Owensboro musician Clint Campbell on Friday publicly launched Surrender Studios, a recording studio that he said is designed to help Christian artists grow.
“We work with all styles, but I would say our niche is Christian music that is alternative in taste and style to the mainstream,” Campbell said. “For years now I’ve been creating music that glorifies God, but personally I want to come at this from a curious perspective and not be restricted to the genre that has become known as Christian music. We’re here to help anyone, but working with Christian artists is what’s true to my heart, and I think it’s good to be anchored.”
As a songwriter and performer who self-produces and promotes his own music, Surrender Studios is the culmination of years of personal experience — including performing original and cover songs at live gigs around the Owensboro region the past six to seven years.
But Campbell has been focusing his efforts on opening Surrender Studios for about the past year. Once the new studio space was functional, Campbell started recording and producing songs for a handful of artists while continuing to build the business and develop a social media presence.
With all the pieces in place to work with more artists, Campbell set Friday as the official launch.
“It came to a point that I needed a target date,” he said. “So after much preparation and prayer and a lot of growing personally, I decided to set a public launch date and start promoting the studio.”
Campbell said he spent months trying to find the perfect name that had not already been used by another studio.
“Finally, I just surrendered the search and it just clicked in my head that ‘surrender’ is actually a cool name,” he said. “I checked and it was available.”
As a stay-at-home dad who cares for their three young girls (ages 3, 2, and 1), Campbell admits that same theme also carries over into all areas of his life right now.
“Raising young kids at home while my wife works outside the home, and trying to launch a business at the same time takes a lot of surrender, for sure,” he said. “It takes a servant’s heart.”
But his current situation is also by design.
“My wife and I were talking one day and she asked me what my best life would be,” Campbell said. “She asked if I could do anything, what would it be? And I said, ‘I’d open a studio. Stay at home with the girls. Homeschool them. And pursue music 100%.’”
Her response: “Then let’s do it. There’s never going to be a better time than right now.”
So with that, Campbell turned his focus toward Surrender Studios and never looked back. To help him with the process, Clint worked with a business coach out of North Carolina.
“The goal is not to be a local studio; we’re not limited to this area. The vision is much bigger than that,” Campbell said.
For example, the studio is capable of recording live in-person but also mixing and mastering files passed electronically.
“Sometimes it’s a hybrid too,” Campbell said. “Sometimes musicians will record tracks somewhere else and send them to me, then I’ll mix them and master them here, and then the vocalist will come in and record live vocals.”
In addition to recording and production, Campbell also hopes to add artist coaching to his repertoire. More info on his studio can be found at SurrenderStudiosOnline.com.
