A musician-turned-producer, Tristan began his music engineering career in Brisbane, before relocating to creative hub Melbourne.
His interest in music began in high school, playing in various bands and writing music, but as he progressed to university his interest in producing music peaked.
While Tristan was studying at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) he produced music for his friends bands, and even his own band, leading to the organic transition of becoming a producer full time.
Tristan explained his lucky meeting that got his foot in the door of the music industry, “towards the end of my degree I was fortunate enough to meet Pete Gardener, a producer and engineer who was also a tutor at QUT.”
“Pete was working at Psi-Fi Studios in Fortitude Valley, a facility owned and operated by Chris Neehause and he offered me to come sit in on a few of his sessions and to introduce me to Chris.
“They showed me the ropes of the studio and in no time I was off bringing in my own projects, producing bands like Ball Park Music, Cub Sport (known as Tim Nelson and the Cub Scouts back then), Jackalpac and many others. I spent a good few years there before moving on to work at QUT’s Gasworks Studios, which was a really pivotal moment in my career.”
Often travelling back to Brisbane to work with local artists, Tristan works at West End’s Alchemix Recording Studio, “Alchemix is my favourite studio in Brisbane. It’s run by the ever lovely Marly Luske who saw a great opportunity for a large-room studio facility in Brisbane, which are quite hard to come by anywhere in Australia these days.
“While it’s a professional place of work, I love how homely and boutique he’s made it with the array of pianos, synths, guitar amps, microphones etc that are in-house and at your disposal.
“The studio environment itself is very relaxed and not at all intimidating, which artist’s find really important when going in to make a record. I’ve worked in some big fancy studios and it can really psych an artist out and impact their ability to perform.”
Tristan describes the music scene in West End as tight knit, incredibly vibrant and supportive.
“It’s strange to say, but it wasn’t until I moved to Melbourne that I realised how great it is. In larger cities music scenes are usually fragmented based on genre, but in Brisbane it’s more of a melting pot, an amalgamation of styles and because of this you can get some really interesting cross-genre music surfacing.”
Tristan says in the future he’d like to write and record an album of his own.
Despite having chosen a producing path for now, he says, “I’m first and foremost a music lover and creator, without that I’m not sure what metric you would use to make records.”
Readers also enjoyed our story on Rockinghorse Studios
