Greenhouse Studios is a music recording facility founded by Bruce Levens in 1987. The facility has recorded over 1000 albums during the last 20 years. The studio was incorporated as Lions Gate Studios, subsequently changing its name to Vancouver Studios before finally settling on the Greenhouse Studios name.
The band Nickelback recorded the Silver Side Up album at Greenhouse Studios. This album would yield the #1 played radio song, 'This is How You Remind' of the decade 2000-2009 according to Neilsen Soundscan. Nickelback would also be named the music group of the decade by Billboard Magazine. Nickelback recorded 3 albums at Greenhouse Studios.
The careers of international stars k.d. lang, Queensryche and Sarah McLachlan were built on songs recorded at Greenhouse Studios. The facility has also recorded for many of Canada's top bands including 54:40, Default, Wide Mouth Mason, Matthew Good Band, Age of Electric, Odds, Spirit of the West, Barney Bentall, Colin James and Pluto.
An unknown torch singer from Alberta started recording at Greenhouse in the late 1980s. k.d. lang would end up recording five different projects with Greenhouse including the Engenue album, the album that gave her international status and won a Grammy Award for engineering for Marc Raemer. It is the only album recorded in Western Canada to achieve this lofty distinction.
Greenhouse Studios has hosted numerous international clients during the last 22 years. Queensryche recorded and mixed the Empire album. Skidrow recorded the album Sub-Human Race, the followup to their debut. Roger Daltrey of The Who recorded vocal tracks at the studio.
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The main consoles have been SSL G & E series; the studio operated four SSL rooms for a couple of years. The studio moved from two-inch analog tape to Protools recording in 2001; RADAR has also been used for many years.
The initial studio was designed by Westlake Audio. Subsequent studios were designed by the Levens brothers with input and tweaking from several music producer–engineers and studio designers. Studio B is the only music studio in Western Canada to record an album, k.d. lang's Ingenue, that won a Grammy Award for engineering.
Engineer Marc Raemer built his career which included a Grammy Award for engineering the kd lang album Ingenue. Jason Mauza continued his recording career in LA. Dave Ashton recorded many projects including the breakthrough Nickelback album; Dave moved to LA and continued to build his career. The studio started working with Joey Moi in the late 1990s. Moi worked with Chad Kroeger and has been involved in all the Nickelback recordings. He and Kroeger were instrumental in the development of Theory of a Deadman, Default and Thornley, among other projects.
Corey Dixon started as a junior audio technician at Greenhouse. Dixon owns and operates Big Valley Audio and continues to work with Greenhouse Studios.
Client services and front end has been home to several talented people. Anne-Marie Damjanovic would go on to run Reely Unique, a specialty audio rental service for many years. Mimi Northcott founded and operates Canadian Recording Services, a music referral service and producer management company. Rhian Gittins moved to LA and worked at the A&M recording studios; she would marry Dave Navarro. Tanya Coughlin joined EMI publishing Canada. Lindsay Reinhelt became a concert promoter and also has a career as a performing artist.
A recording studio of the same name existed in Old Street, London and was home to producers Pat Collier and Jessica Corcoran who were responsible for hit album for The Wonder Stuff, Neds Atomic Dustbin and Mega City Four amongst others.