Recently our guest columnist J.P. Todd was able to interview Matt Morgan of Sit-n-Spin Studios in Greenville and pick his brain about the studios last 10 years. Many Upstate bands have recorded their over the years and from the looks of it, the best is yet to come.
20 QUESTIONS WITH GREENVILLE’S SPIN DOCTOR
1. How long have you owned/operated Sit -N- Spin Studios?
It’s been ten years now.
2. What’s the one piece of equipment that you couldn’t part with?
The Strat that I built. I didn’t actually go into the forest and chop down the trees and shape it into the guitar, but i did order the parts off the internet…or collected the parts over the past fifteen years. I’m not sure if it’s been without me for any gig I’ve played for the past fifteen years.
3. What was it like to have Grammy award winning Yonrico Scott in studio?
It was amazing. Yonrico is simply fantastic. All the guys were. It was Moss, Todd, and Kofi. Their work ethic and general ease of just playing music was something to witness. A player like Kofi Burbridge makes playing music as easy as breathing. All those guys were on the road with the Derek Trucks Band for so many years their level of communication was unbelievable. I’ve recorded a lot of bands over the years and played probably thousands of gigs, but when I was offered to play guitar on their record, I found myself actually a little nervous. I’m super excited…it’s slated to come out sometime this year.
4. What project have you been most proud of?
That’s hard to say…obviously I love the projects where I write and sing my own songs, but recently I worked with an artist named Kathy Kelley. I ended up playing drums, bass, guitar, mandolin, harmonica, keyboard, and sang some back up. It was loads of fun and Kathy is so easy to work with…not to mention she’s a fantastic singer and can write one hell of a song.
5. What musical projects are you currently involved in?
I’m producing about five albums at the moment, but the one closest to being mixed is with a Latino pop band called Delaluna. The whole album is in Spanish, so it’s a totally different process for me. Like with Kathy’s record, I am also playing all the instruments of songs which they wrote and are singing. I’m currently in the mix process of that record. Mixing a song that’s not in English and seeing that I don’t speak Spanish changes the way that I hear the song. I find myself really getting into the music and treating the voice purely as an instrument. That record should be available in a few months.
6. What is the studio’s recording capability?
We do anything from the local high school band demo to nationally run commercials. For instance, I do voice over’s for Hewlett-Packard at noon and that night I’m mixing a screamo band from Charlotte. Most of our business is local bands (in every genre) producing demos, EP’s, to full length records.
7. What was it like living in New York?
-It was great. The music scene was incredibly competitive, but the lifestyle was very exciting. I did a lot of work for theater. Funny enough, I flew back and forth and did most of my music producing out of Columbia, SC while I was there. I was there during 9/11…it made a great impact on me. To see how NY, as a city, bounced back from such a devastating blow still gives me chills.
8. What got you into recording?
-The Beatles. Period. There’s nothing more to say.
9. How has the switch from analogue to digital changed music production?
It’s made it a lot faster first of all…and far less expensive. I’ve done my share of both and personally I’m a fan of the digital because of it’s flexibilit. Your creative ability is only stopped by your imagination.
10. Has the switch benefited music, in your opinion?
I’d have to say yes, but you’re also asking a guy that makes his living recording music digitally. Thirty years ago, I wouldn’t have been able to afford equipment to record an album.
11. What’s the strangest recording technique you’ve ever used to capture a sound?
Probably building my own microphone by converting the wiring of a speaker to make the speaker act as a microphone to record the low end of a bass guitar cabinet or kick drum.
12. What’s the future of Sit ‘N’ Spin Studios?
I hope to continue what we’re doing…providing a space for musicians to come record their art, and I’m also talking with a few schools to possibly, for lack of better words, start a summer program like the school of rock. I’m also heavily researching the ins and outs of music licensing and hope to license some of the music coming out of Sit-n-Spin. And, as always, anything I can do to promote local music, I do.
13. What’s the biggest mistake bands make when they begin a project?
Thinking they can get a world class product in four hours. It takes time and preparation to record anything. I stress to each band they need to plan everything out to the tee…and I also tell them to try to acquire a budget versus just coming in with whatever they have in their pockets.
14. Who are your favorite local bands?
You know I can’t answer that…if I left one of my favorite bands out of this I’d have hell to pay. That’s a loaded question and a half…
15. When is the next Matt Morgan Presents show at Gottrocks?
The theory is that I do it every four months…in reality, I think it’s averaging once every eight to nice months…so doing the math, I should probably go ahead and book a show now. So cross your fingers in two to three months there will be another show.
16. How many people do you currently have on staff?
There are three of us and we always have two to three interns as well.
17. What’s the strangest thing a band has ever left at the studio?
Once, I had a dude leave a Marshall guitar stack there for collateral and then showed up the next day with a vile of morphine to try to trade his Marshall stack back with. My response to that was, “Here at Sit-n-Spin we take cash, credit, and checks…but not morphine.”
18. What’s the strangest gig you’ve ever played?
Solo guitar at a shoe store.
19. What genres do you record at Sit-N-Spin?
Literally all. I’ve recorded Irish jigs, rap, and metal all in the same day. Over the past ten years we have recorded every style of music that I’m aware of exists in the US.
20. What’s the story behind the smoking monkey painting hung above the couch in the control room?
It all spawns from the Black Lungs, which is a band Jason Graydon and I were in years ago. One night I jokingly said, “You know man, it’d be funny if we got some of our friends to dress up in monkey suits at the show.” A few days passed and I got a call from Jason saying that he had purchased two full size monkey suits from eBay. So our next show was a scene from 2001, A Space Odyssey…two monkeys beating a computer, funny stuff…since then, the monkey has just stuck and continues to be a running joke.
