A British rock band founded in 1962, Status Quo recorded the album “1+9+8+2” at Mountain Studios, released in 1982, at a time when the studio belonged to Queen. The band returned much later as a headliner: they appear twice at the Auditorium Stravinski, on 4 July 2004 and 16 July 2009.
Status Quo: an album of rebuilding, recorded in one place
A band changing its skin
When Status Quo arrived at Mountain Studios, the band was coming out of a jolt. John Coghlan, their drummer since the beginning, had just left; Pete Kircher took his place behind the kit. The record made in Montreux would be the first with him.
Another change, quieter but lasting: Andy Bown, who had been playing keyboards with the band for years, was at last credited as a full member. “1+9+8+2” is therefore the first album by that line-up, and it came out on 16 April 1982.
Everything recorded and mixed in the same place
The band then made a choice unusual for the time: instead of moving from studio to studio, they recorded and mixed the whole album at Mountain Studios, with David Richards on the technical side. One room, one acoustic, one engineer from beginning to end.
Status Quo also took production back into their own hands, after several records entrusted to outside producers. The band became master of its own sound again, in an isolated studio where nobody came looking over their shoulder.
Back on stage, twenty-two years later
The band would return to Montreux, but through the front door and much later: on 4 July 2004, then on 16 July 2009, at the Auditorium Stravinski, this time as festival headliners.
Between the 1982 sessions in a casino studio and those two concerts, more than twenty years had passed, and the studio they had worked in had become a museum.
