Joe and Crystal Cattano, of Sayreville, have seen bands break up right in their music studio.
JEFF GRANIT staff Jersey Syndicate rehearses last week at AARIUS Studios, opened recently by Joe and Crystal Cattano. The two have been filming a reality television show at the facility. They’ve seen girls scream at their musician boyfriends in the parking lot because they’re never around.
They’ve seen just about all there is to see in the music business. That’s why they decided to put some of those stories on videotape and make a reality show called “Music Incorporated.”
The pair opened AARIUS Studios on BordentownAvenue in Sayreville two years ago, and they said things could not be going better. Each of their five recording studios is state of the art and different, making it a unique experience for each musician in each room.
“The higher ceilings have a different sound to it, a different feel,” Joe said. “We recommend the bands try out every room.”
Each room was also painted by a graffiti artist who has since disappeared. One room features the New York City skyline with a Gotham City twist. Instead of the Batman symbol being shone in the night sky, however, it is the logo of AARIUS Studios, a variation on the yin yang symbol, but in the form of a bass clef.
JEFF GRANIT staff Joe and Crystal Cattano opened AARIUS Studios on Bordentown Avenue in Sayreville two years ago. The facility houses five recording rooms. “I was on ground zero on 9/11 and I had to have the towers in it,” Crystal said.
“[The graffiti artist] would come in around 6 or 7 at night and stay until 6 or 7 in the morning,” she said. “We would literally lock him in.”
“It was like Christmas, coming in the next day,” Joe said.
None of the rooms touches any of the other rooms, making them completely isolated and sound controlled. Couches are in each of the rooms, allowing for a more intimate feel. The room also has full-stage lighting.
Introducing a reality show has added a different element to what the studio owners are doing.
“It’s added a whole new dimension,” Crystal said. “People are coming in, doing video, producing, editing.”
It was Crystal, the business side of the Crystal and Joe partnership, who came up with the reality show idea.
“Just by being a part of the studio, from the outside looking in, I said no one else is doing it,” Crystal said. “It’s the opposite of ‘American Idol.’ ”
Joe agreed that the bands that play in his studio are not like the artists on reality television now.
“They don’t care if someone tells them if they’re good,” Joe said. “They’ll spend years doing it. They’ll put their life on hold doing it.”
Joe agreed with Crystal on the show idea pretty quickly.
“There are so many stories,” he said. “I thought, ‘We really have something here.’ ”
“The primary focus was to give bands that record in here more exposure,” Crystal said. “This gives them a platform they may not otherwise have. Bands that come in and are loyal to us, we feature them.”
Joe and Crystal, who are shopping the show to television networks, said they have about three to four episodes’ worth of film and hundreds of hours of footage. So far they have completed one full episode.
So, where did the name AARIUS come from?
“We wanted something we had in common,” Crystal said. “We said, ‘We’re not even into astrology, I’m Sagittarius, you’re Aries.’”
Despite their not being into astrology, they thought of the name Arius, then added an extra “a” to it because it looked cooler. Joe said that coincidentally when he looked up the suffix for Aries, it meant “a connection,” which is what they were going for anyway.
The duo decided to start a music studio while at the beach in Sandy Hook in 2004.
“She’s like, ‘What if we had $1 million, what would we do?’And I said I’d definitely want to start a music studio,” Joe said. “I went to the Institute of Audio Research and I’ve been playing music since I was a kid.”
“I’ve always wanted to have my own business,” Crystal said. ”
Joe didn’t want to just have any studio, though.
“I wanted to have a state-of-the-art studio,” he said. “I walked into other rooms [at other studios] and it was really, really disgusting and dank. I didn’t want to sit on the couch.”
“We did it better,” Crystal said.
It only took four months for them to build up the studio from scratch.
About 30 to 50 bands come by to record or rehearse every week, depending on holidays, the Cattanos said. Some of the bands are even quite famous. They have had Black Label Society and Blondie appear in their studios, as well as many other national acts.
Black Label Society’s guitarist, Zakk Wylde, took over the studio when the band came in.
“It was a lot like a little clubhouse for them,” Crystal said of the room they were rehearsing in. “They put a banner up. They put all their guitars in there, just lined them up.”
“There were at least 50 guitars,” Joe said. “Nobody really knew they were here. Someone said, ‘Those guys playing the Black Label Society are doing a real good job.’Nobody knew who he was.”
Crystal selects most of the bands for the show. Joe’s favorite part is just watching the band fight through struggles. He talked about Burning Jersey, one of the bands featured on the pilot episode. It was often in the studio and then stopped coming for a month because it had broken up for a time.
“[Bands] are three to four very strong personalities and everyone is trying to gain control,” Joe said. “To me, that is commonplace, but Crystal never saw that.”
The Cattanos have an entertainment lawyer who has begun shopping the show around to networks. A pilot episode is up online at musicincline. com.