Under the Volcano: The tiny island that rocked until disaster hit

The legend goes like this. If you drink from Runaway Ghaut, a ravine that channels rainwater from the volcano to the sea on the tiny Caribbean island of Montserrat, you will one day return.

Artist and children’s book author Frane Lessac, who lived on the island between 1979 and 1983, remembers filling her young daughter’s bottle with that water when the family would regularly visit throughout the 1990s and 2000s.

Her daughter, Cody Greenwood, is now 31, and she did more than return to the island. She has produced a documentary about it called Under the Volcano. It details the story of AIR Montserrat, one of the most legendary recording studios in the world – built by the Beatles’ producer George Martin in 1979 ­– and what happened when two cataclysmic natural disasters struck the island.

Australian film producer Cody Greenwood, left, as a child with her mother Frane Lessac and brother Luke on Montserrat in 1993.Credit: Mark Greenwood

“I instantly fell in love with the island and no place has ever felt like it before or since,” says Lessac, sitting in the kitchen of the large Fremantle house she shares with her husband and fellow children’s book author, Mark Greenwood.

“I was in my 20s and I’d been living in California, where I studied film, but I wanted to live somewhere in the Caribbean. I read about Montserrat, where the harbour was too shallow for cruise ships and the runway too short for jets. That sounded great to me.”

Her arrival coincided with the opening of Martin’s studio, and Lessac became friends with the legendary producer and his family and hung out with some of the famous musicians who came there to record. Many of them are now interviewed in her daughter’s documentary, in which they express their love for Montserrat and detail how it helped them get away from the paparazzi, the record companies and distractions of the city, and inspired them to reconnect and create, revitalising their careers in the process.

Elton John arrived in 1982 with no songs and in the middle of a career slump following his 1970s heyday, and recorded three albums back to back – notably 1983’s Too Low For Zero, which contained two of his most enduring hits, I’m Still Standing and I Guess That’s Why They Call It The Blues, written on the island with Bernie Taupin.

Elton John photographed at AIR Studios Montserrat where he recorded three albums.Credit: Martyn Goddard

The Police recorded Ghost In The Machine (1981) and Synchronicity (1983) there, albums that catapulted them to superstar status, even as the band members’ relationships were falling apart. The video for Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic was filmed on Montserrat and includes many of the locals, along with footage of Martin’s studio. (Martin was displeased that guitarist Andy Summers danced on top of the precious Neve mixing desk in the video.) And following a period of estrangement between Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, the Rolling Stones regrouped and healed old wounds to record their 1989 comeback album Steel Wheels. It was to be the final recording session at AIR Montserrat.

Away from the distractions of the city: AIR Studios Montserrat in its heyday.Credit: Frank Oglethorpe

The dream came to a terrible end on September 17, 1989, when Hurricane Hugo damaged or destroyed 90 per cent of the structures on the island. It left AIR Montserrat in ruins. Then, between 1995 and 1997, Montserrat’s volcano erupted, burying the capital, Plymouth, destroying the airport and making the southern half of the island uninhabitable. There were 19 deaths and two-thirds of the population of 10,000 left the island, half of them for the UK.

The Police in the studio in 1981, from left, Andy Summers, Sting and Stewart Copeland.Credit: Getty Images

“We got permission to go to the studio to film, but it’s falling apart and very unsafe,” says Cody Greenwood, sitting in her family’s Fremantle kitchen. “Everyone had to wear masks to protect us from mould and if you stepped on the wrong part of the floorboards you could fall right through.”

‘Everyone had to wear masks to protect us from mould and if you stepped on the wrong part of the floorboards you could fall right through.’

Producer Cody Greenwood

She chose Gracie Otto to direct as she loved her 2013 documentary The Last Impresario, about legendary British theatre and film producer Michael White (famous for The Rocky Horror Show, Oh! Calcutta, and Monty Python and the Holy Grail).

AIR founder and Beatles producer George Martin takes a call by the pool at his dream studio.Credit: Martyn Goddard

“I feel that if Cody and I were on The Amazing Race together, we’d win,” says Otto via Zoom from Sydney. “We’re a great team. We’re both very similar, but we both have different strengths. She’s an early bird and I’m a night bird. She’s got a producer brain and I’ve got a director brain. We’ve spent so much time together making this film that now we’re like best friends.”

Otto and Greenwood agree the toughest thing about making Under the Volcano was getting the stars to talk on camera. They thought they were off to a flying start when the very first person on board was Sting, who was interviewed in New York. But the filmmakers had to keep pushing for other famous names. By far the hardest nut to crack was Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits, who recorded his magnum opus, Brothers In Arms, at AIR Montserrat in 1984 and 1985.

Director Gracie Otto, left, and producer Cody Greenwood in 2019 on the diving board where rock stars once sunbathed.Credit: Amanda Fordyce

“Cody tried for two years and he said no six or seven times before finally agreeing to do it,” says Otto. “Then when we got back from the interview, we discovered that the camera card had over-heated and we couldn’t get the footage off it. I felt sick. We ended up having to send the card to Hong Kong to the manufacturer and they put it in a freezer for 10 days and extracted the footage minute by minute.”

Verdine White of Earth Wind and Fire recorded at the studio in 1980. 

But for Greenwood, the film was not just about getting the rock stars. Like her mother, she had become close to many of the residents when she was a kid, including George “Tappy” Morgan, the studio cook with the big personality, and Danny Sweeney, who taught Sting and other stars to windsurf.

Interviewed in the film: legendary studio cook George ‘Tappy’ Morgan. Credit: Frank Oglethorpe

“It was really important to me that everyone who sees the film experiences the magic of the place through the people who lived there,” Greenwood says. “I knew we couldn’t make this film without their involvement.”

Lava flows from the volcanic eruption of the Soufriere Hills.Credit: Getty

One of Greenwood’s favourite interviews was with Rose Willock, a radio DJ who stayed on the air throughout the volcanic eruption, a calming voice for her people during the disaster. Willock also makes the observation that the locals were not starstruck by the famous musicians who arrived regularly throughout the ’80s – she adds that if they were famous cricketers, it would have been a different story.

Of course, the person who hovers over the film is George Martin, who died in 2016 at the age of 90. If Greenwood had a chance to speak to him, what would she have wanted to ask?

Aftermath of the volcanic eruption in the centre of Plymouth, the capital of Montserrat.Credit: Getty Images

“I would have asked him about the creative process and what drew him to Montserrat,” she says. “But I really think a lot of George came through from the musicians we interviewed and also his son, Giles. And I love the archival footage, especially that scene of George on the balcony of AIR after the studio was destroyed.”

All that remains: AIR Studios Montserrat in 2019Credit: Amanda Fordyce

Indeed, that scene is the emotional heart of the film. As the famous producer surveys the ruins of his dream studio, he pauses and says, “It’s like everything in life, isn’t it? Everything has a period. You bring something out of nothing and it always goes back to nothing again.”

“After I first saw that footage, I had a sense of being at peace with what happened to the studio,” says Greenwood. “George was so accepting, and I think that was one of his great characteristics. He could accept change for what it was. He knew that AIR Montserrat had its time. And that time was over.”

For Martin, Montserrat was about more than his studio. The island and its people got under his skin and he had a genuine love for them. In 1997, he organised the concert Music For Montserrat at the Royal Albert Hall, featuring many of the artists who had recorded there, including Paul McCartney, Elton John, Sting, Mark Knopfler and Eric Clapton, who all played for free. The concert and resulting DVD raised £1.5 million for relief and construction of a cultural centre.

Mark Knopfler, Paul McCartney, George Martin and Sting at the fundraising concert for Montserrat in 1997.Credit: Getty

Frane Lessac did a painting that graced the cover of another benefit album, After The Hurricane – Songs For Montserrat, and her first children’s book, My Little Island, was a tribute to the place she loves so much.

The last time Lessac visited Montserrat was in August 2019, while her daughter and Otto were filming. At the end of the trip, as she boarded the small plane to leave, she burst into tears. She still thinks about Montserrat and its people at least once a day.

“My very first book was my love letter to Montserrat,” she says. “And now, with this film, Cody has made her love letter to the island.”

Perhaps there really is something in the water.

Under the Volcano will be available on all major digital platforms from September 1.

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