Liverpool’s Parr Street Studios To Relocate In 2022: "The legacy will continue"

Liverpool’s Parr Street Studios’ original location is set to be demolished to make way for apartments; the studio’s owner, Chris Taylor, exclusively reveals the studio’s new location for 2022.

In 2020, a planning application was submitted to Liverpool City Council to build a six to eight-storey development incorporating a hotel and 114 apartments, meaning the end for the iconic Parr Street Studios, Studio 2 and Attic Bar, which would have to be completely demolished and replaced.

Parr Street studios have famously hosted an array of recording music artists over the years, including Coldplay, Echo & The Bunnymen, The Zutons, The Coral, Rihanna, amongst many others.

A petition to prevent the demolition hit over 10,000 signatures within days, which sought to deny planning permission to allow demolition of the studio.

Parr Street’s owner, Chris Taylor, has spoken exclusively to Headliner to reveal that, unfortunately, the building plans are going ahead at the studio’s current location, but that Parr Street Studios will be relocating to a new location on Liverpool’s Kempston Street – aiming to open in October 2022.

Two warehouses have been purchased on Kempston Street in Liverpool’s city centre by the same team that has run Parr Street Studios successfully for the past decade.

The new complex will consist of a main large-format studio, a small-format 'B’ studio, a Dolby Atmos mix room and a further four production suites, all centred around a main canteen and reception.

The Studio People has designed and is currently constructing the new studio spaces, and all equipment and expertise from Parr Street Studios will move across to the new site.

What is the status of Liverpool City Council’s plans for Parr Street Studios?

The status is that our landlord has decided to sell. The property developer has offered more money than I can raise for a mortgage for it, so it becomes about simple numbers, unfortunately.

What can you tell us about Parr Street’s new location?

We have bought two warehouses – six and a half thousand square feet of space on the other side of the city centre. We're currently in the process of moving all of our personnel and equipment over and we're hoping to be up and running for October this year. 

It will be the same team, same gear, same equipment, same ethos, and we hope a lot of the same client base. We're moving our entire operation. 

We've currently got a fantastic company from Shrewsbury called The Studio People, who are doing all our design and build work, and they've they've already started. So we are well on our way to brand new pastures.

How can you be sure that the studio’s new location won’t be in danger of suffering the same fate as the original building?

The good news for our future is that we've managed to buy these two buildings, so whereas in the past we'd rented from a landlord, we now won't have that problem. We have complete ownership of the actual buildings themselves.

What can you tell us about the new space?

It's starting to really feel like a space. It’s a complex all centred around a kitchen, because the thing we found about past studios was it was always the kitchen where people met each other and got to know each other. 

There was this really lovely thing about our kitchen spaces where people would wander in and borrow a set of guitar strings from another band, or borrow a synth or something. 

This is something we’re really trying to keep with the new space, which is a central hub you can come to when you're working on a record, but you want to breathe so you can step out and there's a bunch of other musicians and like-minded individuals who are also cracking on and making records. It's going to be quite the thing when we get up and running.

Are you going to try and mirror the exact layout of the previous space, or will it be different?

We've had lots of really big conversations about how we like to make records, and we've realised that we like a really big control room. So we're building a 50 sq-m control room, which in the current climate is unheard of. 

The ethos of the team that is still together – which is me, Rich Turvey and James Skelly, [The Coral] – is that we’d really love to have a band in the room with you and have those conversations about music, and then go and record, but come back, and everybody is involved and engaged in the recording process. 

So we're going to build a studio that mirrors the size of the control room at Parr Street. The live room will be a different size and shape. We're limited by the building that we bought a little bit there, compared with what we were before, but it will still be of a good size.

What is attractive about the new location?

We're just as close to Lime Street station, so we're still bang in the city centre. We're right off the motorway, so we've found a really great location and we're really happy with it in terms of the new facilities.

Will the new location offer anything that the previous studio didn’t?

We are building a Dolby Atmos mix room. It's the hot topic. Universal Music has decided that a deliverable now needs to be in Atmos, so we need to be able to deliver Atmos mixes; it's certainly something we couldn't do in the old studio. 

So we're going to push forward to make sure that technology is available in new space. We have bought some ATC loudspeakers to put in there.

Liverpool is an iconic music city. Why is it so important to keep this studio open and preserve this piece of music history?

It's the history and the records that have been made there in the past. It's important to recognise that, but to this day, we’re we're really busy and we're making loads of really fabulous records with fabulous artists. 

Liverpool is a great spot to be in at the moment and the city is really vibrant. There's loads of things to go and see and do. We seem to be able to attract a wealth of talent from across the world. 

My client base is Rihanna, Drake and Bieber as well as The Coral, The Zutons and more local acts, so we intend on staying at Kempston Street. We're not moving! We're confident that legacy will kind of continue.

There are so many high end recording studios in London; what makes people opt to record in Liverpool?

Liverpool has a fantastic vibrancy. There's so much happening here at the moment that so much art, so much culture – there's so many things to do. It's a nice place to be. Certainly when the sun's cracking, I wouldn't want to be anywhere else in the world. 

There's a really good musical community which helps massively because people come up to do collaborative projects or to interact with the musical community, and that's a big draw. The crowds at gigs help. When people play in Liverpool, they always have a good show in the same way that when people play in Glasgow, they feel like they have a good show. 

In terms of Parr Street, I always like to think that it's people first and foremost – people want to make records with people. As long as the facility and the gear is of a good enough standard, it's easy to attract talent in.

Congratulations on your two MPG nominations this year: Breakthrough Producer of the Year and Recording Engineer of the Year! Were you surprised to be nominated for two?

I was blown away by the fact I got two! I wasn't expecting to be nominated at all, but I’m really honoured and feel really privileged. I've been working as a recording engineer for quite a long time, so to get the nod for Recording Engineer of the Year is really special. 

It's been a good couple of years for Parr Street – we have turned out a bunch of number one albums, which has been great and loads of fun to work on, so it's nice to get that nod. Certainly my career is moving a little bit at the moment. 

I've very much been the guy in-house that fixes things as an engineer, and I'm starting to get more and more requests to produce records these days and be more at the helm of the arrangement and production side of things. So it's a double honour. It's really lovely to be nominated for both things.

Regardless of who wins in those categories, you will certainly be on the stage on the night as you are presenting an MPG award…

I’m looking forward to the night. They've asked me to do something really sweet. Last year, Parr Street won Studio of the Year, which was fantastic, and a really lovely statement for us. 

But obviously, we couldn't be there to receive the award. So this year they've asked us to present the award to whoever wins Studio of the Year. So I'm actually there for three reasons, which is really great.

The MPG Awards take place on June 9 in London. Check out the full list of nominees here.