Today we’d like to introduce you to Rob Roy.
Rob, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
It’s a story that starts with a touring musician with a band looking for the inevitable recording contract. During the journey of trying to get industry attention, one evening we had met Tony Ferguson and Tony Bongiovi at a local club during a showcase.
Tony Ferguson was an executive at Universal Music Group responsible for acts such as U2, No Doubt, and hundreds of others. Tony Bongiovi was a famous record producer responsible for launching artist careers such as Gloria Gaynor, The Ramones, Talking Heads, and also the legendary Bon Jovi. He was also the designer and creator of the most awarded recording studio, Power Station in Manhattan, which at this time was called “Avatar” when he sold it in the mid 90’s.
After the evening ended, my guitar player Sal and I looked back and realized we had lured the two Tony’s out of the club and by the end of our “pitch” we realized they missed the showcase they were there to see in the first place. What I mean by “pitch” is that we didn’t just hand these guys a CD and ask them to “sign us”, we had pitched an entire business plan around our band. From touring, to recording, to merchandizing to a self contained music machine that just needed a label to expose the goods. That was what kept there interest long enough to miss their feature showcase act.
We left the two Tony’s with our package, but with respect to the late-night atmosphere, we weren’t sure if it would make it back to their office desk the next coming Monday. So to follow up, we stalked Tony Bongiovi’s local business and press blurbs. We had learned that in a few weeks, he was to be the featured guest speaker at a local Business Round Table event. Sal and I managed to get tickets to this business luncheon with hopes to grab Tony’s attention for a follow up from our previous encounter.
Dressed in suits, these two long-haired musicians breached the confines of the stuffy, upscale Boca Raton hotel banquet room where this event was being held. We found our seats at one of the far back tables and watched the presentation. Tony went through the story of his career from Motown Records to Columbia Records and through Power Station NYC and to today which parlayed into the state of the current music business. We weren’t sure how we were going to get his attention, but as he finished his dissertation on music business, he offered a session of questions and answers for the group of businessmen and women in the room. Since this audience was not of any music or entertainment background, the questions were very bland and typical so, this was my plan. I waited to the last person asked their question, and when Tony asked was there any more questions? After a brief pause, I jumped up and said, “Yes, I have a question.” So I asked a carefully thought out question that would tell him exactly why these two long-haired musicians were here in the first place. Everyone in the audience had this inquisitive look on their faces and Tony gave me a quick answer and smiled.
After the event, a swarm of business suits swarmed Sal and I. One of which grabbed me and said, “You need to meet Tony personally”. We obliged and off we went to meet the man of the hour. I was introduced to Tony and I said, I don’t know if you remember me, and proceeded to tell him about the first meeting at the showcase. He interrupted me and said, “I remember you!” Tony said, here’s my number, give me a call and we’ll talk. This was only the beginning of a fateful twist of events.
So by meeting Tony, I was able to play him the CD we recorded of our band. The band was a rock/metal project and apparently he wasn’t hearing the “hit record” someone of his like would instantly listen for. He asked me who recorded this, and I told him that I did in our studio where we rehearsed. He said he was impressed with the recordings but then mocked, “Kid, your good… But you suck!” I looked at him and immediately said, “Then make me not suck!”
That exchange of words was the match that ignites the crux of this story.
Tony began coming to my small warehouse studio and teaching me all his tricks of the trade. After a few weeks of this process, it quickly realized, he was actually training me to become “his” engineer. He saw in me something I wasn’t even aware of and brought skills to my ears, I never thought possible. I had began engineering some of these different projects of his and started to see his methods as a producer. At the same time, I began working on some side projects outside my rock/metal band and started writing.
These new compositions were not exactly fit for a metal band; they were too commercial so I reached out to a friend who rehearsed with her band a few bays down from us. I asked her if she’d be interested in co-writing with me and maybe sing the ideas. She was into the plan and agreed to work with me on developing these songs.
Quickly, we realized there was magic in these new tracks. I brought Tony into the studio to listen to some of the demos we created. He agreed and instructed us to keep working. In order to keep this project moving and conflict with my band’s agendas, I moved the studio portion to a loft in downtown Hollywood, Florida. This became a writing/demo studio to flesh out the project.
After a few months of writing, re-writing, recording and re-recording, it was time to showcase this project. During the demo-recording phase, we had recruited my buddy Sosio on bass guitar and together we put the best of the best in South Fl musicians together to rehearse for a showcase. Now a band under the moniker, “Lotus Blossom” was set to make some waves.
We opened the local venue, The Culture Room on a normally closed night and invited a couple bands to perform. One band that was part of Tony Bongiovi’s list of talent we was working with, MindLikeWater was to open up and another local band to close the evening after the showcase was over. Tony had brought in his PR agent and together hosted almost 90 VIP guests many A&R from several record labels. Including Tony Ferguson, I spoke about in the beginning of this story.
The night of the showcase was intense. Especially since the singer had pains from an apparent appendicitis earlier that day and instead of going to the hospital, performed an amazing show, then immediately after was rushed to the hospital to have her appendix removed. The following few days, I was approached with 3 different recording contracts for Lotus Blossom. To put this into a time-perspective, this was the point in time that the infamous “360” deals were starting to become the thing big labels were signing. These were designed to deal with the decline of sales resulting from online downloading from Napster and other file sharing sites.
Reviewing these deals, my excitement became lack-luster. I looked at Tony (Bongiovi) and said that none of these deals make any good sense and don’t seem logical. He explained the trend of these deals “are what they are” and it’s a “take it or leave it” call. I decided to “Leave It” with all three of them.
I asked Tony, “With deals like this, what do we even need a record label for other than a P&D (packaging and distribution) Deal?” His reply was that “we don’t” other than it would be nice to get a label to put up the initial recording budget to finance the record.
I had been a part of and witnessed several deals in and out of the entertainment industry made by Tony and many of these were joint ventures he would do around different business projects. I had asked him, “What if we raised the capital to record and do a ‘joint-venture’ with a record label”? My thinking at the time was that if he could help me put together a business plan with credible people, a great product, with a solid process, I could take it to some investors I knew and maybe fund the recording that way. I agreed and helped me develop a business plan.
With a new business plan in hand, I went to a group of investors I knew. Impressed with the plan, the investors signed a deal to fund the recording and be a part of the process! Overwhelmed, it was off to the races to finish preproduction and make a record!
After a few months of additional writing and preproduction, it was time to put the recording process together. The plan was to use the funding to book Tony’s legendary Power Station Studios (Avatar at that time) in New York City. Just as we were about to commit to the studio time, an unexpected turn of events…
9/11 – That fateful day of horror that changed our Country, as we knew it. Also it was about to change my destiny without me even knowing it. The investor group that funded the project was heavily invested in aviation. Their financial worlds came to a halt that day, as did so many in America. Over the next week the lead investor had contacted me and informed me that the investment was still a deal, but we had to wait. They need to tend to their businesses and when everything settles, we’ll open the funding again.
Not knowing what to expect, we all sat and waited. We waited and waited. Weeks went by and still the same answer, just hang tight. The waiting game was building stress that I saw was affecting the singer especially as well as the others whom become part of the band. So I had figured, since I have had a studio for years, maybe I can setup shop with a studio and finish some pre-production demos and if the wait continues, I can maybe even begin tracking the initial instruments, then bring it back to Power Station NYC, when the funding opens back up. I mean, I had Tony Bongiovi by my side here, he designed and build one of the most successful studios in the world, and he could surely help me build a room adequate enough to be able to track music in the meantime…
So I set out to find a space that would get this train back on the tracks and to motivate my team to make the best record we could. My search led me to a Pompano Beach warehouse. I signed a lease and with Tony’s help we designed a studio control room, a large “live” room and isolation rooms to start tracking this record. All I needed to do was to build it out. I had exhausted what little savings I had, maxed out every credit card but was able to put together a room that with Tony’s design, sounded just like one of the Power Station rooms in NYC.
So off we went back into production. Rumor got out to the local music community that I had a full studio “up and running” again, so calls came in to ask if I’d be willing to record their music. I thought about the debt I created building this acoustically perfect space, adding equipment and scared about making even the minimum payments on the credit card bills, so I quickly said, “C’mon Down”!!!
I was working on the Lotus Blossom project during the day and twisting knobs for local bands at night to cover expenses. This continued for months. While this initially brought the excitement back into the Lotus Blossom band, the waiting game continued with the funding. It got to a point that no matter how much magic we created with Lotus Blossom in the studio, the waiting game would somehow ring louder than the satisfaction of the recordings we were making. This struggle continued and just got worse. So bad, to the point I had to pull the plug on the Lotus Blossom project. I had built this, initially funded it, got investment, and built a studio around it, I soon realized that no matter what I did, without the promised big picture funding, this project was a means to an end. Without an answer from the investors in sight, I had no choice but to put the Lotus Blossom project on hiatus.
Until the funding came back, I had to focus of managing the debt incurred for this studio. I began running session after session and even working on all Tony’s projects here at the studio. As word got out, I figured we needed to name the studio. Tony suggested using the Power Station moniker. “This studio is the same acoustic algorithm we used for the New York studio. It makes sense to continue the name”. How could I argue with that logic! Power Station Recording Studios it was from that day forward.
The studio got busier, and record labels learned that Tony was operating out of a studio in South Florida so label work started to come through the doors. Since we had utilized every square inch of the warehouse to accommodate a large control room and even larger live room, we needed more space.
We took over the bay next door to the studio and expanded. In that side, we built a second studio, a lounge, office and other amenities. Power Station had by fate, turned into a fully equipped facility capable of almost any type of production. Power Station began to become a name in the community and was off to a solid path forward.
Come about 2005 to 2008, the US began to experience a huge market crash and Florida was at the top of the list whose states were affected the greatest. When the local community is affected in such a financial way, local business like the recording industry suffer right along side. Bringing your band to record in a studio isn’t exactly a necessity. Particularly when so many were losing their homes and jobs from the crash. I saw the local recording industry crumble. Studios were closing left and right. However, Power Station truly had a different fate.
Concurrent to this entire market nightmare, Tony Bongiovi had introduced us to an audio technology he had invented. The concept was originally conceived in the 1970’s at his legendary NY Power Station, however it wasn’t until the late 80’s he took his vision and was able to boil the process down to a managable analog circuit board. The process was basically to create amazing sound in a high noise environment without adding the subsequent weight of large speakers, amplifiers and other audio equipment. Tony was a pilot and invented this concept to bring music into his private airplane.
The first iteration of this concept was implemented into his twin engine Piper Comanche. Years later Tony put together a tabletop demo of what this technology could do. The amazing results prompted us to see if we could digitize this process and see where it could go.
After further development of Tony’s concept in the digital domain, we found that there was a viable technology born. These efforts spawned the birth of Bongiovi Acoustics. So what does this have to do with Power Station Recording Studios?
Well, take into account that during this time period and the state of affairs of the local market was very grim; I saw the opportunity this technology could offer. I was one of the original engineers helping build this technology company I wanted to work towards a piece of the pie. I realized that I was a key person with the ability to help build the company and the studio environment was the strength to the genesis of everything that was going on. I worked out a deal to be a part of this development and the studio would be a key component to for me to survive the challenge.
This synergistic relationship allowed the studio to be a functional breeding ground for engineering staff that we brought into the technology company. While our studio competition was falling under from the economy, we remained. Eventually, Power Station was one of the few studios that weathered the storm. Business began to pick back up.
Since I was part of the Bongiovi Acoustics Company, I was able to grow the studio without personally draining the revenues. I used this opportunity to continuously grow the studio. Business-wise and equipment-wise we grew. In a matter of a few short years, Power Station’s two studio rooms have a legendary equipment list microphone inventory, and a list of loyal client family.
In March of 2016, we were able to acquire a 64 channel Neve Media 5.1 console. This upgrade would set us above most studios in the area. This was going to live in Studio A and Studio B would inherit the current 56 channel Amek Recall.
However, in October of that same year, I received a call from our friend and master equipment tech, that he had a lead on a console for me. He knew we already purchased the Media in March. But he wasn’t talking about just any console… He was speaking about the holy grail of Neve consoles, arguably the best sounding console ever built, the Neve 9098i. I laughed because I thought he was pulling my leg. There’s no way I could ever afford this work of art. It would be like me being a junior art collector and asking if I wanted to buy the Mona Lisa.
The truth of the matter, this was in fact no joke and he presented me with the deal of a lifetime. Just like with the initial build out of the first iteration of the studio, I knew I have to jump and take the risk. As a result, the new Media 5.0 went into Studio B and the world renowned 72 channel work of art by Rupert Neve now lives in our Studio A.
Not many studios can compare to the console, vintage and modern equipment. I walk in to the studio some days and just stop and think… “Is this really real”? And as sure as the day is light; it indeed is real.
This kid always dreamed of having his own professional studio. However, my dream of a career in music was what dominated my directions in life. I always said, “Failure is NEVER an Option” and even when a door seemed to close, there was always light gleaming under another door. I knew I just had to open it and jump through. A journey to be a rock star became a journey that embraced music and gave me the studio and the audio technology. In some ways, working with music and sound everyday with the ability to make a living, I feel like a rock star!
My journey continues. I pass my experiences down to our studio engineers just as Tony passed his down to me. Tony’s experiences, my experiences and the experiences of all those we’ve worked with become their experiences. This is what sets Power Station apart from any other place. The People, it’s always about the people.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It was definitely no easy path. It’s been a rollercoaster of such. The story I told basically is about just pushing forward through the challenges and obstacles in life.
Please tell us about Power Station Recording Studios.
We are a full service fully equipped recording facility. We specialize in music of all types.
We are especially known for our massive drum sounds and ability to record all types of instruments. This includes strings, brass and orchestral groups.
I am most proud of our talented staff. We have breed a team of engineers that are like no other. They’re all at the top of their game and impress me everyday.
What sets us apart from others is several things. First is our talented team. Our experience, our genesis and our legacy are unparalleled. Our efficiency, work ethic and quality of product set the bar!
Do you look back particularly fondly on any memories from childhood?
In middle school, there was an outstanding achievement music award that was given to the music student who worked the hardest throughout year. It was given to a student in the graduating 8th grade class. I had told the music director while I was in 6th grade, the year this award began, that I was going to earn this when I graduate. Indeed, on my 8th grade graduation day, I was awarded this award. Looking back on this memory, this is how I came to believe, “Failure: is NOT an Option!”
Contact Info:
- Address: 1901 NW 32nd Street
Pompano Beach, FL 33064 - Website: powerstationstudios.com
- Phone: 9549780333
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/power_station_studios
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/powerstationrecordingstudios
- Twitter: twitter.com/PowerStationFL
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