Today we’d like to introduce you to Patrick Sheufelt.
Patrick, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
I started playing and recording music in 2003 at the age of fourteen, I had already been in the school band program since 6th grade at this point, I played the trumpet, and was acutally quite good, I was told in 8th grade that my plan should be to go to music performance school and play professionally after that. However I (like many other young dudes in the early 00’s) was super into extreme sports, eventually my penchant for a constant adrenaline fix caught up with me, and I suffered a catastrophic maxillofacial injury -better known as a ‘faceplant’. In short, I fractured my upper jaw into so many pieces the attending physician declared ‘son I hate to tell you this…but your face is basically mush.
Needless to say, my trumpet career was over, and I walked into the band director’s office to turn in my stuff. “You can’t quit!” He exclaimed. “Mr. Gras, my face is mush.” I replied, “How am I supposed to play?” Mr. [Robert] Gras, -who is the single best instructor I’ve ever had, then did something that pretty much set the course of the rest of my life to date. He went out, bought me a bass guitar, and gave me private lessons for the rest of the summer, free of charge. By August I could play a bunch of jazz standards, and hack my way through some Blink 182, Green Day, Sabbath, and Black Flag. Parallel to the bass, Gras also put me on the drumline. I went from learning one instrument that’s difficult to translate into popular music, to learning two which are the foundation of it.
By October I had joined forces with my friends Ryan X Lane and Phil Smith to form our first band, Xaiver. At first of course we sucked, but over time the band had a few lineup changes, and evolved into something pretty impressive for a bunch of high schoolers, we were featured in regional publications and played some good shows most notably opening for Chiodos at the most unbelievably oversold show I’ve ever seen. We were heavily involved in booking, promoting, performing and photography in the Metro Detroit hall scene of the early 2000s.
When we got to college at CMU, Ryan and I formed a new band called Day In Day Out. That band continued for four years and played nearly 400 shows, we ran a venue out of our house called The Garage, which gained pretty good attention through the website DODIY.org. We had bands come on tour from as far away as Austria, it was a pretty special time and place.
After our van got stolen, and with the recession was in full swing, Day In Day Out called it quits and half the guys moved to Nashville. From there I attended a year of music performance school at GRCC, which was such a terrible experience that I dropped out, joined the fire/ems service and basically quit playing for four years and change. I even sold my drums at one point. Then one day out of the blue, my friend Joe Lordon (owner of Lone Light Spirits) called me up and offered me a job at the distillery he worked at. at the time in Detroit.
I was pretty burnt out at that point from being exposed to some pretty heinous stuff on a daily basis and working 90 hour weeks on the regular, and I readily accepted the offer. Once back in Detroit the only natural thing was to start playing again. A buddy called one day and said “hey man your old drums are up for sale on Craigslist.” It seemed like serendipity to me so I bought them back even though they were pretty beat to hell. I was told they’d been toured on extensively, and considering I bought them from a pack of rabid rugby players who used them as a punching bag, it just seemed right.
With new drums in hand it was time to form a new band, so I called up my old bassist and guitarist -Terry Bishop, and Steve Krantz respectively, and longtime filmmaking co-conspirator Kyle Minch (now head of The Pleasant Underground booking collective, who I work with regularly.) Together we formed a project we called Aperture. and set about writing an EP. When it came time to record, I pitched the idea that maybe we should acquire some equipment and do it ourselves. The guys agreed, and the studio was born. It started with a hockey bag full of half busted stuff brothers (Nick and Phil) had from their bedroom studio attempts while living with my parents.
From there we got super lucky and had the opportunity to purchase a storage unit, storage-wars-style, for $150. Inside we found about $3000 bucks worth of stuff, and I spent the next few years bartering, selling, flipping, buying, and generally just going as hard as possible to acquire quality equipment. We traveled the country, grabbing gear in Nashville, Ohio, New York, and all around Michigan.
Five years later, I was so deep in recording work being done in my basement, that it was bringing household life to a standstill at times, and I knew it was time to make the jump to a real facility. I had worked with some pretty cool artists such as The Suicide Machines, Frank White, Overdrive Orchestra, Never The Crash, and a multitude of others, and things were picking up steam.
I began to look for a spot, going out and literally combing the streets looking for the perfect location, I put together the staff, which now consists of:
Drew Guay – Engineer
Evan Klee-Peregon – Engineer/Touring FOH
Nick Sheufelt – Director of Photography
Phil Sheufelt – Stills and Luthiery
Travis Krajewski – Touring LD, session drummer,
Josh Rokuski – Composer, session pianist
Kristina Sheufelt – Fine art/Design
Together with our diverse skillset, we have created and are continuing to reinvent I/O Detroit Recording and Film Studio, a fully scalable production team, capable of doing anything from records, to full length documentaries, music videos, and anything else that involves audio or video.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
I wouldn’t say it’s been smooth, nothing ever is. But the trajectory has never taken a downturn. The only time I found myself in doubt of things was near the tail end of working out of the house, when it felt like I’d never find the right space, or people to partner with. It was getting exhausting, and I knew I could only land so many clients who were willing to pay good money to work out of a basement. It just felt like I was doomed to be stuck down there forever, but as is usually the case, when I had just about given up hope the perfect opportunity fell into my lap, and the rest is history.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I am primarily a recording engineer. I work full time out of my space with everyone at I/O, and teach engineering part time at Soundscape School for the Recording Arts. I also moonlight as FOH engineer at venues such as The Sanctuary, and Orchid Theatre.
I specialize in analog-digital hybrid recording. Our studio is fully equipped with a vintage Soundtracs console, outboard preamps, compression, and a professional grade patching system I set up to tie it all together. Additionally the studio features a large live room with high ceilings, plenty large enough to accommodate a live band, and it sounds excellent as a drum room. Very Electrical Audio Studio B vibes, for anyone who’s a real nerd about this stuff like I am.
What I’m known for, I’d say punk and hardcore. Those are the primary genres I play, and I just have an ear for that type of songwriting and production. People come to me for the drum sound, for the pre-production attention I give to my projects, and for the relaxed, sort of most-things-go atmosphere that I provide in the studio. I’ve always hated sterile feeling dentist office type studios, and when we were designing our rooms, that was a huge consideration. The feel has to be fun, if I’m not fun, you’re not going to have fun, and if you don’t have fun, the songs won’t sound fun. It’s just that simple.
What sets me apart? I have to include everyone else in that. What sets *us* apart, is pretty much all of the above, an eclectic vintage gear collection, good ears, decades of experience, world class audio monitoring (Shout out Mesanovic!) and just a general whatever-it-takes attitude. We’re dedicated to this stuff, this isn’t a hobby, it’s not a side gig. We wake up and do music and art every single day. I think the level of immersion is what really enables the whole sort of natural feel that we bring to productions.
What do you like best about our city? What do you like least?
Detroit rules. It’s the ultimate Cindarella Man comeback story. It makes me so happy every day to walk around here and be proud of how far it’s come, I do understand there are drawbacks to the revitalization, because in a vacuum greedy bad people will be extra greedy and extra shady. But it’s hard to look around this place and not be happy that it isn’t all boarded up a la 2009 anymore. It was rough for a very long time as the result of a string of devastatingly poor policy decisions, greed, corruption, etc. It seems that we may be coming out of that fog and I couldn’t be more here for it.
What I like best? Of course it’s the music scene. There are SO many different “tribes” as I like to call them, you’ve got the Emo scene, the DIY scene, the Hardcore Scene, the Punk Scene, the Metal guys are holding it down, and good old fashioned Rock is still alive and well. And that’s just the ones that I’m active in! There’s also a burgeoning Hip Hop scene, a historic Jazz Scene, tons of Gospel, and of course we are the birthplace of Techno/EDM as well. It’s absolutely insane the volume of music that comes out of this city. In my opinion we easily rival any other “music town” out there, we just don’t get the press because “Murder City USA” gets more clicks.
Least favorite part? The aforementioned gentrification and people trying to take advantage of the bad situation that was Detroit 15 years ago. I think the city could be a lot more stringent on developers. However, maybe I just choose to be an optimist, but I think the good far outweighs the bad.
Pricing:
- Per Project Basis
Contact Info:
- Website: https://IODetroit.com
- Instagram: @iodetroitstudio
- Youtube: @IODetroit
- Other: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4t7zwsF3aRkeLu5gIVTJIz?si=1be7846636964ea4
