Village Recorder Engineer Tells EJW About Working on ”The Union” And ”The Diving Board”

Chris Owens has been working at the Village Recorder since 2005.

 

He tells this Web site that the first time he was involved with an EJ session was during the recording of The Union, with Leon Russell.

 

Chris says: ”I filled in for the 2nd engineer for a few days. But I didn’t really get to see Elton at work until early 2013 when he came in to work on songs for The Diving Board. I was incredibly impressed with Elton’s songwriting ability and his vision for each track. He was consistently able to take the lyrics and find the song within. It was a pleasure to watch to him work and to hear the results.”
 
He adds: ”‘T–Bone Burnett is a frequent client of the Village Recorder so I have been able to collaborate with his engineers Jason Wormer and Mike Piersante many times in the past few years. Jason started out his engineering career at The Village so he is very familiar with the studio. I really enjoyed the mixes of the songs that Jason put together and his attention to detail during recording and mixing.”

 

Before this, though, Owens was an employee at a Toyota plant in ”a nowhere-you’ve-heard-of Kentucky with paint swatches and a mechanical engineering degree,” So  he decided that he wanted to ”do something fun.”

Flipping through Modern Drummer, he saw an ad for the Berklee College of Music.

”As much as I loved Kentucky, in 2002, I made the move to Boston to pursue a degree in Music Production and Engineering,” Chris recalls.

Three years later, ”my degree and I moved to Los Angeles to supplement my college education with actual hands-on experience in the music industry capital.”

This was when he embarked on his new career at the Village Recorder, quickly moving up to senior engineer.

”With my technical background and love of music that grew from a childhood soundtrack of bands such as Led Zeppelin, the Beatles, Van Halen, and Pink Floyd, it quickly became clear that Music Engineering and Mixing was my obvious career path….and I really don’t miss Kentucky.

”Besides Elton, I have had the pleasure of working with artists such as Kelly Clarkson, Coldplay, the Smashing Pumpkins, Ben Harper, Stevie Nicks, the Cars, Herbie Hancock, John Mayer, Seal, the Chieftains, Kris Kristofferson, Joe Bonamassa, Daniel Powter, and Smokey Robinson . . .  to name a few!

”So I’ve found my current career to be much more rewarding both personally and professionally. The opportunity to work with incredible musicians and incredible songwriters has been far more inspiring than any desk job I ever had.”