Antilles Studios

Antilles Studios is a music recording studio located in the Dutch constituent state of, founded in 1992 by Christopher Sharp, the co-founder of Everest Records. The concept of the studio was of a "destination recording facility" supported by an in-house set of musicians, producers and engineers, dedicated to a specific and recognizable sound and style. The original session band at the studios became known as the Antilles Wrecking Crew.

Located in the town of, 27 minutes (19.4 kilometers) away from the Aruban capital , the studio attracted musical artists from across the world to record at its facilities during the mid-to-late-1990s and the 2000s.

History
Antilles Studios was built from 1991-1992 in, by Christopher Sharp, the co-founder of Everest Records. Sharp used the royalties checks and cash payouts from Everest's first few releases to build an in-house "destination studio" for potential Everest recording artists on property his uncle owned in Aruba. Sharp assembled a recording band based on worldbeat and pop rock foundations, naming this band the "Antilles ". The band consisted of Joshua Almgren (lead guitar), Robin Kuang (rhythm guitar), Tom J. Palmer (bass), Kerry Shoemaker (drums, percussion), and Russian musician Rodion Strelnikov (piano, keyboards), along with synthesizers from American new-age music artist Harry Runcie and additional guitarist Terry Ruffer, as well as a team of backing vocalists and session singers consisting of Maltese-Canadian Lela Mizzi, Canadians Dorothy Loomis, Daniel Koutsopoulos and Sarah Mousley, and native Arubans Karina Croes, Chaz Solognier and Alida Gomes. Almgren, Kuang, Palmer, Shoemaker and Loomis were friends of Sharp from the music scene. Under Sharp's direction, and with co-producer, engineer and mixer Carter Goff, the group created the "Antilles Sound", providing backing for albums such as American Woman and Hot by Cynthia Nicol and Lose Your Mind by Barney Hartikainen Park. The core musicians and staff of Antilles Studios lived in a condominium called "Everest Manor", at the top of a hill behind the studio.

Another early resident musician was Brian Poland, who provided backing vocals on Cynthia Nicol's "Hot". Rodion Strelnikov invited members of the Russian ska band Hairless Horse to the Antilles Studios, where the group's horn section was combined with American saxophonist Darius Love to create the Antilles Wrecking Crew Horns. Two other late additions to the Antilles Wrecking Crew were funk bassist Jamond Collins and guitarist Travis Sweeney. An attempt to record an Antilles Wrecking Crew solo album resulted in Alida Gomes' debut album Alida (1998), one of the most successful albums of the 1990s. Antilles Studios residents later included the Canadian progressive rock band Stadium, who recorded their soundtrack for the 1997 video game Caffeine and their 1998 comeback album Sailing the Galaxies at the studio. Country singer Carter Randell (who would later sign to Everest Nashville after his Warner Music Group contract expired in the 2010s) recorded several songs for his 1996 diamond-certified album Nashville Soul at Antilles Studios, making use of both the Wrecking Crew and top session musicians who were flown in to Aruba. Rodion Strelnikov, Harry Runcie and Jamond Collins would form the group Funkalicious Inc. at Antilles Studios.

In conjunction with Antilles Studios, Sharp opened the Everest Records Store and the Antilles Snip barbershop in. The former is a gift shop featuring merchandise from Everest Music Group recording artists (two other branches operate at the company headquarters in and in ), while the latter, now closed, was a barbershop staffed by many residents of Antilles Studios.

Antilles Studios still provides recording and production services for artists today. While it is still under Everest Music Group's control (by way of Aruba-registered Everest Studio Services B.V.) and many Everest Music Group artists record in the Antilles Studios facilities, it is also largely used by artists from other labels, as well as many Caribbean and Latin American artists. In 2014, South African-Dutch producer and recording engineer Frederik Joubert and American producer/engineer/mixer Dan Reaser became Antilles Studios' in-house producers.