When did you first record music?
In 1990 when I recorded the first single of Doctor Explosion in the basement of a bar. It was dedicated to The Fleshtones! That was in Oviedo [the capital of Asturias]. In the middle of the town there was a bar called La Catedral. Before that my brother Juan opened a recording studio in 1985. I was playing drums in a band called Los Rudimentals, and one evening my brother recorded us. I don't know what happened with that recording.
What's the origin of the studio name, Circo Perrotti?
At the time that Doctor Explosion was making tours with the original line up in the late '90s, I remember that our van was broken constantly and everything was going wrong. [Bassist/keyboardist] Félix [Domínguez] was looking at the sky and said, "Oh my god, this is like a Circus Perrotti!"
I don't get the reference...
I didn't either, but then I understood it related to something that happened in my childhood. My eldest brother took me to a circus — I thought it was a very huge American circus called Ringling Bros. — but this one was the Wingling Bros., like a fake version of the Ringling Bros. They were announcing such a big event, with lions, and everything was a disaster. It was so cheap and we were so... como se dice, decepci-nado?
Disappointed? [laughter]
Yes! I thought it was stupid enough to name a studio starting with "circus."
When did you open Circo Perrotti?
In 2003.
Do you know many square meters do you have?
Not really. It's a small studio.
You have a nice control room, a live room...
Actually two live rooms. My brother opened this studio in the mid '80s and did not succeed at all. For years it was a basement storage room for my family, until I decided to open the studio. In the late '90s we started to rehearse in this room. I had a digital recorder, so I started to make some recordings with that to do some demos. I didn't have any real intention, other than doing the demos of Doctor Explosion. But then a band that was playing gypsy/Django Reinhardt music with violin and acoustic guitars asked me, "Could you record us?" And I said, "Oh, yeah!"
Originally you said you were in Oviedo?
That was back in the '90s, when we did our first EP. Oviedo and Gijon are very close towns.
What is the attraction to recording in Gijon, besides your studio?
Gijon is a nice town. First of all it has a nice beach, which is close to the studio.
You can go surfing, right?
Sometimes. Not now, because of the cold water. We used to make nude surfing, which was really good fun.
I bet. Very liberating.
It's a small town; the food is good. The town has grown up in these years, but the center is like a village and everything is at hand. There're pensions [rooming houses] in the center for, like, ten Euros each.
Groups can stay cheaply.
And it's right in front of the beach; two minutes walking.
When is the sea urchin season? You took us to the old town to eat sea urchins.
What? Oh, erizos! I think that's in the fall, close to winter. I remember when I was a child you could buy erizos from a camion [truck]. There was a man with a pala [shovel] and he put them in a sack for 25 pesetas — less than a dollar. Erizos are a hallmark of Perrotti! [laughter]
And you take bands to try a sidrería? [Cider is the traditional drink of Asturias.]
Very much! When The Ripe first arrived from Austin, Texas, they bought some bottles of cider. Nick [Yaklin], the drummer, took off his cowboy boot, put the bottle inside of his boot, and started to knock the boot on the wall, outside in the street. People were passing by, freaking out, thinking, "What's this cowboy doing here smashing this bottle?" It was to get the cork out with the pressure.
Did that work?
Very well. So when The Ripe come for a session, they are drinking cider and making recordings. A good combination.
Are there other sessions from here that stand out in your mind?
Many, actually. I produced the last album [Gijon Stomp!] of Sonny Burgess [the Sun Records artist] and the Legendary Pacers. It was going to be just a couple of songs. I invited them for free because they were playing in a festival nearby and it was an opportunity to record a historical group. The guys got so excited that, in the end, they cut a whole album.
How was it working with Sonny?
It was great. At some point I mentioned something about jazz. That pissed him off a little bit. I've always liked a lot of jazz recordings. Famous recordings made in New York; Rudy Van Gelder [Tape Op #43] stuff. I've always liked those recordings, because my brother Juan — that opened that studio in the mid-'80s — he's an extremely good piano player and he played in a jazz combo when I was 10 years old. He introduced me to Miles Davis, John Coltrane, and Dave Brubeck. Those recordings impacted me very much. So when I was talking to Sonny about this, I wanted to mention the atmosphere of that sound; but it seems to me that in the '50s jazz guys and rock and roll guys didn't fit that well together! I realized too late.
What other sessions come to mind?
The Masonics and also Billy Childish. The Masonics came first. Russ Wilkins, the drummer, produced one Doctor Explosion album [The Subnormal Revolution of Doctor Explosion] in the early '90s at Toe Rag Studio with Liam Watson [Tape Op #15, 88]. They both produced it. We're longtime friends, and I always was a big fan of Thee Milkshakes [Billy and Russ' original band]. That week recording in London at Toe Rag Studio caused me a big impact. When I was 11 I was listening to all this music from my brother: jazz, The Beatles, and also classical music. But then, with the impact of new wave, I started to collect records of Spanish and British bands like New Order, in the early '80s. At a very young age I was exposed to very different stuff, which is good. Then, late in my teen years, a friend of mine was passing me tapes of bands like the Rolling Stones and Blues Magoos. I was listening to the effects and reverb; I could lose myself in those spaces and the echo chambers. I felt it was fantastic. I always had an interest in how those sounds were produced.
So you experimented?
I didn't have access to that gear, so when I had the chance to go to Toe Rag, it was great. I'd listened to records produced in that studio, like the first album of The Kaisers [Squarehead Stomp!]. I felt, "Wow! This is really close to the things I want to do." So we had to go there to record. Our first experience of recording, in a studio in Gijon, was not very good. It was very far from what I wanted to get.
You've worked with Russian bands?
A couple bands came from Russia. This band called The Types from Moscow. Then, in 2012, Messer Chups from St. Petersburg came out. They are enthusiastic fans of rock 'n' roll and, at the same time, somewhat exotic. For me, it's an honor that they come from such a faraway place and put their trust in me. I must be up to their expectations, in all possible ways, working on their sound and arrangements, but also showing them the fun of my town; guiding them to typical restaurants and rock 'n' roll clubs. They came in 2012. At that point they probably had heard about me through other surf bands I had produced, like The Longboards, Twang Marvels, and Lorenzo Surfer Joe. But something I don't like is to focus on a style. It's boring, because in the end you wind up doing everything in that style. I've loved surf music since I was a kid — The Challengers, The Astronauts. I've done some good records of surf music...
...and you're a surfer.
A bad surfer. But I like to record all kinds of music. It's more interesting. With drums you can succeed in so many different musical styles by changing a bit of the tuning of the skins, or playing with the distance of the mics and the amount of compression. Of course all I have is all the music I have been listening to in my life, and to use all those references. Sometimes it's in unpredictable situations; experimenting with sounds and styles. But don't get me wrong, I also enjoy to record pure '50s rockabilly or '60s beat bands, but I try to give it something extra, a "Perrotti touch." We have to be humble talking about creativity in the studio, remembering all those great anonymous recording engineers and producers from the golden decades of the '40s 'til the '60s, when so many geniuses made music history, and most of the time with no credit on the record sleeves.
What about the recording of one of my favorites, "¡Estoy Soltero!"?
Ah, by Los Guajes [from Mujeres y Centollos]. The good thing about that band is that the singer is like an actor. He really interprets his performance.
