ROSWELL FILMS PRESENTS " SOUND CITY " Directed by Dave Grohl 2013 Sundance Film Festival, Official Selection
2013 SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL ANNOUNCES FILMS IN PREMIERES AND DOCUMENTARY PREMIERES FILMS IN PREMIERES: PART ONE - PART TWO DOCUMENTARY PREMIERES: PART ONE
DIRECTOR'S STATEMENT As a kid growing up in the suburbs of Washington D.C., there were always instruments laying around my house. A dusty old guitar in the corner, a rusted old snare drum in the attic. More ornamental than instrumental, they were always scattered about. And there was always music coming from the AM radio in the kitchen, or albums spinning on the turntable in the living room. Day after day I would sit on the floor and play my records, reading their sleeves and their liner notes, examining the pictures and artwork. It was really only a matter of time until I put two and two together and felt......inspired. It's that same feeling I had as a kid that has kept me making music for the past 20+ years with Foo Fighters, Nirvana, and countless others. The search for those moments that make the hair on the back of your neck stand up. The feeling that you get when, without words, you connect with a song or another musician and you feel completely understood as a human being. That intangible, indefinable magic that happens when you create something truly honest and real. And it's that same feeling that drove me to direct the documentary "SOUND CITY". In 1991, I was a starving musician without a cent to my name and nowhere to call home. My band at the time, Nirvana, made the trek down to Los Angeles from Seattle for our first official major label recording session--the one that would become "Nevermind". We had booked 16 days in a recording studio that none of us had ever been to, let alone ever seen. More infamous than famous, Sound City Studios was known for recording legendary albums such as Neil Young's "After the Gold Rush", Fleetwood Mac's "Fleetwood Mac", Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers' "Damn the Torpedoes", among countless others. It's history was staggering, like a virtual Rock and Roll hall of fame. It seemed too good to be true that the three of us, basically living out of a van, would even be allowed to step foot on such hallowed ground. But, when we arrived, we found something completely different that what we had expected.... It was a dump. Like a time warp, it felt as if we had been transported back to 1973. Brown shag carpet on the walls, old analog equipment that hadn't been upgraded in over twenty years, a couch that they had been RENTING for a decade, it truly was a shithole. A bona fide shithole. Far from the upscale, state of the art recording studios in downtown Hollywood, Sound City was deep in the sun burnt San Fernando valley ghetto, tucked away in a warehouse complex out behind the railroad tracks. And it felt like it. But those 16 days changed my life forever. "Nevermind" went on to sell 30 million copies, and Nirvana soon became a household name. That old, dilapidated studio, on the verge of closing when we'd recorded there, was suddenly given a new lease on life, and was catapulted into the 90's as the "best kept secret" in the rock scene. It was now the coolest studio in the world. Where, as one studio manager most eloquently described, "real men went to make records". Rage Against the Machine, Weezer, Nine Inch Nails, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Metallica... you name it, they all went there to capture that magic, and to get that "sound"... which really came down to two simple things: The legendary, one of a kind Neve 8028 analog recording console (custom ordered and built in 1973), and the drum room (which, despite having never been acoustically designed, some people considered to be the best sounding drum room in the world). It was a lethal combination. A no-brainer. For the next 15 years, their phones were ringing off the hook... And then digital took over. With the introduction of digital recording technology, tape-based, analog studios like Sound City soon became "obsolete". The sound of a Neve recording console could now be emulated on your computer at home. The reverb of a beautiful drum room could be simulated by a plug-in, or a program. Hell... you didn't even need to know how to play your instrument that well anymore, it could all be done in the computer! It was a whole new world. A world where the "human element' was at the risk of being ignored. Or lost. Sound City couldn't keep up. They eventually closed their doors in 2011. 40 years of history, legend, and magic...gone. Only the memories, and the music left to remain. Now I want to tell its story. As a first time director, my main intention with "Sound City" was not only to do justice to the incredible legacy of the studio, but to celebrate the human element of music, and to inspire the NEXT 40 years of musicians to find that magic within themselves. That feeling that I had sitting on my living room floor, listening to album after album, swimming in the history of music that came before me. That feeling that I had when I picked up a guitar for the first time and strummed the riff to "Smoke on the Water" by Deep Purple... without anyone showing me how! The realization that I could do this too. That music is human, and real, and beautiful in its imperfection and feel. Through interviews and incredible live studio performances with the long list of musicians that have recorded at Sound City over the years, I try and uncover the magic that made Sound City America's greatest unsung recording studio, and reunite the cast with the one thing that's responsible for the sound of all those amazing records. Something we all have in common: That Neve 8028 recording console. A piece of history that's just as instrumental as any instrument that has run though it's tubes and wires. A huge part of our lives. Quite simply... the reason why I am here today. "Sound City" is, to me, my life's most important work. I hope that you feel the same.