by FilmInk Staff
Montserrat is a tiny island in the West Indies, half a world away from the music capitals of London and LA, and for ten years, from 1979-1989, it was the hottest place on the globe to make a record.
Producer George Martin of Beatles fame built AIR studios in the jungle there, not far from a once-thought dormant volcano. Seventy albums followed, some of the biggest of the era, recorded by Elton John, The Police, Earth Wind and Fire, Dire Straits and The Rolling Stones.
Under the Volcano, a fine new documentary from producer Cody Greenwood and director Gracie Otto is a deep dive into the culture surrounding AIR, exploring how the world of the island worked its way into the studio experience.
Both still only in their early thirties, a generation separates the filmmakers and subject, but says Greenwood, there is an inescapable bond of passion.
“I grew up with this music,” says Greenwood. “I’m a huge fan. For Gracie it was more of a fascination with the era.”
Grace Otto says Under the Volcano was a ‘natural step’ after her star-studded 2013 debut feature The Last Impresario, a docu-profile of notorious showbiz gadfly Michael White, who grew to fame in the Swingin’ London of the 1960s.
Featuring new on-camera interviews with insiders, islanders and members of The Police, Dire Straits, and Duran Duran, Under the Volcano captures a moment when the business of rock seemed handmade, before digital, and the download.
We spoke to the filmmakers on the eve of the film’s digital release.
Under the Volcano started with a family connection. Tell us about that?
CODY GREENWOOD “My mum – Frané Lessac – had heard about this place in the Caribbean where the harbour was too shallow for big ships and big planes could never land, and she thought: ‘I’m going to go down there!’ Mum was an artist. This was about the time that a man called George Martin first visited, this island, Montserrat.”
This of course was the beginning of AIR Studios, which Martin founded there in 1979.
CG “Mum lived there for the first five years of the studio’s existence. She would sell her art to the musicians to make a living. When we went to interview people [for the film], they would have mum’s artwork in the living the room!”
GRACIE OTTO “Cody had all these memories of the island as a child.”
CG “My parents stayed close to the guys who managed the studios. They were having dinner one night. I asked whether anyone had ever tried to make a film. A few had.”
Martin, who died in 2016, had strong links to Montserrat even after AIR ceased operating in 1989, famously organising a charity fundraiser for disaster relief after the Soufrière Hills volcano wiped out a large part of the island in 1995.
CG “The Martin Estate believes Montserrat was a special place. They wanted to make sure that whoever makes it was the right team. I sent a handwritten letter [about making a film] to Judy Martin [Martin’s widow.] That started the process, about two years before we started filming.”
GO “I came on board after Cody had started developing it. She had this seventy- page document. She had already interviewed Sting.”
CG “I wrote to Sting, and he said, ‘sure, come to New York!’ What he had to say changed the way I thought about researching and developing the project.”
His talk about those Montserrat AIR years is touching. He creates a mystery around the place and the time, laying out the idea that making a record has as much to do with mood, where you do it, the relationships that surround it, as technology, musicianship and skill.
CG “Sting spoke so fondly of the people of the island. I knew they have to be characters in the film. Then there was the influence of the volcano. That became this idea of a force greater than us. We wanted the volcano to be a metaphor for the end of analogue recording.”
GO “I think the film is about creativity. What we were exploring was when people come together, something really amazing can come out of it – The Police for instance – they might not get along, but they can make amazing music.”
CG “We knew we didn’t want it to be a pure studio documentary. We knew we didn’t want it to be just relaying this music history [of bands and their conflicts.]”
GO “The challenge, the biggest challenge was getting the interviews.”
CG “It was a rollercoaster. I’d wake up in the morning and there would be an email ‘Mark Knopfler won’t do the movie’, then soon after you’d get: ‘yes, he will do the movie, can you fly out to…”
Some artists, who in a way made AIR famous, like Elton John and Paul McCartney are not in the film, tell us about that?
CG “A lot of those high-profile musicians like the Stones, Elton, Knopfler and Sting were touring and doing farewell tours when we started making the film and a few like Keith Richards won’t do interviews on the road.”
GO “Jimmy Buffett emailed Mark Knopfler to tell him to do the interview because he had so much fun doing his!”
CG “For the people who are not in the film, they worked closely with us, Elton and Paul McCartney. We got a lot of support. Archive, stills. Sir Paul saw the film and wrote us a lovely note.”
GO “Just as we finished [the scheduled interviews], the pandemic started so we were lucky to get what we did!”
The film has a melancholy feel to it. There are shots of AIR overwhelmed by jungle, in ruins. George Martin appears in archival footage talking about how ‘everything’ has its moment…
CG “Yeah! I found that piece of footage early on and I knew that had to be the thesis of our film. He talks about how ‘you bring something out of nothing, and it returns to nothing.’ It is bittersweet. AIR was destroyed. We still have memories. We have the songs forever.”
Under the Volcano is available on Digital from September 1, 2021
