Inside Trident Studios: The Legendary London Studio Behind Queen, Bowie & The Beatles

Tucked away in a narrow Soho alley, Trident Studios didn’t need neon lights or a grand entrance to make history. What it had instead was magic. A kind of unspoken, lived-in magic that wrapped itself around every note played within its walls.

Artists who walked in didn’t just record songs—they crafted moments.

In the late ’60s, Trident quietly became one of the first studios in the UK to adopt 8-track tape recording—an upgrade that drew artists away from even the mighty Abbey Road. Suddenly, there was space to experiment. Harmonies could stack higher, sounds could stretch further. And artists took full advantage.

The Beatles came first. “Hey Jude” was laid down there, its sweeping emotion and unforgettable piano intro played on the same upright piano that would later help shape “Bohemian Rhapsody.” That piano became something of a legend itself—scarred, soulful, and always in tune, like it knew the weight of the hands pressing its keys.

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Inside Trident Studios

Freddie Mercury loved that piano. When Queen recorded at Trident in the early ’70s, they gravitated to it instinctively. The now-iconic piano line from Bohemian Rhapsody was born there—same room, same keys. There’s a photograph somewhere of Freddie hunched over that instrument, cigarette burning in the ashtray, completely lost in sound.

David Bowie found his voice in that room, too. His album Hunky Dory—with songs like “Life on Mars?” and “Changes”—was recorded there, soaked in the warm tones Trident naturally gave off. The studio didn’t just record music—it seemed to understand it.

There was something about the way the rooms were designed, the way sound lived and breathed inside them. The walls didn’t flatten out your voice—they gave it shape.

But it wasn’t just the gear or the acoustics. It was the vibe. The staff cared. The engineers were young, hungry, and willing to push boundaries right alongside the artists. Rules weren’t broken at Trident—they were rewritten.

Who Else Recorded at Trident?

Elton John – Your Song

Lou Reed – Transformer (produced by Bowie and Mick Ronson)

Genesis – Trespass

The Bee Gees, Odessa

The Space & Sound

Famous Piano: A Bechstein grand and the upright used on Hey Jude and Bohemian Rhapsody

8-Track Tape Machines: Among the first in the UK

Studio A Acoustics: Naturally warm and bright—perfect for vocals and piano

Location: St. Anne’s Court, Soho, London

Like many great things in music, Trident's golden years didn’t last forever—but its influence never truly faded.

By the mid-1980s, the studio's original magic began to dim. Shifts in the industry, changing technologies, and the rise of home recording started to chip away at traditional studio dominance. Big-budget album sessions became rarer, and many iconic studios struggled to keep up. Trident was no exception.

Ownership changed hands a few times, and although the name lingered for a while, the soul of the original studio—the gear, the people, the spirit—had already begun to slip away.

By 1981, the original founders, Norman and Barry Sheffield, had moved on, and the studio slowly lost its edge as a go-to destination for groundbreaking artists.

Founder Norman Sheffield with his brother Barry.

Eventually, the original space at 17 St. Anne’s Court was sold, and for a time, became offices. There were efforts to revive the Trident name (and parts of it were even reopened for a while), but the magic of those early sessions—the raw energy of Queen tracking harmonies at 3 a.m., or Bowie quietly workshopping lyrics in the control room—was of a different time.

Yet for all that faded, Trident remains one of those rare studios whose legacy still sings.

The songs created there are eternal. And for a moment, in a small London alleyway, it felt like the center of the musical universe.

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