Today we’d like to introduce you to Luke Anderson.
Hi Luke, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
I’ve been interested in music almost my entire life. I started with percussion in grade 5 and started guitar in grade 7. I was always drawn to music and remember my first recording experiences of using an old school tape player and dancing around making “ooo, girl” songs like Boyz 2 Men when I was like 8-10 years old.
Throughout high school, I participated in the school band as well as jazz band and pep-band. I had a couple friends that I jammed with in a band and we did some recordings of original material around 1999/2000. I graduated in 2001 and left home for Moorhead MN. At college, I explored the regimented programs at Moorhead State University and their music offerings. I also worked on my recording chops by taking my rig to friends places and recording demos of them as well as constantly working on my own recordings. I wanted to create a record label/studio that was called Diseased Records. With this, my path to studio ownership was enhanced by a friend having space to build out a studio which we did and created a couple albums out of an over-the-garage space north of Fargo before he moved away from that region.
I was un declared for most of my college experience and stopped college to begin a career in management for the restaurant I worked at part time. I juggled duties as a manager with band participation until I found myself married with kids. Music slowed during this time as I didn’t have any outlets for music aside from a practice space across town that I didn’t use nearly as much as I should have been. Upon separation in 2015, I toured a house for sale in which I immediately saw a musical and artistic future with. There was a blank canvas in the basement and a concrete room that worked perfectly for putting drums in. This was the beginning of Below Grade Studio. I built out the studio complete with a control room window out of 150 sqft of space that had two separate recording rooms and the control room. It was tight, but I tuned the rooms to get a great sound.
I reached out locally to some musicians that were looking for a drummer and soon found myself in a band playing around locally. One band interview I participated in led to me meeting Marty and the people at KRFF to work on supporting local musicians and getting content for the station by recording bands songs to play along with live interviews. I wanted to work with the radio station to get some advertisement as well as helping local musicians get some exposure and studio time for zero cost to the artists. This led to an explosion of work via that partnership that helped me build a portfolio of local talent that otherwise didn’t have recordings. The bands could use the recording for releases or other promo items of their choosing once the songs were utilized on the radio during their interview on Locals on the 8’s.
Momentum had built up during this time and I was working with as many people for pay as I was with the KRFF sessions, which continued up until the pandemic started shutting things down. During the shut down I had many sessions canceled which led me to remodel the space and expand the studio into the majority share of the basement, now encopassing almost 500 sqft of studio space with a large live room and a comfortable control room as well as storage space for instruments and microphones.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
The pandemic crushed the momentum I had built up to that point. I had a couple albums in the works that basically came to a stand still while everything was momentarily locked down. Eventually things started going, but the KRFF sessions never came back and the albums that were done took quite some time.
In effort to get things back to the busy times as before, I am working on getting the Free Sessions for local bands going again, though it will be a bit different. I do plan on supporting local radio with the sessions, but will be reaching a wider audience by engaging with regional, campus, and independent radio stations in a wider radius, reaching out to stations based from St. Cloud, Duluth, and the Twin Cities, to run the band interviews and their music in syndication from the recordings made at the studio.
As you know, we’re big fans of Below Grade Studio. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about the brand?
Below Grade Studio is my basement based studio in Moorhead that I own and operate. It’s setup for recording full bands efficiently using various methods dependent on the project preference. I’ve had the studio operating since November of 2015 after moving into the house. There has been a few iterations since being here with the most recent remodel happening during the pandemic. I expanded the space from essentially a corner closet to the majority share of my basement. The space is comfortable and oriented to spark creativity and to keep artists comfortable to get the best takes. Full bands are able to record together and I’ve even have had some jamband style groups in here recording fresh takes on the fly.
One of the sessions I’m most proud of was sponaneously being hired for a session from a touring band from Green Bay WI. They had a show in Fargo and wanted to get a recording together and found me online and reached out. We were able to record instrumentals “off the floor”, get vocals done, and mix the album all within a 4 hour period. It was a fast paced and fun session to be a part of.
Are there any books, apps, podcasts or blogs that help you do your best?
Some books I’ve read that have helped me stay centered with this endeavor are:
“Conscious Capitalism” by John Mackey and Raj Sisodia
“The War of Art” by Steven Pressfield
“Stillness is the Key” by Ryan Holiday
“Anarchy Evolution” by Greg Graffin and Steve Olson
Pricing:
- $60/Hr
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.belowgradestudio.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/belowgradestudio/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/belowgradestudio
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ailuke/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@belowgradestudio
