FLORENCE - Most of the time, Gary Baker works quietly under the radar behind the nondescript facade of Noiseblock Studios in downtown Florence with a group of young, up-and-coming musicians and songwriters.
Normally he's comfortably dressed in jeans, a T-shirt and sometimes a New York Yankees baseball cap.
Inside there's music being made, unbeknownst to the people walking down the street.
Every two weeks for the past two months, Baker has traveled to Germany to film episodes of the popular “Popstars” television show, a reality/competition program similar to “American Idol” and “America's Next Top Model.”
“This is the grandfather of all those shows,” Baker said.
Thousands of young women auditioned to appear on the show where they are competing for the chance to be part of a four-girl pop group. Baker appears on the show as the real-life record producer/writer/performer.
On Wednesday, he will travel to Germany once again to film the final episode of the show, which is in its 10th year.
“This is the number one show in Germany,” Baker said. “It's seen by millions of viewers.”
With its big-budget production and crew of approximately 200, it's a far cry from the more laid-back atmosphere back home.
In August, a film crew came to Sheffield and filmed an episode of the show at Baker's home overlooking the Tennessee River. The contestants were led to believe they were auditioning to do background vocals on a single by the pop band Boy Zone.
Instead, they provided vocals on a version of Baker's 16-year-old Grammy Award-winning hit “I Swear,” which was released as a single in Germany on Nov. 19. The track featured vocals from each of the 10 final contestants and was released the day after it was performed live on the show.
On Thursday, an album from the “Popstars” program will be released, featuring three tracks written by Baker, Kevin Richardson, of the Backstreet Boys, and Matt Johnson, one of the engineer/songwriters at Noiseblock.
“It's not easy to make a living anymore in this business,” Baker said. “I love writing a good country song, but I love when an opportunity like this comes along. You have to jump out and grab it.”
All three tracks featuring Baker, Richardson and Johnson were cut at Noiseblock Studios in Florence.
While Baker was away in Germany, Johnson and house engineer Chris Bethea, both graduates of the University of North Alabama's commercial music program, were back home working on tracks for the show. They not only had to deal with the distance, but the fact that Germany is in a time zone seven hours ahead of Alabama's Central Standard Time.
Johnson and Bethea would be at the studio mixing tracks into the early morning hours on many occasions because their counterparts in Germany wanted them as quickly as possible.
Johnson said Baker bought each staff member an iPhone 4 with the FaceTime video calling application to assist in the long-distance mixing process. While Baker was in Germany, he would e-mail music files home that Johnson and Bethea would mix at Noiseblock, then send back to Germany to record vocals.
“One night, we left here on a Tuesday night thinking the mixing was done,” Bethea said. “We had to be here at 7 a.m. (Wednesday) to finish it for pressing.”
Above all, it's been a team effort.
“It's fun to be in the middle of something this big,” Bethea said.
Johnson called it “surreal” to have a song he co-wrote released in a different country.
“Nobody will know,” he said. “It's kind of cool. It's like you have a big secret.”
He joked that if the album flops, nobody will know about that, either.
But Baker is confident the songs will be hits in Europe.
“It's going to be a big lick for our company,” he said.
The exposure from the show is also generating interest from artists wanting to come to the Shoals to record. Baker said the “Popstars” collaboration is another example of how popular Muscle Shoals music is in Europe.
“You have no idea how big the Muscle Shoals name is in Germany,” he said.
Russ Corey can be reached at 256-740-5738 or russ.corey@TimesDaily.com.
Monday, December 06, 2010
KEVIN RICHARDSON: His Song Will Be On The CD PopStars German
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