A church in the Pontiac is under new management and there has been plenty of changes to the scheduling.
Attendance to this church features no gospel, pastor and potentially little organ. Most guests probably won’t be found in their Sunday’s best, either.
That’s because this church in Quyon has not only acquired a new name and owners, but also has a new purpose – it’s a recording studio.
Quyon Church is a new experience for musicians, offering them the unique location of recording in such a building, while having the option to live there, too.

St. John the Evangelist Anglican Church was purchased by Erin Flynn and Michael Dubue last November after the two had been shopping around for studio locations for some time. Though their initial prospects brought them out to Masham, a friend mentioned that this church was for sale in Quyon.
Upon further investigation, they fell in love with it.
“We came and saw it, and immediately, it just spoke to us,” said Flynn. “It was obviously quite beautiful, a unique space and had all of the sort of qualities that we were looking for right away without us having to invest a whole bunch of work and time into changing and transforming a space. So, I guess the stars aligned for us.”
For Flynn, the combination of visuals and acoustics were the major selling points. She listed Quyon Church as maintaining and restoring original elements, such as the altar, flooring and stained glass, for developing a setting unlike any other recording studio.
“There’s a full bar – we’re not making a bar in there, but it exists – there’s a mezzanine that was built, there’s lots of wood, it’s just really a beautiful space visually, and then as far as acoustically, it’s really unique,” she said. “You can sort of hear the room in the recordings. In the same way that Motown has its own sound or when you think of Tom Waits’ recordings, they have a very specific sound, this has a sound that will offer artists something that you won’t get anywhere else, literally because of that space.”
What does this mean for musicians? Simply, it provides an atmosphere to recordings that is not destructive, but something all its own.
While it should be a fair assumption that the high ceilings would provide a rounded, obtrusive effect, it does the opposite. According to Flynn, there’s a slight cavernous ability to the ceilings that didn’t require renovations to correct. Hence why she says the room has a sound all its own.
“We can get an amazing drum sound in there, so anything that has percussion works well with it,” said Flynn. “But also the vocal sound has a natural reverb in the room, but not a lot of reverb, like a nice full sound to the voice.”
Recording artists must agree, as they’ve already welcomed acts from around Ottawa and at least one over from Montreal into their space. Wakefield’s Rebelle, Ottawa’s Scary Bear Soundtrack and Montreal’s Little Scream were just some of the artists Flynn would share have worked with them, and though it may seem like they’re catering to a certain indie rock/pop genre, their talents adapt to many more stylings.
“The projects that we’ve been working on so far have tended to be more in the world of indie pop, indie rock, a couple heavy projects,” said Flynn. “But we’ve been talking to people who want to do more along the lines of country music or we even had a traditional gospel choir come to us about doing work in there, so it’s versatile enough that it can accommodate different styles of music.”
However, they’re not willing to work with anyone who walks in with a guitar strapped around their neck. To record at Quyon Church, there must be a level of dedication and seriousness met by the musician or band.
“We want to work with – this sounds funny to say – good music,” said Flynn.
What this means to them is coming in ready to work, willing to listen and take feedback into consideration, and arriving with music ready to record. Musicians don’t have to arrive with a full album ready to be laid down and that’s it, as there are workshop opportunities to build songs with Dubue. But there has to be a level of commitment to the art on display from the get-go and it has to be something the owners can appreciate.
“If we’re producing something we have a certain ownership to it as well,” said Flynn “It’s coming out of our studio, so we want to be part of things that are … continuing to move music and arts forward, whatever way that is.”
For some artists, this experience may entail living at the studio, like Little Scream did. Living in Montreal, their progress would be impeded by frequent travel back and forth to Quyon.
The church is well-prepared for such a scenario, offering musicians a full package of living, eating and recording at their location.
With a space onsite for guests to live in, artists can record with Dubue before retiring to a full vegan meal prepared by Flynn, then maybe head next door to Gavan’s for a pint or two, and finally, returning to crash and do it all over again.
“You don’t have to think about anything else, you can really focus and have that sort of deep-dive into your work,” said Flynn.
Consequently, as Flynn and Dubue are newcomers to Quyon, their hope is that this setup will feed back into the local economy. Whether it be that beer from their neighbour’s bar, or a pizza from up the street, gas from two doors down, or shopping in Shawville, they’d like to see it happen.
When they describe themselves as newcomers, there is little exaggeration. While Flynn grew up in Almonte and remembers taking the old ferry when she was young, Dubue has lived as close as Wakefield, working there at one point.
So why were these two not only the people to open the studio, but do so in Quyon?
“That is a great question. I ask myself the same one. Honestly, I don’t know, we had just been talking about it and I guess it’s kind of an extension of the things that we do,” said Flynn. “My day job is I’m the station manager at CHUO, which is the independent radio station at the University of Ottawa and so the spirit of the work that I do is really around connecting people in the community to like-minded voices and trying to provide a space where people can collaborate. A lot of that happens around music, not all of it, some of it is around spoken word and other cultural or other ties, but a lot of it is around music. I’m a huge fan of music, Mike is a musician, a front of house sound guy, and for sure, this has been his dream to own a studio, and things just came together.”
Surely, moving somewhere new wasn’t enough for them, so they decided to roll a lot of changes into one package, as they combined their home with their business and became first-time homeowners, all at once.
While this has led to some minor headaches – determining expenses in such a situation, drawing a hard line between their home and work place for their guests – it’s also left them feeling conflicted as they work to integrate into a new community.
“A challenge maybe is figuring out how to fit into the small community in a way that’s not … overbearing or intrusive,” said Flynn. “You don’t want to come from away and all of a sudden be stepping on toes. I think some of that is kind of inevitable, right? Because we’re from away and I’m finding, there’s not a central location to communicate to everyone in Quyon and in the Pontiac.”
For Flynn, there is a worry that their workspace may be misrepresented or misunderstood in the community, hence the stepping on toes woes.
“I think there’s sort of a misconception that we’re trying to be a regular venue and we’re not,” said Flynn.
She pointed to an upcoming performance where John K. Samson of The Weakerthans as such an instance. As the space is small, tickets were limited, and she’s afraid the community may see this as an exclusionary tactic.
“It’s an opportunity to get him in that space so he can see it and maybe start to talk about it, if he likes it,” said Flynn. “That’s more the motivation.”
Still, while she hopes to fill in the blanks for what their business is about in Quyon, Flynn still has plenty of questions of her own about her new home.
“I have been asking a lot of questions and talking to people as I meet them, just trying to understand more of the context that is Quyon, like, ‘Why is there no grocery store?’ and, ‘What are people excited about?’” she said.