Rockfield: The Studio on the Farm

Feature Documentary // ieie Productions

50 years ago, deep in the Welsh countryside, two brothers were milking cows and preparing to take over the family farm – but dreamed of making music. They had the audacious idea to build a studio in their farmhouse attic and record their own tunes. Animals were kicked out of barns and musicians were moved into Nan’s spare bedroom. Inadvertently, they launched the legendary Rockfield studios.

Black Sabbath, Oasis, Coldplay, Stone Roses, Robert Plant, Simple Minds and more recall the mayhem and music they made at Rockfield over the decades. This is a story of rock and roll dreams intertwined with a family business’s fight for survival in the face of an ever-changing music landscape.

 

Director: Hannah Berryman
Producer: Catryn Ramasut
Composer: Alexander Parsons
Editor: Rupert Houseman

 

★★★★★ THE TELEGRAPH | Anita Singh
“A wonderful tale of pigs, drugs and rock ‘n roll”

★★★★★ iNEWS | Emily Baker
“This joyous, funny, exciting documentary captured [Rockfield’s] infectious, inspiring nature perfectly.”

 


About the Score

 

As the film contained music by artists who recorded there, Hannah Berryman (director) and I intended for my score to represent a voice of the studio itself and at its heart, the warmth of the family who built and manage it to this day.

Hannah’s starting point for discussion was that the score should feel handmade – as if it were being played by a band noodling away in the corner of a pub. As we needed to cover a range of emotions and different decades of recording, the music needed to develop too, whilst at the same time conveying a studio that stayed stuck in time, insisting on recording directly to tape and with original and outdated (as some might consider) equipment.

I used a selection of old synthesisers and battered old tape machines to create the score, which at times voiced the humour of the tales of drugs and debauchery in the studio, but also brought out the deeper emotional stories in the film, including a theme for the death of Charlatans drummer Rob, who died in a car crash at Rockfield in the 90s.