“A couple of years ago, our rehearsal space got flooded,” says Scott, “so that kind of engendered a bit of a sit-down with me and my business partners. The music industry is not in a healthy state, so investing in the music business is a bit of a reach. We had a recording studio and we had 13 rehearsal rooms that were pretty run down, they were very old, very tired, the systems were very old. It was one of those situations where we just had to pack up and go home, or re-invest seriously and look at it as a serious business. So we’ve built 15 recording studio quality rooms.”
Beyond simply being a rehearsal studio, the revamped Wick Studios is set to become a massive, full blown music and arts hub, where creative people of just about every type can come, hang out, network and practise their art.
“There was a lot of real estate there,” Scott says. “The front reception area was huge. We’re taking it slowly, but we’ve built it with a mind to it becoming a full bar and café. Next door there was a huge auditorium – that they used to just call ‘The Auditorium’ – that we’ve turned into our live recording studio. We’ve been getting a lot of high-end rehearsal in there, like Leo Sayer just rehearsed there before his tour, Joe Camilleri and all those guys just rehearsed there. But you could fit 400 people in that room. So that’s the vision; to turn those areas into live venues by the end of the year.
“Apart from that, we’ve also got the photographic studio,” he adds, “and that sort of fits into the rest of the framework. There’s video production there as well.”
Scott and his business partner Dan Corless have appointed American music industry professional Lynn Robnett as the venue’s Director of Entertainment and Development. Robnett has previously worked with the likes of Rob Zombie, David Hasselhoff, Paul Shaffer, Lou Reed and Nirvana, and she’ll assist the owners in promoting the centre and building it into an entertainment powerhouse.
“These days it’s so tough for young bands to even cover costs on the road,” Scott says, “so really the only way a band is going to kick on is if they can find a market overseas. But if you’re a young band, how do you do that? How do they find that market overseas, without contacts, without any experience?”
Robnett’s involvement will help Australian bands in making connections with overseas contacts and markets. “Lynn actually signed an artist that we had made a record with,” Scott says, “so we got a relationship going with Lynn. This vision kind of organically happened between myself, Dan and Lynn over a period of time, just talking about this concept. There’s just so much good music happening down here, but none of them really know how to make that jump.
“What if there was someone here in Melbourne that had the experience, had the contacts to help bands make that leap? It’s actually a bit of a roll of the dice, we don’t know exactly how it’s going to look like, but it’s something that we believe is worth a shot, because there are markets overseas where there’s money to be made and there are acts that we’ve worked with who are doing just that right now.”
BY ROD WHITFIELD
