Saving G-Son Studios, The Beastie Boys’ Former Creative Enclave

G-Son Studios’ live room. Photo: G-Son. Atwater Village, CA (May 29, 2025)—G-Son Studios, the former creative home of the Beastie Boys, is being revived, renovated and reopened as a community arts center and live music venue.

Hidden away in Atwater Village, CA, the facility has a long history as an arts-centric building, having originally housed a ballroom on its second floor. While the Beasties took it over for most of the 1990s, in more recent times, it has been a creative home for Diplo and Mad Decent Records, among others. The space has been hosting community creative events while renovating.

Photo: G-Son. Now Los Angeles resident Adam Englander, alongside his partner Alex Cherin, have taken over the space with the intent of restoring G-Son Studios and broadening its scope to involve live performances, events, art showings and more inside the 150-capacity live room. As part of the restoration process so far, they’ve removed a collapsing stage, repaired core infrastructure, restored lighting and uncovered artwork from the original G-Son Studios era that had been hidden for years behind sheetrock.

Removing sheetrock from the lounge revealed hidden artwork, autographs and a mural by actress Ione Skye. Photo: G-Son. The initial creation of G-Son Studios in the early 1990s came during a rough inflection point in the Beastie Boys’ career.

The band had immediate success with its debut album, 1986’s License to Ill, and took a major artistic leap forward with its sophomore album, 1989’s Paul’s Boutique. However, while that record is now considered an innovative classic, it was a massive, high-profile flop when first released—and that in turn led to the Beasties stepping away from the limelight, hunkering down and reinventing themselves for the Nineties. Crucial to that was the creation of G-Son Studios, as the trio took over a forgotten second-floor ballroom, well off the beaten path in Atwater Village, and began using it as a home base for musical and entrepreneurial ideas.

The group began playing instruments again and forged a new sound that mixed hip-hop, greasy funk and New York hardcore punk, all infused with a bootstrapped indie ethos that matched their surroundings. A ‘Green Room’ has been created for when the facility hosts performances. Photo: G-Son Studios.

The studio was soon outfitted with recording gear, a skateboard ramp, basketball hoop and more, and became a creative crucible for the group and its protégés. It was there that they hand built the albums behind their Nineties zenith—Check Your Head, Ill Communication and Hello Nasty—and founded their own label and zine, both named Grand Royal. While G-Son was the band’s personal playground, others came to record there over time, including Beck, Biz Markie, Run-DMC, Redd Kross and Luscious Jackson.

The Beastie Boys, Run-DMC, Beck and others recorded in the live room at G-Son Studios. Photo: G-Son. While the Beastie Boys gave up the space and headed back to New York at the turn of the millennium, G-Son’s mythic reputation remained and still looms large in the region.

Englander and Cherin now aim to preserve that legacy and use it to ignite a new artistic era in the space. An additional event space is hidden behind the facility. Photo: G-Son Studios.

With that in mind, the remit for the revitalized G-Son Studios is wide open—Englander and Cherin see it hosting live music, film screenings, DJ sets, gallery exhibitions, rehearsals, workshops and community programming. • Mix Music Production NYC 2026 Launches with Early Bird Tickets To move that along, they recently started a Kickstarter campaign with an aim of raising money to fund a new PA system, meet ADA accessibility requirements, add sound proofing, finish the floors and more. “This isn’t just about saving a building,” says Englander.

“It’s about preserving a piece of LA’s creative DNA and giving it new life as a space for artists, community and culture to come together again.” • Subscribe free to Mix magazine and our daily Smartbrief newsletter!