turned into a “studio” was Larry and Roger’s den. We got cork panels and glued them all over the walls and ceiling. Their mother was not real happy about that! The Nelson/Hageman writing team recorded a bunch of songs in that studio on a Teac 3340 4 track recorder. I remember that we used to set up a mic in the shower just outside the den, to do our vocals in. We got some cool echo/reverb effect with that.

Their mom finally decided that she wanted her den back, not to mention that it wasn’t as sound proof as we thought, so the neighbors were kind enough to introduce us to the local police who made a few visits too many. “Time to move!”

Larry had an upholstery business, mainly working out of the garage. He decided to open his own shop. Well, when he did, he found a place big enough to house a pretty large rehearsal studio for the group. We collected hundreds of cardboard egg cartons. The kind that held 2 or 3 dozen eggs each! We painted them black and glued them all over the walls and ceiling for sound proofing. That worked pretty good, plus we were in an area that was zoned for business use. No neighbors to complain! The studio portion of the building was locked off in a separate room from Larry’s shop and had its own entrance from the outside. We thought it was pretty secure so we kept all of our equipment there out of convenience. Unfortunately, it wasn’t as secure as we thought.

The shop was broken into one night. The crooks entered the studio from the shop side. I don’t remember everything that was stolen, but I do remember that Roger’s “Martin” acoustic guitar that he bought from Emitt Rhodes, was one of the stolen items. Man, were we mad! As it turned out, it was one of Larry’s employees that ripped us off! Due to some other circumstances around the same time, we decided to look for another location that would be used JUST for a studio.

That’s where Meyer Lane/W.E. Studios comes in. We found a small place in a new industrial complex in Redondo Beach, CA. We weren’t sure if the landlord would rent to a bunch of long haired, rock and roll musicians so they could turn one of the spots into a studio. You know, “How reliable could we be?” But the landlord turned out to be very nice! We signed a lease, and the construction began!

At first we called it Meyer Lane Studios. Cuz it was on Meyer Lane. Everyone had real jobs at the time to support our music habits, so we pooled our money for the rent and to purchase some decent recording equipment.

After a while, Larry parted ways with the group and Mike Bartlett and I took over the studio. The name was changed to W.E. Studios. The W being the first initial of Mike’s middle name and the E being the initial of my middle name. Pretty clever, huh?

A few of the bands on this website rehearsed and recorded in that studio. Federated Electronics recorded their radio commercials there with Shadow Stevens as “Fred Rated”, and even Lionel Richie paid a brief visit there.

Francis Buckley

We even had an Engineer that worked there, Francis Buckley, who went on to win a Grammy for a project he did with the great Quincy Jones.

Just cuz I know you’re wondering about Lionel Richie, Here’s the story about that. The band Gil Estel, had signed with a new manager. We were pretty good and somehow, she was able to get Mr. Richie to come to our studio to listen to us audition for him.

We were out in the studio section playing our songs while he and our manager were on the other side of the glass listening. It wasn’t long when we saw them arguing. Before you knew it, Lionel Ritchie stormed out of the studio.

We quit playing, went in and asked what happened. You won’t believe this, but our manager said, “He had the nerve to bring his girlfriend with him!” …. Needless to say, she was not our manager much longer.

We had the studio for some time and as often happens, the band broke up and Mike and I sold our interest in the studio. Larry went on to build a much more sophisticated studio in his house. Here's a picture of his console.

Dennis Hageman