Drive-In Studio


Drive-In Studio was a recording studio in rural Winston-Salem, North Carolina, founded by Mitch Easter in July 1980. R.E.M.'s debut single, "Radio Free Europe", and their first extended play, Chronic Town, were recorded at the studio six months apart in 1981. The studio was established in what was initially Easter's parents' garage, at 4527 Old Belews Creek Road, and became an important part of the early indie rock scene of North Carolina.
"After a while, I thought, ' is kind of embarrassing, but bands didn't really seem to care," Easter said in 2025. At the time of R.E.M.'s stint at the studio, "the set-up was really simple," Easter said in 1994. "I had almost nothing in the studio back then, except a tape machine and a console and two compressors and one delay device. We couldn't do any fancy stuff."
Easter explained the studio's layout to Music Radar in 2021:
Due to the confined space of the interior, studio sessions often also took place in the home's driveway, under the carport.
The home backed up onto farmland, and when Easter's parents lived there it had cows grazing on it. Easter recalls walking behind the house with Let's Active band mate and girlfriend Faye Hunter. "She just started sort of singing to the cows, who were like 100 feet away," Easter said in 2013, shortly after Hunter's suicide. "And they just came to her. And I don't think cows normally do that, you know? But they came to her because they knew that she was trying to send them love. And it was really touching and she did something like that every day with animals."

Equipment

An early advertisement, which listed Shady Boulevard as a mailing address for the studio, itemized its recording technology:
Other artists who recorded at Drive-In include Pylon, Suzanne Vega, Game Theory and The Connells.
Easter closed Drive-In in 1994, and moved to Kernersville, North Carolina, where he opened his current recording studio, Fidelitorium Recordings.