Henry Wagons wears his heart on his gold chain. The lounge room of his holiday house-cum-recording studio is dressed in shag pile, Harry Nilsson plays on the boombox and an Elvis Presley photo book makes for an impromptu mousepad. Henry has been steadily building up his recording environment based on how he imagines the kings of the ’60s and ’70s did it: Live, plenty of dynamic and ribbon mics, and recognising spill can be an asset. Which is why he bought this joint. The alt-country performer has managed to procure himself a double-storey getaway in the Eastern hills with a divine view overlooking Port Phillip Bay. It’s in holiday house territory, but for Henry, it’s the perfect place to get some work done. IN HOUSE STUDIO
Henry recorded his band Wagons’ latest album Acid Rain & Sugar Cane here. Before that, Henry had released a ‘solo’ record of duets Expecting Company?; an album he recorded all the instrumentals for by himself. It was an experience he enjoyed, but the solitary effort made him more eager than ever to get the band back together. This time though, he felt a traditional studio wasn’t going to cut it. “I always feel I’ve had to battle a disconnect in tracking environments,” explained Henry. “If people want to talk in the control room then someone needs to press a talkback button. Your bass player can’t just get on top of the console to control his own monitor mix.” But he had an idea of what might work. “I saw this documentary of The Who recording,” said Henry. “All of them in one room with not a headphone in sight, and Roger Daltrey was coming through a PA in the room. I wanted to see if it was possible. Not only because a lot of the songs I was writing were leaning towards ’70s rock, and communication would be perfect, but also, maybe part of the secret of those ’70s bands sounding so powerful, so immediate, is because of a little spill in the room.” Wagons decided to test his theory with a few stress-free live demos at his house. The main living area is split level, which provides some natural separation. Up top, overlooking the lounge would be the bass amp and keyboards. At one end of the downstairs area would be the drums, surrounded by a mix of wood panelling, glass and a stone fireplace, with the guitars on the other side of a buffer of sofas. Henry drove the sessions from behind his mixer, singing into an Electro-Voice RE-20 he routed out through a PA, with one speaker pointing at him and the other out into the room. “Sometimes I’d feed a click through a headphone to the drummer, but he’d be the only one wearing headphones,” said Henry. “I can do a headphone setup here, but headphones were the enemy in that session.”
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