Morin-Heights studio | When André Perry was part of the club of the best

“My goal in life, it has always been to belong to the best club,” says André Perry in the office of his splendid house in Saint-Sauveur.

In the early 1970s, the one who had made his classes as a drummer in dance orchestras, then as a director and producer, had barely mid-Tentaine, but already felt that he reached a ceiling.

His first studio? It was rue Verville, in his subsoil in Montreal-Nord, before he moved to Brossard, where he made the album of Robert Charlebois with Louise Forestier in 1968 (that of Lindberg) et Jaune From Ferland in 1970. From modernity to Quebec song, he is the birthday.

Then conflicts with the city force him to leave Brossard. He then took possession of an Anglican church near the Saint-Jacques market, rue Amherst, but the heart is not there. In 1969, it was he who had recorded and co -produced the Give Peace a Chance by John Lennon and Yoko Ono during their bed-in At the Reine Elizabeth hotel, an experience that had already sown the seed of international aspirations.

In 1972, he offered himself a sabbatical and went on an expedition, soak up the minds of several influential studios, everywhere on the planet, including the Barclay studios in Paris as well as the Electric Lady Studios and the Plant Record in New York. “And with each visit, I said to myself:” We can do better than that. ” »»

As in first class

Even if he already had a house in the area, André Perry did not necessarily want to settle in Morin-Heights, this small municipality of the Laurentides especially known for his ski slopes. What was he looking for? A lake. A lake which, today, is called Lake Perry, in its honor.

Next step, after finding the lake in question: building, of course, then ensuring that the word happens. The world of music is, fortunately, a sort of village: Montreal Lewis Furey, who had mixed his 1975 Homonym album in the studio, counted on the same manager as Cat Stevens, a certain Barry Krost.

“Her manager made Cat heard Lewis Is Crazy And he found that it sounded well. He had to come for four days, he stayed two months. André Perry smiles. “It must be said that he was in pain of love. »»

Beyond his sorrow, it is love at first sight between Cat Stevens and Morin-Heights: in addition to recording three albums in full (Numbers) or in part (Ties et Back to Earth), he would have, according to André Perry, wrote the song Two Fine People In tribute to his wife, Yaël Brandeis, and to him.

Certainly: the couple’s magnanimity and their tender kindness towards artists will have contributed a lot to the success of their business.

At 88, André Perry is still one of those people whose charisma radiates and who, perhaps because it is clear that a thousand projects await him, makes you feel privileged to find you in his presence.

“It was like flying in first class,” illustrates Glen Robinson, who was the last engineer in his residence on André Perry, and who has since worked with Voivod, U2 and Dave Grohl. “I have never seen another studio directed with so much passion. There was this good alive side, always very attentive, in André and Yaël. »»

Royal visit

The one who had the young twenty remembers very well one night, not to say a night, where, while he was striving on the mix of a song, his boss entered a royal guest.

“I was so in the area that I did not immediately realize that André had just entered with Sting. He was an hour and a half in the morning and he went to get him in Montreal. André presents it to me as if nothing had happened: “Do you know Sting, right?” And they start to chat in the control room, before Sting went to play the piano. »»

During the 1980-1981 holidays, Sting stayed for the first time in Morin-Heights with his wife and their son, another kid. André Perry takes them to get ski equipment, but realizes that the singer rereads the studio, whose keys he lends him. The Police will record portions of Ghost in the Machine (1981) and Synchronicity (1983).

For years, as soon as he went through Quebec, Sting could count on André Perry to go and pick him up, at the airport or at the forum, in his Rolls-Royce.

“Another day,” says Glen Robinson, Yaël calls me in a panic: Sting came to it and she wanted to prepare her favorite chocolate cake, but she didn’t have the ingredients. I rolled at full speed to the nearest grocery store. »»

The studio as an instrument

The cappuccino machine, the small dishes prepared by chef André-Paul Moreau, the picturesque view from the main room, the tidy house on the other side of the lake: the comfort offered to the studio testifies to an era of opulence for the disc industry where an artist could, at the expense of his label, to land somewhere for several weeks, even several months.

But beyond the reception, if the studio was so asked, it is thanks to what it allowed to accomplish on the musical and sound level.

Geddy Lee wrote it in 2023 in his autobiography, My Effin’ Life : Rush first wanted to record in Morin-Heights for its Trident A-Ranged console, later replaced by the SL 4000 B Series, among the first automated consoles-the studio was the second place to receive this model after Abbey Road.

For André Perry, it was important that his studio serves first and foremost as a musical instrument, adapting to the sensitivity and ambitions of each of the tenants, rather than an artist where an artist came to marry a specific sound (as with a muscle shoals in alabama or at Sound City in Los Angeles).

“If you listen to Chicago [Chicago 13, 1979]les Bee Gees [Children of the World, 1976] et David Bowie [Tonight, 1984, vraiment pas son meilleur album]you will see that there is not a cursed that sounds the same. They all have their sound. »»

The end of an era

In 1988, faced with the rise of duplication on cassette and the numerous transformations in the record industry, André Perry left for the studio. In 1993, the Spectra team, behind the International Jazz Festival and the Francos, managed to extend its life.

Some other memorable albums are created there, of which Fumbling Towards Ecstasy (1994) by Sarah McLachlan, that of the return of beautiful damage in 1994 and The Woman in Me (1995) by Shania Twain (mixing only).

“At the end, perhaps a third party of what Perry could be received in rent could receive at the time,” explains André Ménard, former vice-president of Spectra, about the decision to close the studio in 2003, because of the proliferation of tools allowing to manage at home.

In 2009, an investor tried to transform the place into a spa, a project that never materialized. Squatters camped there, then the studio flew to flames in August 2017 following a criminal fire.

Married to life to death at his Yaël (“we still love each other as adolescents”), but also to music, André Perry heads today, with his comrade René Laflamme, the 2xHD label, specialized in high definition reissues, for Audiophiles.

“Passion is all that matters in life,” he says. And me, my passion is still music. When I am tired, or when I am down, I put a record, I close my eyes, I listen and I rename it. »»