Watchmen Recording Studios is a music recording facility owned and operated by Doug White, located in Lockport, New York, USA. The studio opened for business to the public in 1995. The Studio itself records over 150 both local and national artists a year, totaling over 2,000 different bands since its opening in 1995. The facility itself is a small eight room studio that is located on the tail end of a business plaza in Lockport New York; drawing in local bands from Rochester and many other Western New York Areas.
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Watchmen Studios was founded by White in 1989 after returning home to Western New York from The Art Institute of Atlanta with an associates degree in Audio Engineering and Music Management. The studio originated in White's parent's basement, where he and his fellow band mates at the time built a small facility to do their own recording. White's band's name was the Watchmen. Because only his band was recording at the time, the studio itself inherited the name.
| “ | Eventually the Watchmen disbanded and some of them went on to form Snapcase. I sort of stayed with the recording thing. I built up a recording base of clients and In 1995 I moved into a commercial building and have been there recording ever since.[1] | ” |
Since its commercial opening in 1995, Doug White has hosted and produced music for many successful bands that steam locally from the Western New York area.
In 2008, Alex Kerns of the band Lemuria talks about the experiences at Watchmen Studios:
| “ | All of our records have been recorded at the same recording studio in Lockport, NY: Watchmen Studios, with the except of the split 7” we did with Frame at Harvest Sum Studios in Orchard Park, NY. Our first demo was recorded at Watchmen and the new album was recorded there as well. It’s pretty insane if you listen to the recording quality back to back and to think that both recordings were birthed from the same studio. I think our growing comfort with the studio and Doug White who runs the place is responsible for the quality of the recording and our performance on it. Doug even turns on some mood lighting while I drum.[2] | ” |
RIAA is the Recording Industry of America. Doug White was given two awards from the RIAA for 1,000,000 copies sold for the single Cupids Choke hold by the band Gym Class Heroes. The other award presented to Doug was for 500,000 copies sold of the Gym Class Hero's Album Cruel as Children. Doug also produced the Album For the Kids for the Gym Class Heroes.
Tearwave is Doug White's current band. They are signed to Projekt Records, which is owned by Sam Rosenthal. Tearwave has released two albums under Projekt Records, the first is self titled and the second release is titled A Different Shade of Beauty
In an interview with The Apparatus, Doug talks about Tearwave:
| “ | Tearwave is a old school shoegaze band in the vein of cocteau twins, slowdive, lush. We are signed to the legendary goth label Projekt. Shoegaze has always been a passion of mine. The sad ambient textures and flowing female vocals were always something I loved to listen to. So I put Tearwave together last year and it all happened really quickly for us. We got very lucky.[1] | ” |