Nestled on the corner of 6th Ave in Dayton, Kentucky, is a big building with lots of character inside. The Lodge KY is a recording and art studio space with a smorgasbord of opportunities for artists, from audio recording and photography to studio rental and event space.
Scott Beseler has owned the building for the past eight years and operated it with Dr. Johnny Wirick, also known as Johnny Walker of the Soledad Brothers.
Walker, originally from Toledo, moved down here in 1997 to attend medical school at The University of Cincinnati for psychiatry. Around 1998, Johnny Walker, Ben Swank and Brian Olive formed The Soledad Brothers and played shows while Walker was in school.
They began touring around the world in 2002 after Walker graduated from med school and did that for four years.
“We’re broke up but kind of not,” Walker said. “We still do shows and events, but we’ll never tour again.”
Walker was introduced to Jack White on the music scene in Detroit.
“I was 25 when I met him; he was 21,” Walker said. “He was playing a show with Two Star Tabernacle. He came to see us play in Detroit, and he was like, ‘You should come to my house, and we can record.’”
White produced The Soledad Brother’s first album, and Walker played slide guitar on two songs from The White Stripes’ debut album. Walker and White continued to play music together throughout their friendship.
“We used to drive around Detroit, and they have a big trash day in Detroit which is for furniture and stuff,” Walker said. “We used to drive around in beat-up old vans and find old stuff, and Jack would reupholster it. We’d find drum kits and would clean them up and spray paint and put lights on them and hang it on the wall. He found an egg chair once, which is a super expensive piece of furniture. His whole house was furnished with big trash day findings. That’s a Detroit thing. It goes all the way back to guys with horses and carriages getting your big trash, and eventually, Detroit would pick them up. That was us being thrifty, part out of necessity, part out of fun.”
White attended Cass Technical High School in Detroit, where he studied upholstery, which is how he learned how to flip old furniture.
“Detroit was wide open. You could do whatever you wanted back then,” Walker said. “It was like a third-world country, but we didn’t know it.”
White continues to create one-of-a-kind pieces of furniture and recently handcrafted a bench for his friend and The Lodge KY.
GQ recently picked up the story on how White crafted the bench on Feb. 10—naming Dayton, Kentucky and The Lodge KY in the article.
Walker said White specifically created the bench to match their recording space and hand-delivered it to him.
“We have the blue room, so he bought the cashmere to match the room,” Walker said. “It’s 350 pounds. It’s super heavy. There were six of us trying to carry it up and around the corners of the stairs. It sat in here [on the first floor] for months before we carried it up there.”
Aside from his work at The Lodge KY, Walker is a psychiatrist at Greater Cincinnati Behavioral Health Services. His business partner Beseler who he calls the “big boss,” manages the photography, event and music aspects of The Lodge Ky. and is also the University Photographer for Northern Kentucky University. Walker said his main duties are to make sure everyone is comfortable and having a good time.
“People from all over the country come to record,” Walker said. “We have the lowest rates in town; we’re not in it for the profit.”
Bands like Walk the Moon wrote their first album at the studio.
“Scott and I are both based in Dayton, so we’re for lifers now,” Walker said.
