My Favorite Room: Eric Dane meets with his muse in his recording studio
Actor Eric Dane has been a familiar face on the small screen, with roles on “Grey’s Anatomy,” “Charmed” and, now, “The Last Ship.”
Away from the Hollywood studios, Dane, 43, likes to kick back in a studio of his own: a 150-square-foot recording space tucked away in the Beverly Hills modern farmhouse that he shares with his wife, actress Rebecca Gayheart, and their two daughters. The couple bought the four-bedroom home in 2010.
Why a recording studio?
It’s my hobby. I love everything about music, and I love making music. We’re a pretty musical family, but we are closeted musicians.
So you’re kind of like one of those musicians who has music hidden away in a vault?
Yeah, but I’m not Prince.
What instruments do you play?
Electrical instruments, mostly keyboard. I would argue that I’m still — to this day — not musical, but I love doing it.
Why is this room special?
It’s purely a creative space. There are no deadlines. There are no have-to’s. It’s just something I do for me.
How much time do you spend in here?
More time than my wife would prefer.
Did you have help designing the space?
I had this old Irish guy [I found through] the Village, a famous recording studio in Santa Monica, help me. When you design a recording studio, the first thing you want to do is treat the room to make sure the sound is good, so you’re getting an accurate depiction of the music as it was played or recorded.
The initial build took about a month. But it’s taken about five years to accumulate all the stuff I needed to get it right. So I have bass traps, wall panels, diffusers and Gobos [wall partitions on wheels that can be moved around] and all kinds of fun stuff that makes no sense to most people and rarely makes sense to me.
How much did the studio cost?
Being fairly conservative? I have about $150,000 invested.
Favorite piece in the room?
My modular synthesizer. It makes a lot of noises and sounds that my wife doesn’t really appreciate.
Anything funny happen in the room?
The funniest thing is how I react to my kids coming in while eating food. They wander in at all times, usually holding a muffin or a cookie or a bag of Goldfish crackers. I tend to follow them around with a Dustbuster. I’m the proud owner of two Dustbusters.
Your character, Dr. Mark Sloan, was a favorite on “Grey’s Anatomy.” Now you’re a captain in “The Last Ship.” Could you actually captain a ship?
I could captain a large ship about as well as I could perform surgery.
