Brad Pitt is set to reopen historic French recording studio Miraval Studios.
The actor purchased the studio in 2012 after it had lain dormant for half a decade.
Now Pitt is working alongside French producer and composer Damien Quintard to renovate the studio, with a plan to reopen it for recording sessions next summer.
“We clicked,” said Quintard of his meeting with the Hollywood star. “He came to my studio in Paris. It was a fantastic meeting. We talked for hours and hours. He talked to me about his plans for Miraval. I was obviously super excited, because as a Frenchman and a music lover, one of the Holy Grails is Miraval. I went over there, did my design for the space. We clicked on that side, and we moved forward.”
“With Brad, we redesigned everything to be so simple, so pure,” he added. “Light is everywhere. The future is light.”
The studio is housed within Pitt’s 900-acre winery. It measures 3,000 square feet with a 650 square foot control room. Along with his then partner Angelina Jolie, Pitt forked out $60 million to purchase the estate in 2012. The couple were wed on the grounds in 2014.
Described by Quintard as “a space where you can produce anything from pop and rock, to hip-hop and classical records,” the studio was built in 1977 by French jazz pianist Jacques Loussier. Initially the studio was used by French artists like Maxime Le Forestier and Pierre Vassiliu, but it soon began to attract international acts. In 1979 Pink Floyd travelled to France to record part of The Wall at Miraval. Over the next two decades the studio would attract such acts as AC/DC, Judas Priest, The Cranberries, The Cure, Muse, Wham!, David Sylvian, Chris Rea, Sade, The Go-Betweens, Steve Winwood, Yes, UB40, Shirley Bassey, The Gipsy Kings and Rammstein.
The last band to avail of Miraval was Muse, who recorded some tracks for their album Black Holes and Revelataions in 2006.
Quintard says he and Pitt will favour a recording approach based on simplicity when the studio reopens to artists.
“The thing I noticed is, he has an acute sense for emotions and simplicity,” he said of Pitt. “The most beautiful records are also done with absolute simplicity. My whole philosophy relates to that — the simple beauty of mono recordings from the 1950s and 1960s, using a single microphone.“
