What do '70s soft rockers the Captain and Tennille have in common with '90s metal merchants Guns N' Roses? A lot more than you would think.
The hard-rock group's multimillion-selling "Appetite for Destruction" and "GNR Lies" were both recorded at Rumbo Recorders in a suburban Los Angeles community.The studio, built in 1979, is owned by the Captain and Tennille - Daryl Dragon and wife Toni Tennille. The couple, you will remember, had No. 1 hits with "Love Will Keep Us Together" and "Do That to Me One More Time."
Rumbo's location is apparently part of the attraction for Guns N' Roses, Motley Crue, Tom Petty and others who have recorded best-selling albums there.
"Because it was way out in the West (San Fernando) Valley, it was considered a vacation area back in the late '70s," Dragon said by telephone earlier this week. "I didn't like the direction Hollywood was going. I was scared to go out in the parking lot (at some studios there) late at night. The bands needed a place to record where there weren't a lot of groupies around. Rumbo is a nice, loose place with not a lot of pressure."
Among the hit albums recorded at Rumbo: "Mystery Girl" by Roy Orbison, "Full Moon Fever" by Tom Petty and "Girls, Girls, Girls" by Motley Crue.
Studio rates range from $900 a day for the 24-track Studio B to $2,000 a day for the larger, 48-track Studio A. Artists bring their own engineers and producers.
"We never operate by saying, `You've got to be out by 6,' " Dragon explained. "In order to be creative, the bands have to have that (loose) feeling. Everybody that's ever been here has commented on that. I've been in these other (Hollywood) studios, and they're very hard-core and cold. If I had to run a studio like that, I'd sell it tomorrow."