Chris West
19th Reading Festival - on Stage - Terra Nova
Chris started his career in music as a Sound Engineer at IBC Studios, London in 1969. IBC was one of the first independent recording studios in England and spawned some of the world's top engineers including Joe Meek (The Tornados, Shirley Bassey), Glyn Johns (Led Zeppelin, Rolling Stones) and Damon Lyon-Shaw to name just a few. Damon had just been voted 'engineer of the year' for his work on 'Tommy' by The Who, and Chris was fortunate enough to be trained by him on various sessions in the early years.
Chris’s time as an Engineer led him into his first professional job as a Guitarist at the age of 23 with Stomu Yamashta, the virtuoso percussionist, touring for 5 years and culminating in the album ‘GO’, which was written by Stomu and Chris with lyrics by Michael Quartermain. 'GO' also featured names such as Steve Winwood, Michael Shrieve (Santana) and Klaus Schulze (Tangerine Dream).
Chris later played with Rick Wakeman and the breakaway group from Manfred Mann, Earthband, later renamed Terra Nova. Other bands include Johnny Johnson and the Bandwagon, The Flirtations, Jimmy Helms and The Nashville Teens.
Returning to engineering in the late 1980s Chris set up a 24 track studio in Surrey where he recorded industry legends as well as setting up an in-house production company for current artists and advertising jingles. This studio was accompanied by the first retail shop in the UK dedicated to music software, with Chris setting up the UK distribution of Cubase and appearing on their first video training manual.
In 2000 Chris engineered Status Quo's album 'Famous in the Last Century' and, as Damon Lyon-Shaw had crafting the their original iconic sound' it felt like a perfect fit. Since then Chris has worked as Sound Engineer on'Heavy Traffic', 'The Riffs', 'XS All Areas' and 'The Party Ain't Over Yet'.
One of his favourite projects was Co-Producing Richard Ashcroft's (The Verve) platinum solo album 'Keys to the World'.
Chris continues to Produce and inspire artists around the world.
Please see the Projects page for a full discography.