Plain Dealer Cover Story

Michael Seifert's Ante Up Audio recording studio lures big names to Cleveland and puts local talent on the map

By John Soeder, The Plain Dealer

January 24, 2010, 12:00AM

"These artists we're developing, I think they're going to hit people from left field," says Michael Seifert, owner of Cleveland's Ante Up Audio recording studio and the Reversed Image record label. "It's going to blindside them. They're going to go, 'We've got to go to Cleveland and figure on what the hell is going on there.' "

"Does the article start: 'It's 2 p.m. and he's drinking a Red Stripe. . . .' ?" Michael Seifert wants to know.
It seems as good a place as any to begin. With a beer in hand on a recent afternoon, the owner of Ante Up Audio in Cleveland is supervising a recording session by local singer-songwriter Leah Lou.
Seifert, 33, is a man of many hats. Producer. Composer. Indie-record mogul. At the moment, though, he's intently focused on the job at hand.
"Can I hear the last take?" he says.
Music fills the dimly lit control room, where Lou and a group of session musicians have gathered for a playback of "The Fake Dream Song." The work-in-progress is catchy and upbeat.
"That drumbeat is awesome with that stutter snare," Seifert says, shaking a lanky leg to the groove.
After he hums the melody for a string part that he hears in his head, they move on to another tune. Seifert, a multi-instrumentalist, thinks an accordion might sound nice on the track. He ends up playing it himself.
It's all in a day's work for the hardest-working man on Cleveland's music scene, even if most of his work happens behind the scenes.

PREVIEW
Haiti Benefit Concert What: Ante Up Audio and WKRK 92.3 FM host a concert with performances by This Is a Shakedown!, Chuck Mosley, Leah Lou, the Suede Brothers and oth ers.
When: 6 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 6.
Where: 1385 E. 36th St., Cleveland (formerly the Factory Restaurant).
Donation: $5 (minimum) at the door. Proceeds will benefit Red Cross relief efforts in Haiti.

"I'm basically not sleeping, that's what it comes down to," Seifert says, plopping into a chair behind the mixing console while the musicians break for a meal.
"Actually, I've been getting more sleep lately, close to four hours a night," he says. "Usually it's only two or three hours."
Despite the minimal shut-eye, Seifert dreams big. And he won't rest until he puts Cleveland's musical talent on the map.
Built to the tune of $2 million, Ante Up opened in 2004 in Tyler Village, a mixed-use development nestled between Superior and St. Clair avenues on East 36th Street, on the site of the old W.S. Tyler factory. If an ultra-hip, state-of-the-art recording studio strikes you as the last thing you would expect to find tucked away in this part of town, you wouldn't be the first to be surprised.
"We get that a lot," Seifert says.
"The nice part for us has been when out-of-town and big-name clients have come through here, it's not like they felt they were slumming.
"Most of them can't believe we have a studio like this in Cleveland, but they have a great time."
The Dave Matthews Band paid a visit three years ago, while in the area for a concert at Blossom Music Center.
"Dave booked a couple of hours to come in and do a quick demo, just a piano-and-vocal sketch for a movie soundtrack," Seifert says.
"He loved the studio so much, he ended up booking a couple more days and bringing the whole band in to record a bunch of stuff. He was very excited about the space. He went on and on about it."
Tori Amos, Fountains of Wayne and Third Eye Blind's Stephan Jenkins are among the other well-known clients who have worked at Ante Up.
Lately, R&B singer Keyshia Cole (fiancee of Cleveland Cavaliers player Daniel Gibson) has been cutting tracks there.

ONLINE EXTRA:
CLEVELAND (STILL) ROCKS Meet some of the local artists who have recorded at Ante Up Audio:
Natalia DaleThis Is a Shakedown!
Electro-rock quartet includes Brandon Zano on vocals and guitar, Justin Nyilas on synthesizers, Daniel Lee on bass and Stephen Nicholson on drums. Their debut album, "Love Kills," came out in May.
LISTEN: "Love Kills" by This Is a Shakedown!

Jeff JanisChuck Mosley
Rap-rock trailblazer got his start with Faith No More in the '80s, when the band first turned heads with the hit "We Care a Lot." His "Will Rap over Hard Rock for Food" album was released in August, with guest appearances by Jonathan Davis of Korn and Faith No More's Roddy Bottum, among others.
LISTEN: "The Enabler" by Chuck Mosley Featuring Jonathan Davis and John 5

Nicholas MegalisNicholas Megalis
Piano-pounding rocker's wildly original music already has been heard everywhere from MTV to NPR. The selection here is from his 2008 album, "Praise Be, Hype Machine."
LISTEN: "The Phrase" by Nicholas Megalis

Eric ClawsonLeah Lou
Guitar-strumming singer-songwriter sounds a bit like Edie Brickell and cites Velvet Underground among her influences. Putting finishing touches on her first album, which should be out by summer.

The bustling, 20,000-square-foot complex is home to 14 full-time employees. In addition to two recording suites, it houses a performance space for small concerts and rehearsals, as well as the offices of Reversed Image Unlimited, Seifert's record label and artist-development company. Under the same roof, he also operates a music-publishing firm and a post-production facility for film and television projects.
The lobby is decorated with gold and platinum records awarded to Seifert for his work with Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, the Grammy-winning rap group from Cleveland.
"This is all I've ever really wanted to do," Seifert says.
He literally grew up in a recording studio. His father, Bruce Seifert, ran Great Tracks Recording in Cleveland, where the likes of the O'Jays and LeVert recorded. Seifert's family lived upstairs.
"Michael used to sit on my lap, with his hands on the console," Bruce recalls.
"By the time he was 8 years old, he was doing session work, playing keyboards. When his mother would come downstairs and tell him it was time for bed, the guys he was playing with would go, 'Awww, c'mon!' "
In his early teens, Seifert started overseeing recording sessions.
"When other kids were out playing baseball, Michael was in the studio," Bruce says.
"He just loved it. . . . He's a hard worker. He puts himself 100 percent into everything he does. I've never seen him do it any other way."
After graduating from St. Ignatius High School in 1995, Seifert pursued music full-time. Comfortable working in any number of genres, he made a name for himself early on in hip-hop circles.
"Thug Mentality," a hit for rapper Krayzie Bone, featured music written and performed by Seifert. He produced the track, too.
It opened doors for Seifert, although he had other ideas.
"I got offered a big publishing deal, but I turned it down," Seifert says.
"The money was incredible, but I didn't want to get stuck doing one kind of music for 10 years.
"I'd rather give it my all, lose everything and fall flat on my face than just take the easy way out, drive an awesome car and collect fat checks. . . . I'm passionate about the music first."
After honing his skills doing freelance jobs at other studios around the country, he decided to make a stand in his hometown.
Friends questioned his sanity. Yet where others saw folly, Seifert saw opportunity.
"The question I got the most was: 'Why are you building a studio at all, and if you're going to do it, why in Cleveland?'
"A lot of big studios in other cities are closing, but I think a lot of them are closing because they couldn't afford to have that much space in Los Angeles or New York City.
"I figured if we could do this in Cleveland, we could keep our overhead low. It would be impossible to operate a facility this size in a big city, but here, it's affordable."
Ante Up is booked into June. Still, the studio is only "a means to an end," Seifert says.
And to that end, his record label is cultivating local talent.
"It's really why I stayed in Cleveland, instead of picking up and moving out, like so many people do," Seifert says.
"I ultimately decided it would be really cool to stay here and develop artists. There's so much talent here, but nobody has put it together.
"Yeah, you don't have huge stars just roaming the streets, but neither did Seattle before everything happened there in the '90s with Nirvana and all those bands.
"These artists we're developing, I think they're going to hit people from left field. It's going to blindside them. They're going to go, 'We've got to go to Cleveland and figure on what the hell is going on there.' "
Reversed Image got off the ground last year with a pair of albums: "Love Kills" by the electro-rock group This Is a Shakedown! and "Will Rap over Hard Rock for Food" by rap-rock pioneer Chuck Mosley. Both projects were recorded at Ante Up.
Mosley was struck by the energy there.
"If anything, it's maybe a little more hectic than other studios I've worked in, because they're always busy," he says.
The singer-guitarist moved to Cleveland in 1996, following a stint in Faith No More, a popular band from San Francisco.
Seifert is "super-talented," Mosley says. "He thinks outside the box, and he's always thinking ahead. . . . If anyone can make something happen for Cleveland, he can."
Next in the Reversed Image pipeline is Lou's album. It should be out this summer.
Seifert "really does care about the Cleveland scene," says Ante Up recording engineer Matt Curry.
Before he joined the staff four years ago, Curry worked at a couple of Manhattan studios, where he did sessions with everyone from Ozzy Osbourne to Peter, Paul and Mary.
"Michael had opportunities to leave Cleveland, but he wanted to stick around and make it happen here," Curry says. "It's not an ego thing. It's about being part of the community and showcasing the great talent we have in Cleveland."
This week, Seifert is set to begin composing and recording the score for "Running America," a documentary by local filmmakers Kevin Kerwin and Kate O'Neil.
Seifert has played in a couple of bands, including Romans Go Home. (The group took its name from a Monty Python bit.) He's in no rush to get back in the spotlight himself, however.
"I've got three-quarters of a solo record in the can, but I haven't touched it in years," Seifert says.
"I don't have any delusions of being a rock star. I've got a wife and kids, and I have a business to run."
His wife, Meghan Seifert, is an entertainment lawyer. They met at a concert in 2003 and got married the following year.
"When I first met him, he'd just acquired the space for Ante Up," Meghan says.
"It was just an empty warehouse. He brought me there and told me what he wanted to do. One of the reasons I fell in love with him was that he was just so . . . what's the word?"
Driven?
"It's almost too small a word," Meghan says.
"If there's a bigger word than 'driven,' that's the word. . . . He could've built Ante Up and stopped, but he's never finished. He's always going for the next level.
"He's someone who's doing exactly what he wants to do. He's going for it and accomplishing his dreams."
They have two children: Sebrina, 4, and Elliott, 4 months.
In hopes of seeing them more, Seifert -- who currently resides in Lakewood -- is having a three-bedroom apartment built as part of a new addition to his studio complex, above expanded office space.
The new digs should be ready for his family to move into later this year.
"My plan is to work from 10 to 6, go home -- quote-unquote -- for dinner, get the kids to bed, hang out with my wife until 10 or 11, come down and work until 6 in the morning, then sleep a few hours."
Apparently, more rest isn't on the agenda.
"Even if I'm physically tired, when I get home after working all day and I lie down, I can't sleep," Seifert says.
"My mind is always racing with a million things. . . . It may just be I'm seriously crazy. I'm crazy when it comes to this stuff. And I'm not going to stop."