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Fire charred two L.A. music utopias. Will they ever recover?

Fire devastation from the Eaton fire
Homes devastated by the Eaton fire at the corner of Rubio Canyon and East Alta Loma Drive in Altadena, including the home of musician/sound engineer Jake Viator.
(G L Askew II)

The day that the Eaton fire began, Jake Viator had just finished some work remodeling his midcentury Altadena home. Viator, a mastering engineer for the local record label Stones Throw, moved into the rustic foothill neighborhood with his wife in 2022, one full of middle-class artists and century-old homes. He had a garage studio in a neighborhood full of friends making music.

“We scraped everything we had to afford it,” Viator said. “The day we signed our mortgage, my wife found out she was pregnant. It was the most serendipitous day.”

For a particular creative community, Altadena represented one of the last great affordable places in L.A. to raise a family. The Eaton fire left those homes in ashes, and destroyed one vision of the L.A. dream.

On the night of Jan. 6, Viator had planned to grab sushi with his neighbor, Jimmy Tamborello of indie group the Postal Service, when his wife texted that Eaton Canyon was on fire. Outside, it was “like seeing a bomb had been dropped,” he said. “A wall of orange spinning and whipping and exploding like nothing I’d ever seen before. It looked like hell on earth.”

He drove around honking and screaming at neighbors to evacuate. After he turned downhill to flee, Viator drove straight to Scottsdale, Ariz., where his wife and 2-year-old daughter were staying. They would never see the home where their child was born again.

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Jake Viator, right, with wife Melissa Viator and his family in their Altadena home.
(Melissa Viator.)

“I loved Altadena and the dream of Altadena,” Viator said, tearing up. “I just had never been so at peace in a place.”

In a cruel coincidence, the Palisades and Eaton fires wiped out two neighborhoods with unique significance in L.A.’s music industry. The Palisades fire claimed ocean-view studios in Malibu, where Grammy winners lived and recorded platinum albums steps from the sand. Fifty miles away, the Eaton fire demolished a neighborhood adored by working artists and industry pros seeking space to work amid nature.

“Every single musician I know in Altadena lost everything,” Viator said. “I kept waiting to hear somebody be like, ‘I’m cool,’ but no, the list is just unfathomable. Everyone I know, every single person, every business is gone. I can’t understand it.”

The Palisades fire in Pacific Palisades quickly consumed more than 1,200 acres on Tuesday, Jan. 7.
The Palisades fire claimed the homes and recording studios of many L.A. musicians.
(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)

The fires ripped a path of destruction, one so total and instantaneous that it was concussive for L.A. The infernos have claimed at least 25 lives and more than 12,000 structures that included architectural landmarks and generations of family homes, and thousands of acres of nature. Life savings, memories and livelihoods: all cinders within hours.

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In the days after, Los Angeles-area musicians and industry pros began to circulate a spreadsheet noting who had lost a home or workplace. The list stretched over 200 entries.

Lorely Rodriguez, known professionally as Empress Of, lost the Altadena home she shared with her mother. DIIV band member Zachary Cole Smith’s family lost their home while his wife is expecting a baby. Hip-hop artists Fat Tony and Madlib lost their home bases. So did “Bandsplain” podcaster Yasi Salek and Bennie Maupin, a member of Herbie Hancock’s elite Headhunters funk band. “70 years of history, family photographs, instruments, car and other family heirlooms completely gone,” Maupin’s son wrote on a GoFundMe.

The list cuts across class divides. Songwriting legend Diane Warren lost her beachfront home, as did the Foo Fighters’ Chris Shiflett and Grammy-winning Adele and “Wicked” producer Greg Wells. So did scores of lesser-known session musicians, publicists, tour crew, club promoters and radio DJs.

The Eaton fire cut a brutal swath through Altadena and a cherished way of life in this eclectic foothill community it upended.

Many of them, like Viator, had congregated in Altadena.

Stately and natural, in the foothills of the San Gabriel Valley just north of Pasadena, the neighborhood became a haven for musicians and artists who could no longer afford studio space in neighborhoods such as Echo Park and Highland Park. You could have a backyard turkey coop next to your vocal booth, all within a 30-minute drive to downtown L.A.

Taylor Goldsmith, frontman of the folk-rock band Dawes, lost his home studio to the Eaton fire. His family, including his wife, actor and singer Mandy Moore, and their three children, were fortunate that their main house survived, yet Goldsmith is shell-shocked by the Eaton fire’s toll.

“I’d thought we were snug in our neighborhood, but we were so wrong,” he said. “It feels surreal. This is horrific, and a lot of people are hurting way worse than we are. My brother [Griffin, his Dawes bandmate] lost his house and all his drums. He loves this town, he loves California, but he’s like ‘I don’t know if I can submit to the risk of this happening again.’”

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Goldsmith lost all his equipment in the Eaton fire — “vintage guitars that were irreplaceable, ones my hands learned to play on that meant so much to me.” He worries that this will traumatize his community in perpetuity.

“You can’t go around thinking everything can be ripped away from you in three hours at any time,” Goldsmith said. “It f— you up. But I don’t want to let this be what turns me away from living there. I don’t want to give up and move on and make pain permanent.”

 Homes and vehicles burned in the Eaton Fire in Altadena.
Homes and vehicles burned in the Eaton fire in Altadena.
(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)

Fifty miles away, in Pacific Palisades, one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in the country famed for ocean views and a tight-knit, small-town feel, almost no home was spared.

While social media was filled with plaintive notes from celebrities (including Anthony Hopkins, Billy Crystal, Paris Hilton and Jamie Lee Curtis) lamenting the lost of their multimillion-dollar homes in the inferno, a number of acclaimed recording studios succumbed as well.

These studios were part of the glamorous archetype of L.A. music lore. Recording in a beautiful room overlooking the Pacific meant you’d reached a pinnacle of the record business.

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The legendary producer and mixer Bob Clearmountain had worked on albums by Bruce Springsteen and the Rolling Stones in his Palisades home studio, Mix This! Playing Clearmountain’s B?sendorfer grand piano through his SSL mixing console connected an artist to music history — David Bowie, Roxy Music and Nile Rodgers sought out his mastery and his gear.

Historic landmarks by the likes of Myron Hunt and Elmer Grey and a noted Midcentury retreat by architect Ray Kappe have been lost. Here’s our residential architecture list, to be updated regularly.

Last Tuesday, Clearmountain lost his home of 30-plus years in the Palisades fire. They were able to save a few mementos, such as a doodle Springsteen drew as a gift for Clearmountain’s wife’s 50th birthday. But most of the equipment he’d spent a life collecting and refining is gone, as is his cherished Palisades home.

“Devastating is an understatement,” Clearmountain said. “But I’m lucky. My wife and I are safe, our pets are safe, our family is safe. I really thought I’d spend the rest of my days there; it was such a beautiful place to live. There’s just so much loss in this fire.”

Jeffrey Paradise, founder of the L.A. electronic act Poolside, had moved his home and recording studio into the Malibu hills three years ago. His house was a favorite hangout of the Grateful Dead in the ’70s, built with wood salvaged from the Venice Beach pier. He loved hosting musician friends from Highland Park for weekendlong writing sessions.

“We’ve been on tour for years, so this was our sanctuary whenever we got back,” Paradise said. “Bob Dylan had a place nearby. I’d run into Anthony Kiedis at cafes. Gene Simmons and Seal were my neighbors. We absolutely loved this house.”

But now his street is “a war zone, I’ve never seen anything like it, just an acid-trip nightmare hellscape,” Paradise said. “Everything is gone. The enormity of it all is hard to comprehend. I can’t even feel it yet. This is going to be our reality for years.”

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A Torrance firefighter watches as a house burns from the Palisades Fire on Shoreheights Drive in Pacific Palisades Tuesday.
A Torrance firefighter watches as a house burns from the Palisades fire on Shoreheights Drive.
(Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)

Rick Rubin’s acclaimed Shangri-La studio in Malibu survived the fire, but the house on Alma Real Drive where Doors’ guitarist Robby Krieger wrote the band’s best-known single, “Light My Fire,” went up in ashes, and R&B singer Jhené Aiko also lost her home in the blaze.

Up the hill in Malibu, Zach Brandon owned Harbor Studios, a luxe recording compound that had become a favorite for contemporary pop and hip-hop acts like Doja Cat and Nicki Minaj, who cut tracks on their respective albums “Scarlet” and “Pink Friday 2” there. It was first built as the home base for jazz-fusion group Weather Report.

Reached by text, Brandon said that “We’re devastated by the loss of our studio — a beloved space that was deeply special to all those who had the opportunity to experience the inspiration it provided. Our hearts go out to all who have been impacted, and we will continue to do whatever we can to help our neighbors in this trying time. As we continue to grieve, we remain encouraged by the resilience of our community.”

Even music venues that survived the fire are facing the fallout of a depopulated beach community.

“Fifty percent of all the business I have is corporate events and private events, and they’re all canceled now,” said Lance Sterling, who owns the Canyon club in nearby Agoura Hills, which shut down for the week of the fires. “I’m probably down $650,000 in revenue right now, and there’s 100,000 people dislocated who are not my customers anymore.”

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Pacific Palisades appeared more like a moonscape of destruction than an upscale neighborhood known for its ocean views, beautiful vistas and celebrity denizens.

Already, the music industry is fundraising for the thousands of displaced Angelenos. A major benefit concert is planned for Intuit Dome on Jan. 30. Beyoncé’s foundation announced a $2.5-million donation, and Warner Music promised another million.

Within the affected communities, so many blue-collar music professionals and working-class artists face years of recovery.

For Willie “Prophet” Stiggers of the Black Music Action Coalition, the fires have been “like been watching a horror film. I’ve never seen anything like this,” he said. “L.A. is a town where music comes from, so many people come here to draw inspiration. This is a gut blow like we’ve never experienced before.”

The group is fundraising for Black artists, businesses and incarcerated firefighters affected by the disasters. “Music is such a unifier after people have lost communities. We’re seeing humanity show up in a very divisive time,” Prophet said. “That part gives me hope.”

Yet after the COVID-19 pandemic’s effects on the live-music industry, coupled with skyrocketing costs of living in Los Angeles, the fires bring a painful new obstacle.

“It’s unfathomable,” said Laura Segura, the executive director of MusiCares, the charitable partner of the Recording Academy. “All the music companies we think of as behemoths have staff who lost homes. So did tour crew, musicians, bus drivers, electricians. This is a different kind of disaster than the pandemic, but it does feel that daunting.”

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A firefighter turns his head away from an apartment blaze fueled by high winds from the Eaton fire in Altadena, California.
A firefighter turns his head away from the intense heat from an apartment blaze fueled by high winds from the Eaton fire in Altadena.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

Segura said MusiCares has already received more than 2,000 requests for aid from affected music professionals, and while the needs will vary — from immediate shelter and food aid to long-term housing and mental health assistance — this tragedy will touch every corner of the music industry in L.A.

“Disasters each have a long story to them,” Segura said. “I certainly fear that it’s already so hard to find affordable housing in L.A., given [that] the average salary for a musician in the United States is under $50,000 per year. We know how hard it is to support a family and have security to stay here.

“I wish I understood why there is so much suffering here,” Segura added, choking up. “Please keep making music if you can, that’s my hope and prayer, and let us help if you can’t.”

The Recording Academy announced that the 67th Grammy Awards, planned for Feb. 2 in Los Angeles, will go forward with a focus on relief efforts. “We understand how devastating this past week has been on this city and its people,” Recording Academy and MusiCares Chief Executive Harvey Mason Jr. said in a statement. “This is our home, it’s home to thousands of music professionals, and many of us have been negatively impacted.”

What kind of community will be able return to the fire-affected neighborhoods is uncertain. For some musicians, this could be a final breaking point to seek shelter and a livelihood elsewhere. For others, they’ll begin the expensive and isolating work of reestablishing in a desiccated community.

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Coverage of the fires ravaging Altadena, Malibu, Pacific Palisades and Pasadena, including stories about the devastation, issues firefighters faced and the weather.

“My kid’s school was across the street, and it’s still there,” Goldsmith said. “He adorably said he’s going to get an excavator and fix his school. That’s what we want for him — to create that same connection with his community.”

For people like Viator, middle-class music professionals who thought they’d found a foothold to live and work in Los Angeles, the fire incinerated much more than a home or a recording studio. It took away a lovely dream of what a life in music could be here.

“It’s all going to have to rise from scratch,” Viator said. “I’m not deluding myself, but I hope the spirit can be same. Maybe it can be a real haven for artists again, but will investment bankers snatch up all the property and ruin the neighborhood? What we had was so beautiful. It’d be a shame to just give up. So we’re going to try.”

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