Editor’s Note: This is the first in a three-part series about the past, present and future of 3 Elliott Studio to commemorate its 10-year anniversary.
When local music lovers Josh Antonuccio and Chris Pyle renovated their garage-bound studio in 2004, they created their own auditory utopia tucked behind the weathered homes on Elliott Street.
“It’s inconspicuous back here,” said Antonuccio, co-founder and owner of 3 Elliott Studio, perched on a piano bench in the main recording room. “It’s almost like The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe … you walk through the closet, and it’s this whole other world.”
This year marks 3 Elliott’s 10th year of recording and forging friendships with hundreds of local and national musicians, a feat that both Antonuccio and Pyle said they never could have expected from the studio’s humble beginnings in Pyle’s garage.
Ohio University alumni and longtime friends, Antonuccio and Pyle are what Pyle calls “huge music geeks” who will argue for hours about the year’s best albums. In 2001, Donkey Coffee and Espresso owner Pyle convinced Antonuccio to move from Michigan back to Athens and organize the music component of the coffee shop, as well as do some studio work in his backyard setup at 3 Elliott St.
“The whole vision was always relational,” Antonuccio said. “It was bringing the community together — it was about musicians, it was about the local music scene, and so it really took off.”
The two-room studio served its purpose, primarily as a launch pad for Pyle and Antonuccio’s personal projects along with initial recordings by local powerhouses such as Southeast Engine. But the limitations of recording in a converted one-car garage began echoing in the music — in addition to being small, the boxy room structure and parallel walls made it difficult to produce the big, resonant drum and string sounds so many artists crave.
“It was always clean and well-kept and super organized, but it was just really small,” said Stephen Tootle, a history professor at College of the Sequoias in Visalia, Calif., who played and recorded with Antonuccio and Pyle under the band name Cosigner in the early 2000s. “They were just super motivated to keep upgrading.”
By the fall of 2004, 3 Elliott had undergone a four-and-a-half month renovation project led by professional studio designer Chris Weibel, expanding the facility into a five-room, high-ceiling edifice. The project also added new equipment and unparallel walls covered with posters of classic musicians and album covers that inspire its owners and producers.
“Our motto is ‘A place to create,’ and that’s what we wanted to do,” Antonuccio said. “That’s what we always wanted to do was have it be a place where people walk in, musicians walk in and be like, ‘I can kind of detach from the world and work here.’”
In fact, Pyle almost became too detached. While listening to the song “Cat’s in the Cradle” by Harry Chapin, about a father who is too busy to spend time with his son, Pyle realized he didn’t want to miss out on his son Oliver’s youth.
“I felt like that song spoke to me. I’m not 25 anymore, and I can’t do drum sessions until 4 a.m.,” said Pyle, who still co-owns the studio but hasn’t taken a producing project in more than two years. “It was hard because I love the studio and it’s exciting and still is exciting to me … (but) I don’t want to miss out on my son and daughter’s life and even time with my wife.”
But both Pyle and Antonuccio remain invested in 3 Elliott and continue to foster the creative energy resonating from the walls in their almost magical musical accommodations.
“It’s amazing that people give me the privilege to be a part of their creative world, absolutely, and invite me in to that,” Antonuccio said. “I never thought a garage would turn into what it has … I couldn’t really ask for much more.”
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