Dave Brandwein is far more than just the head honcho of Turkuaz. The guitar player/lead vocalist took his lifelong passion for music to the next level when he founded Brooklyn’s Galaxy Smith Studios in 2010, and hasn’t looked back! Everyone from Joe Russo (JRAD, Furthur) to DMC of Run DMC has recorded there, and the studio continues to bring in new talent and think of new, creative endeavors.

This weekend, Galaxy Smith is excited to host a showcase at the Knitting Factory featuring members of The London Souls, Antibalas, Turkuaz, and more on Sunday, December 6. Get tickets here, and read up on what makes this studio so special below!

L4LM: When was Galaxy Smith Studios founded and what’s the backstory?

DB: The studio shares a bit of history with Turkuaz actually. Back in college in Boston, I built a home studio in the house I lived in with Taylor Shell (Turkuaz bass player) and some other friends. I was starting to work on some original music and was searching for something to call it instead of using my own name. While brainstorming I remembered my sister telling me there was a guy who lived on her floor in her college with the first name “Galaxy.” I loved the idea of using that name, and then of course wanted to put the most normal last name I could think of on the end of it. Galaxy Smith just sounded right to me.

Some time went by and I realized there were a few musical projects surrounding the house and community of musicians that should really get recorded. Quickly the idea evolved into trying to start some sort of a digital label. I decided to use the name Galaxy Smith for the greater umbrella of the studio and the label. One of these musical projects was something we called the “funk/disco” album. Taylor and I started demoing ideas and just plain having fun writing and creating music. These demos were the genesis of what became Turkuaz over the following few months. In fact we only ended up calling the band Turkuaz because we were underprepared for coming up with a name before our first gig, and decided to borrow a name from the Turkish market across the street from the studio. You can still hear these very first recordings we made on our first release “Turkuaz.” The original home studio versions are referred to on the album as the “Dollar Store Versions”. They are still some of our favorite Turkuaz recordings to this day.

When Turkuaz’s live band was fully formed and decided to move to New York, Galaxy Smith Studios was temporarily displaced until my wife, Dani and one of our partners, Jim Bertini both convinced me it was time to reopen Galaxy Smith as a commercial studio. It proved too difficult to try and sustain a label at that point, so we simplified. The idea of focusing on creating a great and affordable studio with a community of musicians working out of it was a much less lofty goal and a more appealing idea.

We found our home in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, (luckily just a few blocks from where I live). We opened the doors in August, 2010 and have been cranking out albums ever since. It still retains the comfortable and relaxed vibe of a home studio, but with professional studio quality and an amazing array of instruments, audio gear, toys of all kinds, and creative engineers.

L4LM: What inspired you to take your love of music and involvement in the industry to the next level?

DB: The process was really organic. Way back in high school I saw people I knew learning how to use ProTools and all sorts of recording technology. I became obsessed with the fact that I could potentially make my own recordings. So quickly it sort of infused itself with my writing and creative process. In fact, the way I write pretty much all Turkuaz songs involves demoing them and recording them at the same time. I pursued recording all the way through college at Berklee, though I didn’t major in it. I decided to spend more time outside of school actually recording bands and artists at my home studio and honing my craft in that way. Working with artists to achieve the goals they want was almost more important to me than gaining a huge amount of technical knowledge. And it still is. Though obviously being a competent engineer and understanding the science of it all is absolutely essential to making solid albums and recordings and can open huge pathways of creativity, I think that side of the craft is more easily attained than the art of working with an artist to share their vision and execute it. This has always been my passion in addition to pursuing my own music. It’s definitely what made me want to have a studio and produce bands and artists. The studio is really my first love in a lot of ways. 

L4LM: Who has recorded in the studio?

DB: Since 2010, we’ve had countless artists in and out of the studio. So many amazing musicians including Kaki King, Joe Russo, Peter Stampfel, John Cohen, Blitz the Ambassador, Natalie Gelman, Adam Scone, Nate Werth (Snarky Puppy), Hollis Brown, members of Antibalas, The Dap-Kings, and Charles Bradley, to mention just a few. I’ve produced both Turkuaz and Dopapod albums out of Galaxy Smith. And of course tons and tons of Brooklyn artists (Zongo Junction, Ikebe Shakedown, Deva Mahal, Nicky Egan, The Can’t Tells, Barkhouse, Erin Barra, Not Blood Paint, Breakdown Brass, Los Hacheros, too many to name!)

We’ve been honored with a stellar group of bands and musicians coming over the past several years and look forward to expanding that list.

 

L4LM: What’s the funniest or weirdest thing that’s gone down in the studio?

DB: Way back when Turkuaz was doing a Kickstarter campaign, we recalled an old idea we had from back in our Boston days of having Taylor do a compilation album called “Taylor Shell Sings the Hits”. I suppose it requires some explaining that this idea was funny, because.. well let’s just say vocals isn’t Taylor’s first instrument. He would sometimes sing along with the radio and we always found it to be really hilarious. We took this idea and ran it with it. But we took a very interesting approach.

1. Alcohol. Lots of it. We drank heavily before beginning the recording session, and then made Taylor take a shot between each song. I believe we did 11 or 12 songs. Mikey threw up before we even started around 4pm.

2. We didn’t allow him to really learn the songs. He had heard them all in passing because they’re all hits, but I just the selected songs, started playing them, and handed him the lyrics. That was the take.

3. Dani dressed him up in outfits that were notably associated with each song. So he not only had to take a shot between songs, but also change his appearance which involved things like putting on a yamaka, Santa outfit, shaving his beard, wearing a dress, etc..

The result was nothing short of amazing. We used the video footage for the Kickstarter videos. And we actually put the entire album together and sent it as our first reward for all our backers. I think they were less than pleased. But we think it’s pretty awesome. Maybe we’ll release it publicly one day soon!

L4LM: Who’s the most influential person to come in and record? Has anyone made you starstruck?

DB: I have to give this one to Darryl McDaniels a.k.a. DMC of Run DMC. Early on I was recording a single called “The Fly” for Hollis Brown, and they had a mutual acquaintance with Darryl. They got him to come in and do a verse on the track, and yes, I was definitely star struck and a little nervous. It was crazy to set up a microphone, go back into the control room, and start getting levels on his voice. I was like, “Holy shit! That’s him!”. The sound was so familiar. I don’t know how many times I’ve listened to “It’s Tricky.” And there was that voice, going live right into my ProTools session. It was crazy. To make it even better, he was telling stories about Rick Rubin and Steven Tyler and all sorts of stuff. And he was rocking a Led Zeppelin shirt. Just awesome.

We actually stayed in touch after that and he’s a really awesome guy. He came back to the studio and we filmed a video for the song, and did a Brooklyn Bowl show with us and Hollis Brown which provided some footage for the video. I still touch base with him occasionally and hope to work with him again soon. I will never forget that experience! 

Watch the video here:

L4LM: Tell us about this showcase you’ve got coming up. Who’s involved and what can fans expect?

DB: The Galaxy Smith Studios Showcase is something I’ve been wanting to put together for a long time. The show will be at the Knitting Factory in Brooklyn this Sunday, December 6th at 8pm sharp. It’s an opportunity to both put on a live show with artists that have all worked out of the studio, and to have them perform with many of the same musicians who played on their records. These are some of the best musicians in the Brooklyn scene and you’ll see them playing throughout the night, which will make for some awesome collaborations. We’ll celebrate the end of the night with a super jam of covers featuring a bunch of the Turkuaz crew, Chris St. Hilaire (London Souls), Nikhil P. Yerawadekar (Antibalas) and more.

Another band I used to play in called The Tales will be performing. We had a nice little following in Brooklyn several years back, but we split off to do some other projects. I started touring full time with Turkuaz, and Andrew Michael Burri (another one of the singers/writers in the band) is now a full time member of the indie-pop badasses Lucius, who we’re big fans of. We manage to do a reunion show once or twice a year, and so we took this as an opportunity to make it happen!

Other artists performing —

James Burrows
Rachael Cardiello
Bambolina
Danke
Nikhil P. Yerawadekar & Low Mentality
Joel Michael Howard

Come early and stay late! [Get tickets here]

L4LM: What’s next on the agenda for Galaxy Smith?

DB: We’re constantly building up the studio more and more. More gear, build-outs and just non-stop progress overall. We now have 4 engineers (Jim Bertini, Vince Chiarito, Jonathan Smith and myself). Each engineer brings their own skill set and talents to the table and our artist base and body of work keep growing. That’s definitely the most important thing to us. Staying busy and putting out great music. We just love what we do and wanna keep doing it. Like I said, the studio is really my first love musically, and it’s something that I’ll always be doing.

One day we may try and expand or add another studio. We also would like to get back to content creation and having a “roster” or “community” of artists, similar to how the idea began way back in Boston. The showcase is an attempt at starting to display that sense of community around the studio that I believe is a rare and special thing. Overall though, for now, we love where we are and we hope more and more artists continue to discover Galaxy Smith.

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