Wildfires Wipe Out Studios For LA's Music Industry

(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)

The Palisades and Eaton fires wiped out two neighborhoods with unique significance in L.A.’s music industry. 

The LA Times reports the Palisades fire claimed ocean-view studios in Malibu, where Grammy winners lived and recorded platinum albums steps from the sand. Fifty miles away, the Eaton fire demolished a neighborhood adored by working artists and industry pros seeking space to work amid nature.

“Every single musician I know in Altadena lost everything,” Jake Viator, a mastering engineer for the local record label Stones Throw said. He had a garage studio in a neighborhood full of friends making music. “I kept waiting to hear somebody be like, ‘I’m cool,’ but no, the list is just unfathomable. Everyone I know, every single person, every business is gone. I can’t understand it.”

The fires ripped a path of destruction, one so total and instantaneous that it was concussive for L.A. The infernos have claimed at least 25 lives and more than 12,000 structures that included architectural landmarks and generations of family homes, and thousands of acres of nature. Life savings, memories and livelihoods: all cinders within hours.

In the days after, Los Angeles-area musicians and industry pros began to circulate a spreadsheet noting who had lost a home or workplace. The list stretched over 200 entries.

Lorely Rodriguez, known professionally as Empress Of, lost the Altadena home she shared with her mother. DIIV band member Zachary Cole Smith’s family lost their home while his wife is expecting a baby. Hip-hop artists Fat Tony and Madlib lost their home bases. So did “Bandsplain” podcaster Yasi Salek and Bennie Maupin, a member of Herbie Hancock’s elite Headhunters funk band. “70 years of history, family photographs, instruments, car and other family heirlooms completely gone,” Maupin’s son wrote on a GoFundMe.

(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)

The list cuts across class divides. Songwriting legend Diane Warren lost her beachfront home, as did the Foo Fighters’ Chris Shiflett and Grammy-winning Adele and “Wicked” producer Greg Wells. So did scores of lesser-known session musicians, publicists, tour crew, club promoters and radio DJs.

Taylor Goldsmith, frontman of the folk-rock band Dawes, lost his home studio to the Eaton fire. His family, including his wife, actor and singer Mandy Moore, and their three children, were fortunate that their main house survived, yet Goldsmith is shell-shocked by the Eaton fire’s toll.

Goldsmith lost all his equipment in the Eaton fire — “vintage guitars that were irreplaceable, ones my hands learned to play on that meant so much to me.” He worries that this will traumatize his community in perpetuity

“You can’t go around thinking everything can be ripped away from you in three hours at any time,” Goldsmith said. “It f— you up. But I don’t want to let this be what turns me away from living there. I don’t want to give up and move on and make pain permanent.”

Already, the music industry is fundraising for the thousands of displaced Angelenos. A major benefit concert is planned for Intuit Dome on Jan. 30.