Courteeners’ Liam Fray has helped to launch a new Abbey Road-designed studio for up-and-coming grassroots musicians in Manchester
Last week saw Fray become the first person to record and play in the “one-of-a-kind” recording studio that’s located in the city’s new Co-op Live arena.
The studio will support young creatives following a new collaboration between Adidas Originals, Co-op Live and Abbey Road Studios, whose leading technicians and sound engineers have developed the new studio.
Fray opened the studio with a live lounge performance of his songs, kicking off with ‘Home Come’ and ‘Acrylic’ before following this up with ‘No You Didn’t, No You Don’t’, ‘Hanging Off Your Cloud’ and ‘Pink Cactus Café.’ He concluded the set with Courteeners classic, ‘Not Nineteen Forever.’
Speaking on the night about the significance of the new studio for grassroots musicians, Fray said it was “wonderful”.
“I came when it was a bit of a building site, so it’s nice to see how beautiful it is now,” he continued. “It feels very warm and welcoming to join and his place is beautiful, very special.”
He recalled Courteeners trying to record “in friend’s garages” when they had nowhere to record as a young band – long before they became the arena and stadium act they are today. “I think it’s aspirational,” he said. “If I was 18, I’d want to come in, I’d be like, ‘That’s where I want to go’.
“Obviously the link with Abbey Road and stuff makes this double special. Anybody who gets to come here is really lucky and I’m looking forward to seeing what comes from this.”
Explaining the importance of the studio, he added: “Opening up a space like this to get people through the door – I’m all for it. There are obstacles to get into the industry, finance is one of those barriers, but geography is also one. To have something of this level up here that is a focal point in Manchester opens up the industry and takes it to a wider audience. There will be geniuses out there that we don’t yet know about.”
Adidas Originals VP of Brand, Chris Walsh, said the studio at Co-op Live will go a long way to supporting more working-class musicians into the music industry.
“We know that music is becoming an increasingly difficult space to make a living at, for young artists in particular and access to facilities and opportunities are hugely important – it’s a huge barrier,” he explained.
- READ MORE: Courteeners – ‘Pink Cactus Café’ review: a blinding bright sky that stretches beyond Manchester
“If we think about Manchester music, imagine all those working-class artists like Bernard Sumner, Shaun Ryder, Noel and Liam Gallagher – imagine if they didn’t have the opportunities and the access they did – and they probably wouldn’t have in today’s day and age.”
He added: “We knew working with Abbey Road, with Factory International and the Co-op, we could do something that wasn’t just a token gesture. This is a real, cutting edge, high, high end studio – you could easily record a Number One album here. You can record at the very highest end and we wanted that for the communities of Manchester.
“They can come here and it’s somewhere really special where they can develop and we can hopefully make a real difference.”
Walsh said the idea for Manchester’s Abbey Road studio came about they worked with Stormzy previously on the launch of Merky FC – a sports facility in Croydon that also had a recording studio.
“When we spoke to Stormzy, he talked about the importance of access and the importance of people breaking through barriers,” Walsh explained, saying it was crucial for them to ensure younger generations have opportunities to pursue a career in music.
Sally Davies, MD of Abbey Road Studios, described the studio’s work as an “absolute milestone” and the first time they’d worked on a project like this outside of London.
“In the 94 years that Abbey Road has been there, we have never, ever engineered a studio outside of our London home. So really, what we’re doing here tonight is an absolute milestone – and that’s important because it’s a part of a bigger vision. It’s part of a vision to support creativity and music making outside of London.
“It’s really, really important to support creativity out of London and it needs to happen.”
“We have a number of creative community programs out of Abbey Road, a programme called Equalize, which is inspiring more women to go into audio engineering or Amplify, which supports emerging talent. We really want to bring some of those programmes here to Manchester through this facility.
“I think between all of us,” Davis continued, referring to Adidas, Co-op Live and Factory International, “we have an exciting potential to create a platform that supports emerging talent in the North-West. And that is super exciting.”
The Adidas Originals Recording Studio will be open to the local community beginning in August.
They will be supported by Abbey Road’s ‘Amplify’ and ‘Equalise’ programmes which are “designed to inform and inspire the next generation of artists, producers, and creatives, with a particular emphasis on promoting diversity and inclusion in the music industry,” according to a statement.
Both of these programmes support by offering practical studio workshops, to mentorships and panel discussions. Factory International’s ‘FactorySounds’ programme meanwhile will provide financial support, mentorship, workshops, and performance opportunities to underrepresented groups locally.
This comes at a time when the UK music scene continues to face the “complete collapse” of touring with huge areas going without live music, one venue closing every two weeks, and uphill struggle for artists affording to exist, let alone play live or record.
The number of artists touring across the UK and abroad has fallen by as much as 74 per cent compared to pre-pandemic figures.
The proposed £1 levy on gigs at arena level and above – designed to feed back into the grassroots for artists and promoters as well as venues and festivals – continues to gather steam, but debate surrounds its speed and where the pressure should be applied for more action.
With music venues closing, the rising costs of being an artist and the loss of touring opportunities brought about by post-Brexit complications, Wolf Alice’s Joff Oddie recently warned that “one of the things we risk is that music becomes a middle and upper class sport” if change doesn’t happen.
Joining industry leaders at a government hearing into the state of UK grassroots music, Oddie warned that things needed to change urgently. “We’re already seeing that representation decline,” he said at the event. “There are all kinds of statistics showing that’s gone down of the last 15-20 years – especially for people outside the south east of England.
“It’s costly to build a career, and the build a career you need to go on the road. Once you get past a point, there is money to be made in the industry. Music is big business, but if we don’t fund that from the beginning then we aren’t going to get big artists.”
Oddie added: “Unless we feed the pipeline, we’re just going to have people going to see US pop stars at Wembley.”
Courteeners will play a number of UK and European festival dates this summer in support of their acclaimed 2024 album, ‘Pink Cactus Café’.
The post Courteeners’ Liam Fray helps launch new Abbey Road-designed “milestone” Manchester recording studio for grassroots musicians appeared first on NME.