The Studio at Puck's Farm

Walter Sobczak

Walter Sobczak began his career in music in the early 1980's as bassist for the popular pre-alternative band The Sturm Group. To give you an idea of the style of music, the band opened for artists such as The Cult, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Flipper, Killing Joke, Screaming Blue Messiahs, and The Cramps. Bands that opened for The Sturm Group included Change of Heart, Chalk Circle, Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet (first ever show, on a dare), and The Cowboy Junkies. The band was #1 in CAPAC's collective reading of Canadian College Radio Stations in 1986, and received great reviews in The Record, CMJ, Rockpool, and England's New Musical Express. One of the band's songs was included on the soundtrack for the Canadian cult film classic "Roadkill", which also featured music by The Ramones, Nash the Slash, and The Cowboy Junkies.The band called it a day in 1989.

While this was going on, Walter Sobczak began his studio career in a downtown Toronto studio as an assistant engineer. Experiences included being an assistant engineer on The Dirty Dancing Soundtrack album, which sold an astounding 26 million units, which was the third highest selling album of all time, at its time. Walter moved on to become an engineer at the same studio in which he engineered Michie Mee's first single (first Canadian rapper to be signed to a US major), Maestro Fresh Wes's first album (first Canadian black artist to sell platinum), the Dream Warriors (gold in Canada, #1 in Japan, silver in Great Britain), the independent release by The Barenaked Ladies(first gold independent release in Canada, before being taken off the market when signed to Sire), and the girl band Fifth Column (which garnered Single of the Week honours in England's Melody Maker). Walter Sobczak moved to production around the same time he took the freelance route and produced/co-produced The Dream Warriors, Monster Voodoo Machine and others.

In the early-mid-nineties, Walter Sobczak co-founded, co-wrote, engineered, mixed and produced the Canadian artist Raggadeath. Raggadeath signed a co-publishing agreement with Warner/Chappell Music Publishing Canada and later signed to Virgin Music Canada when the band's first independent video entered at high rotation on Much Music. The band's music was licensed to Fashion Television, Molson's I Am Canadian commercial, ESPN Xtreme Sports, and film soundtracks. The band broke up in 1997.

Having worked at most of Toronto's studios, Walter Sobczak has settled into Puck's Farm. He has fallen in love with Ontario's best-sounding room and incredible collection of microphones and daylight. The artists which Walter Sobczak has had the pleasure of engineering and/or producing at Puck's Farm would agree.

Walter Sobczak lives in a small town north of Toronto with his girlfriend and two dogs.

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