“I try to focus as much as I can on music and helping artists to develop their sounds and doing an album,” says Evan Slagle, founder of The Record Room
The music scene in the city is undoubtedly growing, with a variety of Hong Kong bands regularly packing out live music venues across town. Founded by Evan Slagle, The Record Room is nestled away in Wong Chuk Hang and is an outstanding recording studio that offers live band recordings, mixing and mastering. Recently, Evan shared with us how everything came together when he moved back to Asia for the third time and finally opened his own establishment in March 2017.
The Record Room in Wong Chuk Hang
The Record Room offers a traditional recording studio, where a full spectrum of audio needs are met, from production to tracking, recording, mixing and mastering. But it’s so much more than that, thanks to its cosy lounge and the amazing natural light that comes in through all the windows. It seems to be the perfect casual yet creative space for musicians and designers to get the job done.
The beginning of The Record Room
Despite being a metropolitan international city like London and New York, there isn’t really a predominant corresponding music scene in Hong Kong. In that regards, Slagle saw Hong Kong as an opportunity, and wanted to play a part in creating sounds for the city. Having moved out here from America when he was three, and again for a year in high school, this is the third time Slagle has lived in Hong Kong. “It’s always kinda felt like home out of the places I’ve lived. I had always wanted to come back here, and I had always wanted to do music, so they just all came together in the direction how I wanted to pursue things,” says Slagle about the space.
The Record Room has worked with a bunch of different artists in the past year and a half. “We’re just finishing up an album with this local band Back, they do a lot of stuff at The Wanch. The lead singer is French, one guitarist is American, another guitarist is from Hong Kong, the drummer is Filipino, it’s literally Hong Kong in a nutshell. We did some jazz stuff with a couple of girls that play at Salon 10 and a Sofar Sounds night with English singer-songwriter Jules O’Brien here too.”
Evan Slagle: Founder of The Record Room
Not only is Slagle the owner of The Record Room, he also works as a designer on the side to keep the place running and pay the bills, as well as being a DJ. Interestingly, it’s not clubroom music or techno which is comparatively more developed in the underground DJing scene here. Since moving back to Hong Kong, it has all been rock n’ roll, 90s hip hop, reggae for him.
“Music kinda started for me with my playing drums, it was super hardcore, punk rock type stuff. Fast and intense. When I went to university, I didn’t have access to drums anymore, so I picked up DJing and that led to production. That’s when I got really serious about producing, mixing, mastering and learning how to engineer,” said Slagle.
Having lived back in Hong Kong for two years, Slagle feels that there has been a big jump in the music scene, in the sense that many local acts are getting more serious about their craft and the quality of the music is getting a lot higher. When asked about what The Record Room is hoping to do in future years, Slagle replied with a grin, “I just want to push it more. I want to see Hong Kong establish its scene, with some notable artists that will represent Hong Kong, whatever style or genre of music that is.”
The Record Room, 26/F Gee Chang Hong Centre, 65 Wong Chuk Hang Road, Wong Chuk Hang, Hong Kong, p. 9779 1945, 黃竹坑道65號志昌行中心26樓
