10cc's Strawberry Delight
The studio that brought rock to Stockport!

Source Unknown circa late 1976 / early 1977 pp. 12-13
Author Unknown

FOR many musicians, the goal at the end of the rock road is to own their own recording studio - once they have made enough money through their music to set it up. But 10cc did it the other way round - they built their studio first and the hits came later.

In actual fact, it was half of 10cc, Eric Stewart and Graham Gouldman, who set up Strawberry Studios in 1968 with money they had made in previous groups. The other partners in the business were Peter Tattersall, the chief engineer, and a management company. The studio was set up in an old factory in Stockport, near Manchester, and originally had just one four track machine but, as everybody was ploughing their earnings into it, it wasn't long before it expanded to eight track.

When you consider how many 24-track studios there are around the country now, eight track doesn't seem very big, yet out of that studio came Neanderthal Man, in 1971. Proving that you don't need to use the largest studios you can find in order to make a hit single!

At the time of that hit, the band was called Hotlegs and consisted of Eric Stewart and Lol Creme on guitar and Kevin Godley on drums. Again, 10cc did things a different way round to how they were normally done. Whereas all the bands at that time built up a reputation through live gigs and then made a record, Hotlegs had a hit single and were then faced with having to go out on the road.

Lol Creme working out some ideas at the keyboard.

DONNA

So they recruited Graham Gouldman to play bass and did a few concerts and then returned to Strawberry Studios and concentrated on session playing for other people. Somehow Hotlegs hadn't quite clicked with the British public!

However, it wasn't long before the creative forces at work in the minds of these four very gifted musicians came together in the form of a song they wrote called Donna. They changed their name to 10cc, signed to Jonathan King's lable, UK Records, and released the single in August 1972. It got into the charts and earned Strawberry the first silver disc that ever hung on the studio's walls.

Yet even though Donna was a hit, the band were so associated with the studio that people tended to look on them as a bunch of session musicians who got together for a laugh, rather than a serious band. They didn't help this image by their reluctance to go on the road. They were happy sticking around the studio. It was their baby, after all. When they weren't aiding and recording other bands, they were adding pieces of equipment and experimenting with all kinds of sounds and recording techniques.

EFFECTS

On their first two singles they went overboard for sound effects. Donna featured the ringing of a telephone and complicated vocals, while their second, called Johnny Don't Do It, which wasn't a hit because it was maybe too much of a mickey-tale of the old "room" records of the early Sixties, contained revving-up motor bikes and angelic choruses in falsetto harmony.

When groups have a limited amount of time and money to spend in the studio, they have to stick to arrangements that don't take too long to record. But 10cc were extra lucky, being able to put in as much studio time as they wanted. And it wasn't long before it began to show. Their next two singles which, of course, were recorded in Strawberry, were Rubber Bullets and The Dean And I, and their first great album, called, strangely enough, 10cc, soon followed.

Left to right: Kevin Godley, Eric Stewart, Lol Creme and Graham Gouldman.

From that first album onwards, it became apparent that, recording-wise, 10cc were one of the most sophisticated bands in Britain. By that time the studio had gone 16-track and the band had finally succeeded in getting together the equipment to give them just the sound they had been looking for, clean, clear and crisp.

Along with their chart success came a whole host of people wanting to use the studio from which such successful sounds were emanating. The Bay City Rollers recorded their album, Once Upon A Star there, Paul McCartney came in to work on his brother Mike McGear's album and Neil Sedaka's career took on a new lease of life after he had recorded two great albums at Strawberry, The Tra La Days Are Over and Solitaire, on which 10cc played as session musicians!

Sheet Music was 10cc's second album. It sold extremely well, but the band were not happy. They were being called upon to play more and more dates, they weren't too happy about their current record contract and as more and more people were booking their studio, they had less time to spend there themselves. The outcome of the situation was a change of label to Phonogram Records and the recording of the third album, The Original Soundtrack, which many people regard as their least successful.

STAGE SHOW

The problem was that, although they were becoming very efficient with their complicated recording techniques and putting out records of a very high quality, production-wise, they were in a way going over the heads of many of their fans because a lot of their numbers just couldn't be reproduced on stage. They were very classy, very clever, but maybe a little too clever in some ways.

Eric Stewart looking versatile.

So they had a re-think about the situation and as a result began working hard on a good, strong stage show, and numbers which, while still containing their witty, cynical lyrics, were a bit easier to grasp and remember and simpler to perform.

It was in a much happier frame of mind, with their musical direction a bit more sorted out, that they returned to Strawberry last year to record their latest album, How Dare You. The studio had by then grown to 24-track and 10cc took full advantage of this to put out what is certainly their most cleverly produced album yet, packed with fresh ideas and little touches that you don't even spot until you've played the album two or three times.

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