For many of the movie and TV business, the devastating L.A.-area fires of the final week have a minimum of prevented scorching the studios the place the work largely happens. However there’s no such comfort for a lot of of those that work on the music facet, because the professional-grade dwelling studios of untold numbers of producers, engineers and musicians have gone up in flames alongside their precise residences.

That’s true for music producer Greg Wells, who misplaced his state-of-the-art Dolby Atmos mixing room and studio alongside along with his household dwelling in Pacific Palisades. He’s removed from alone in struggling that double-whammy; producer-mixer Bob Clearmountain is one other famend Palisades resident who misplaced each his dwelling and a significantly tricked-out studio, and seemingly numerous musicians in Altadena suffered the twin lack of private {and professional} constructions.

For Wells, it occurred simply as he was getting ready to renew work on “Depraved: For Good.” The truth is, simply two days earlier than catastrophe struck, the producer was being celebrated with a profile in Selection speaking about his two and a half years of labor on the movies up to now — together with a “Depraved: Half One” soundtrack album that’s nonetheless comfortably lodged in Billboard’s high 10. Bringing out the Dickensian maxim concerning the worst of occasions abutting the perfect hardly begins to do justice to such an abrupt reversal of fortune.

Within the followup interview with Selection that Wells might by no means have imagined doing, he says, “I’ve by no means forgotten being up in a tea room the place I received a bit of fortune and it stated, ‘The one factor everlasting is impermanence.’ And that’s relevant day by day, however after the euphoric excessive of ‘Depraved’ popping out and doing what it’s doing, which is thrilling and great, after which seeing simply how fragile issues will be… You already know, I feel life is meant to be exhausting. I’m undecided it’s speculated to be fairly this difficult. Nevertheless it could possibly be so, so, a lot worse than it’s. I do know quite a few folks have died, however the folks instantly near me and my household, we’re all wholesome and secure — and type of depressed and bewildered.”

Wells (who has labored with such artists as Katy Perry, Adele, Dua Lipa, Celine Dion and Twenty One Pilots, together with producing the “Biggest Showman” soundtrack) had what might have been probably the most superior Atmos rooms on the town proper in his yard. “It’s the nicest combine room I’ve ever labored in — a state-of-the-art, immersive, 7.1 Atmos room that Dolby helped me put collectively and tuned many occasions for me. It was designed by (famend studio architect) Peter Grueneisen, who’s constructed seven studios for Hans Zimmer. Past the (ultra-modern) stuff, there have been these Nineteen Fifties RCA tube compressors from the Little Richard/Elvis period, actually distinctive items that had all the time simply made me salivate. It was a very type of bucket checklist factor… like, I’m an outdated man, I’ve been doing this my entire life, and I’m lastly gonna have an awesome combine room. However what are you gonna do?

“I had such a set of unbelievable recording gear, like a custom-made, 48-channel analog console made by Paul Wolff, who used to personal API, and 17 audio system in that room, six within the ceiling, three on every wall, two on the rear wall, 4 big subwoofers up entrance — only a magical, magical room.

“However,” he provides, “I simply need to remind myself, it’s actually right down to the folks and to the concepts, and none of that stuff makes a music higher. So I’m not gonna let it outline me.”

One comfort is that he had his devices in a second studio he retains in Santa Monica. The irony of it’s that he purchased that different studio from one other big-name producer, Butch Walker, who supplied it to him in what was actually sort of a fireplace sale. “Butch had two homes burn down in California. He went by way of it as soon as, needed to cope with the insurance coverage firm; then it occurred, I feel, 10 years later. And the second time he simply thought, ‘Fuck this. I can’t dwell in California anymore.’ So he moved again to Tennessee along with his spouse and their youngster.”

Wells isn’t about to go as far as to maneuver to Tennessee, however he thinks he could also be performed with Pacific Palisades, which has been a beloved place to him and his household.

“I wouldn’t put my household again in that line of fireplace — pardon the pun. I simply wouldn’t,” he says. “Plus, that’s an space greater than Manhattan that simply received leveled, like a small nuclear bomb went off, so the rebuild issue is gonna take so lengthy. Everybody’s gonna be doing it. It’s gonna be so loud; it’s gonna be all this shit within the air. Neglect the asbestos and the smoke and all the pieces from the stuff that did burn down, however all the brand new builds… There’s one million explanation why I don’t suppose that’s the place we will return to, which is heartbreaking, as a result of it’s so particular. However yeah, undoubtedly time to decide on someplace else. I personally really feel prefer it’s simply gonna occur once more, after which once more, after which once more.”

His analogy concerning the devastation that simply occurred in his hometown: “I simply really feel like we have been preventing a T. Rex with toothpicks.”

He was not even round for the evacuation, all the pieces accelerated so shortly within the Palisades. “I went out that morning for an optometry examination and I by no means went again. I had a child at dwelling, getting over pneumonia, nonetheless asleep, and my spouse was there and received the alert to evacuate. We type of simply arrogantly thought, ‘There’s no rush… That is gonna be OK.’ After which I received a name from one in every of my older youngsters who grew up within the Palisades, and he stated, ‘You guys have gotten to get out proper now,’ displaying me images of simply how shut the flames have been. So my spouse received out with our passports — and that was it. However at that second we have been pondering, ‘We’ll return. We’ll be again as quickly because the mud settles.’”

Wells cherished the truth that his city was not essentially a music haven. “The property taxes we pay within the Palisades, it’s so nuts, however I’ve all the time been into paying by way of the enamel to dwell in that neighborhood simply due to the ocean air, and since I’ve a variety of youngsters. The Palisades village was like a Excessive Road in London; you might stroll and push a stroller there and eat or purchase no matter you wanted. The Palisades was virtually like from one other time, type of Mayberry. Mort’s Deli was so fantastically bizarre and constant, and I cherished all of the little mom-and-pop retailers within the village, although that’s all been Caruso-fied now. I cherished how shut it was to the insanity of Los Angeles, however faraway from it. I like how sq. it’s.” Whereas noting that JJ Abrams and different leisure huge pictures have properties there, “the Palisades is usually retired academics or folks in finance,” Wells says. “There’s hardly any musicians that dwell there. Nobody actually is aware of what I do, and I kind of like that. Hanging out with a whole bunch of musicians, it’s all the time like, ‘Oh, what are you engaged on?’ — there’s a aggressive factor that naturally kind of seems, and that by no means occurs there.”

As for the way he feels proper now, the Palisades dream is over. “It was such a shit present when that broke out, with no evacuation plan. I don’t perceive why there wasn’t a plan in place, why nothing was rehearsed, however folks couldn’t drive out. I’m not complaining concerning the firefighters as a result of they’re really heroic in ways in which I can’t even start to think about. Clearly the hearth chief is saying that town failed them. I simply really feel like we have been frolicked to dry. We knew this was gonna occur. Smaller variations of it have occurred many occasions up to now, and it was only a query of when.

“These loopy excessive winds blowing in the correct course — there’s an X issue there however that’s not a thriller; that occurs yearly, and we’ve simply been fortunate that it hasn’t occurred fairly within the mixture that it did this yr. I’d say it’s additionally type of the hubris of individuals pondering that they will dwell in such a dry local weather, mainly a desert, and ‘Let’s hold the sprinklers on. It’s gonna be OK.’ It’s so lovely right here, however there’s such danger. It actually looks like sitting in entrance of a blowtorch with a kind of huge followers they’ve on film units that might activate at any level.”

He doesn’t purport to have all of the solutions, however he’s distressed at how hardly ever the questions got here up. “What do you do? For one factor you construct pipes up from the ocean and flippantly desalinate the water… There’s simply one thing so insidious about being beside the world’s largest ocean and having this occur. I know salt water’s unhealthy for vegetation, however I don’t suppose it’s as unhealthy as what simply occurred.

“Truly, I feel it’s like drunk driving. If I used to be accountable for a spot like this, understanding that it was underneath that type of danger, which is clear — it’s not woo-woo, it’s not QAnon — it’s easy science. The firefighters themselves have been warning for years towards this precise factor occurring, in the identical means that sure medical doctors have been warning for years about one thing like COVID coming by way of. It’s not scaremongering. It’s like that Ibsen play, ‘Enemy of the Folks,’ the place just one man has the nerve to say the water on this new spa that’s supposed to avoid wasting the city’s economic system is poisonous and persons are gonna get sick. It actually does type of remind me of that.”

Wells and his household are driving out the aftermath additional up the coast, although he was returning to Santa Monica when he spoke with Selection, making a visit to filter out the devices from his studio. There’s a while to determine the place his work on “Depraved: For Good” will resume, though not lots.

“The whole lot’s backed up in a secure means,” he says of the MIDI demos that he did for each movies’ soundtracks previous to their capturing. “The clock is ticking as a result of we’re making an attempt to report the orchestra in Might this yr; final yr (for ‘Half One’) it was June, so there’s lots to do between from time to time. And I’ve misplaced all my computer systems aside from one. There’s only a lot to switch and work out the place I’m gonna do that and the way I’m gonna do it. And that’s all manageable. I’ll determine it out.”

Extra urgent are quick points like the youngsters’ education, with no mounted base for the household at current. He’s nonetheless in shock. “It’s actually not till I say to any individual else what simply occurred to us, after which I see it of their face, that I understand the complete heaviness of what we’re going by way of. As a result of it doesn’t totally really feel prefer it’s occurring. It’s so, so surreal.

“There’s a trick that you may play with folks — it’s wonderful how the mind works this manner — the place you’re sitting at a desk, you take a look at all the pieces on the desk, and also you get the particular person taking part in the sport to cowl their eyes, then you definately take away one factor from the desk,. Then they open their eyes and it’s actually exhausting for them to inform what’s lacking as a result of they haven’t seen the factor depart. It’s so surreal then to seek out out that, like, a plate of meals has gone lacking or no matter.

“There’s simply that bizarre factor of not having closure, of not saying goodbye to a factor. That is that have, exponentially ramped up.”

(Learn Selection‘s authentic interview with Wells about engaged on “Depraved” right here.)