‘They essentially blew a fucking hole in the ceiling,” Ben Spence says, with notes of anger and disbelief colouring the accompanying laugh. He is recounting the night in September 2020 when his studio, Fuzzbrain, was destroyed in a fire that spread from an adjoining industrial unit. “I don’t know what kind of business situation they had going on, but there were a lot of gas canisters in there.”
The blaze was a nasty blow. Igniting mid-pandemic, it imperilled Spence’s already precarious livelihood. But the loss of Fuzzbrain also threatened the scene that had sprung up around the studio thanks to its policy of offering cut-price, often free, recording sessions, rehearsal time and advice to young working-class musicians. A self-taught engineer from the area, with a similar background, Spence had been applying for grants while refurbishing and selling equipment to keep the lights on. “Foolproof plan until you store it in a studio that burns down,” he says, now sounding wounded.
