Inside the ‘secret gem’ Litherland recording studios attracting Grammy award winners

A ‘secret gem’ recording studios in Litherland is attracting some of the music industry’s top names including Grammy award winners.

Soundhouse Recording Studios has been a passion for owner Shaun Hunt for more than 40 years.

The former musician and teacher built it bit by bit from when he was a student in the early 1980s and added the best quality equipment and instruments.

Now rare analogue and the latest digital tech combine to create a hybrid set-up that’s making it sought-after by top producers and engineers. 

In just the past six months, Mike Hedges who’s worked with The Cure, Manic Street Preachers, Travis and U2, has been in Soundhouse twice. Multi-Grammy award winner Robbie Nelson has been there three times and it’s welcomed Jim Lowe, whose credits include Stereophonics, Herbie Hancock and Taylor Swift.

“These guys who are some of the biggest producers around are looking at us, seeing what we’ve got and suddenly they’re all coming here,” says Shaun.  “Almost 45 years since we first opened, we’re really causing a major stir.”

Now 64, Shaun’s own love affair with music started when he was just 12, playing keyboards and gigging around Litherland.

He carried on playing – with artists like Andy Williams and The Drifters when they came to Liverpool – and spent his spare time creating the studio on land owned by his dad.

“I built this studio brick by brick every summer, from nothing, while I was at Liverpool Uni and just kept on adding more and more to it,” he explains.

“Once I got my degree I went into teaching. I started at St Kevin’s in Kirkby as a student music teacher, and two years later I was an advisory teacher for music in Knowsley and I was working with Knowsley Youth Choir & Orchestra. I just loved getting kids excited about music.”

Although he was still gigging, by the late ‘80s Soundhouse became so popular that he moved out of education to work there full time.

“I taught myself to do the production side, there wasn’t really anywhere you could go to learn then, and the second piece of kit I bought was a Roland Juno 60 which is still here. Now it’s known as the keyboard that created the Stranger Things tune and people desperately want them.

“I’ve got stuff from the ‘60s that’s older than me and from the 1970s and ‘80s that’s original, you can’t get it anymore. I just followed my heart and bought what I loved.”

The centrepiece of the control room is Shaun’s huge mixing desk which, he says, is a model widely accepted as the mixer behind more platinum albums than any other.

He installed that in 1987 and it’s now one of the main reasons why so many leading producers and engineers make their way to Litherland.

“Abbey Road Studios is an amazing place and if you go to Abbey Road Studio Three you’ll see they took out the later versions and had one of these reconstructed, that’s how special it is.”

When the trend moved to digital, and studios began ditching analogue mixers and tape machines, Shaun kept the faith and decided to blend the two.

“It’s been updated in the right way so analogue and digital talk to each other. Digital is very easy to use and there are so many amazing things you can do with it, you can re-tune voices, you can re-time drummers, but in my opinion it isn’t better.”

Ill health forced Shaun to step back from running the studio around 2015, and he would just hire out the space on request.

But then post-Covid, he met producer Russ Cottier who shared the same ethos that he did, and Shaun recognised he would be a perfect fit for Soundhouse.

“I’d always been aware that Soundhouse existed, and I came in here to see a guy who worked with Prodigy and met Shaun that way,” recalls Russ. “I’ve seen some cracking studios, and worked in some of the biggest studios around the world including Abbey Road, but I was amazed at what was hidden away in Litherland.”

Russ, from Wirral, came to Soundhouse 18 months ago as resident producer and house engineer.

“One of the great things about this place is Shaun’s invested in really great guitars, amps, a late 1960s drum kit, so you can literally just walk in with a song and everything is here and can be ready to go,” he says.

“The hybrid set-up means we don’t have to use tape if we don’t want to, we can do great things with digital, but there’s just something about making records in the old way that people really engage with.

“I’ll get people to perform together so the record is live and if, as a musician, you can come in and not feel like you’re being recorded that’s always my aim – to make modern sounding records with the feel of a classic record.”

With Grammy winners already diaried in to return in 2025, Shaun says he still gets a buzz from a busy studio.

“I love being here, coming in and knowing it’s mine, seeing it being used – and I feel vindicated in not throwing this stuff out!”

Find out more about Soundhouse Recording Studios here.

Read more features from The Guide Liverpool here.