Sound man

Sound Man

You'd never know it if you walked past it, but tucked into a red-bricked building on Whittier Square sits a recording stud

by: MATT ELLIOTT World Scene Writer
3/11/2007

Stephen Egerton, formerly with the bands The Descendents and All, and Ryan Wallace, at their studio Armstrong Recording Feb. 13.

Descendents' guitarist Stephen Egerton helms Tulsa recording studio

You'd never know it if you walked past it, but tucked into a red-bricked building on Whittier Square sits a recording studio helmed by a member of one of the most influential groups in punk rock's short history.

That's by design, said Descendents' guitarist Stephen Egerton, who runs Armstrong Recording near Admiral Boulevard and Lewis Avenue. Instead of a flashy sign and publicity, he's been relying on word of mouth and the Internet to get clients for his studio, which he started in August of 2004.

"(Recording) has always been a huge passion for me," said Egerton, 42, sitting in the control room of his studio. "I just love recording."

Sharing the business with engineer Ryan Wallace, the studio has recorded everyone from local pop rockers the Effects, One Night Scam, to the metal bands Vito Ninefingers and Down for Five.

He started the studio after he moved here with his wife, a Tulsan, from Fort Collins, Colo., where he worked at the Blasting Room studio, founded by Descendents and Black Flag members in 1994. Clients at the Colorado studio have included NOFX, the Casualties, Rise Against, Anti-Flag, MxPx and Less Than Jake.

But what about the Descendents?

The on-again, off-again, punk band sprang in 1978 out of the fertile southern California punk rock scene that produced legends that ranged from Bad Religion, the Dead Kennedys and Social Distortion to Black Flag.

While other bands focused on politics (the Dead Kennedys and Black Flag) and philosophy (Bad Religion), the Descendents took the elitism out of punk rock, writing high-energy songs about a bad day at work, girls, and not wanting to grow up and be like the straights.

The Descendents' no-nonsense live shows, no-fronts personality and sense of melody made it a hit on the local scene. They were big enough for the band members to make a decent living, helped along by their es chewing of rock excesses.

The band didn't get the fame or the money that others received, but many popular bands within the pop-punk landscape cite them as influences, said Egerton, who joined the Descendents in 1986.

"The kids that were at those shows, the young kids coming to see us in those shows, were, you know, the Blink-182s, the Green Days, the Offsprings," he said. "We brought a little nugget to the table that a bunch of people ran with and kind of made it into something, you know, something that had a really big impact on music all the way around."

The band's eight studio albums were churned out between singer Milo Aukerman's stints at college and his career in science. A cartoon version of Aukerman's face appeared on many of the band's album covers.

"(Aukerman's) driving passion is definitely science. Music is very much a hobby for him," said Egerton. "For him, pursuing music commercially is an injustice to what he enjoys about it."

During those periods when the Descendents would go on hiatus, some of its members -- including Egerton -- formed ALL, a band that released a fist-full of albums.

Last he heard, Egerton said Aukerman, with his doctoral degree in biochemistry, was working for Du Pont.

"The last thing I knew, he was constructing hybrids of corn that would grow in places with really short growing seasons, like Canada and that kind of thing," Egerton said.

The Descendents' most recent album, "Cool to Be You," came out in 2004. That disc came after a long, dry spell that followed the release of "Everything Sucks," the band's most successful studio release.

The band's start in pursuit of such simple pleasures as "fishing, girls and velocity" (according to the band's Web site) seems almost a direct ancestor to bands such as Bowling for Soup.

But as the band's members grew older, touring in its self-modified, 20-foot delivery trucks became less common.

These days, Egerton balances his recording work with his many musical side-projects, including 40Engine, created with former ALL singer Scott Reynolds. On top of that is his family life, raising two children, Felix and Sophie, with wife Natalie, a social worker working on her master's degree.

Looking back on his childhood in Salt Lake City (the character Stevo in the 1999 film "SLC Punk" was named for Egerton), recording seemed like such a difficult and distant goal. These days, digital recording has made it so much easier.

"When I was a kid, there was no access to something like this," he said.

Regardless of whether the Descendents get back together again, Egerton can look back on the band without regrets.

"I'm proud of what we did and and the way we did it, you know. And I would do it that way all over again," he said.

"If we would've gotten famous, well, great, whatever. The art behind it is what we cared about. We didn't care about the commercial success of it that much."

Matt Elliott 581-8366
matt.elliott@tulsaworld.com

www.myspace.com/armstrongrecording