Fantasy Studios
Fantasy Studios is a recording studio in Berkeley, California, at the Zaentz Media Center, known for its recording of award-winning albums such as Journey's Escape and Green Day's Dookie. Built as a private recording studio for artists on the Fantasy Records label in 1971, it was opened to the public in 1980 for recording, mixing and mastering. Fantasy Studios continues to operate as a full-service recording studio for the music, television, film and gaming industries.
Background
Fantasy Records
Fantasy Records and its subsidiary, Galaxy, were established in San Francisco, California, in 1949 by Max and Sol Weiss. The first artist on the label was Dave Brubeck. With help from profits earned from his records the label went on to record Gerry Mulligan, Chet Baker, Cal Tjader and Vince Guaraldi. In addition to musical acts, the label recorded beat poets Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Allen Ginsberg and comic Lenny Bruce.
Creedence Clearwater Revival and expansion
Saul Zaentz, who joined Fantasy Records as a salesman in 1955, assembled a group of investors in 1967 and purchased the label from the Weiss brothers. In 1968 Fantasy Records signed Creedence Clearwater Revival (CCR), who soon became extremely profitable for the label. Within eighteen months, twenty of CCR's singles made Billboard Hot 100 list and nine were consecutive Top 10 singles in the US. The band also earned 21 RIAA-certified gold or platinum records with total sales of over 100 million worldwide. These successes for CCR made Fantasy the most profitable independent record company in the U.S. and directly resulted in the expansion of Fantasy Records.