Big Nice Studio a Hub of Opportunity for Rhode Island Musicians

When Brad Krieger wakes up in the morning the first thing he sees is a corkboard with a yellow Post-it that reads, “Radical success is the only option.”

Over the years this phrase has become a kind of family slogan, with both Krieger and his wife, Jill, returning to it whenever they experienced moments of doubt about their prospective paths.

Krieger describes how the couple came up with the mantra one night in their early 20s while sitting on their kitchen floor daydreaming about the future.

“She was considering applying to MFA programs and I was deciding to commit to the studio stuff full-time,” Krieger recalls.

Then and there, they made a pact that no matter what, they would succeed in their dreams. For Jill this meant becoming a writer, and for Krieger, running his own recording studio, producing great music and building an arts community.

Now, more than a decade after that fateful night in the kitchen, Jill and Brad have a toddler at home and twins expected this winter. No matter how much their identities have changed — going from coeds to co-parents — they’re both still as deeply committed to their respective art practices as they ever were. It’s not just them though, who have benefited from their seemingly unending drive. Rhode Island, too, is all the better thanks to this family’s profound ambition.

Krieger owns and runs Big Nice, a recording studio in Lincoln, Rhode Island. More than 100 years ago the building was used as a mill, but during Krieger’s childhood it was primarily a fabric store.

“This is a building I grew up with,” he says. “I used to shop at the Ryco with my nana.”

Historic mills have been a bit of a theme of Krieger’s development, starting in his early teens when he went to music shows based in the Providence Warehouse scene.

“It was the best,” he says, a wicked smile crossing his face. “It was these huge mill spaces that were converted into artist lofts with bands like Lightning Bolt, the While Mice — just legendary Providence art, rock and noise bands.”

Krieger went on to receive a BFA in sound design from Emerson College. A few years after he graduated he decided it was time to start investing in his own studio.

“I already had this recording collective and I decided I wanted to do my own thing and be the sole proprietor, completely be in charge,” he says. “I was sick of collaborating and making compromises. I really wanted to make sure that if I’m working with an artist, it’s a tight process with no bullshit.”

First he began looking for a studio space in Boston, but the steep rent was, predictably, prohibitable. Then his mother called with some interesting news: the old Ryco building had a for sale sign on it.

“It was exactly what I’d been looking for in the past year of searching,” he says. “We drew up a lease and I signed it that day.”

Starting Big Nice was a homecoming for Krieger: he was born and raised in Lincoln, as were his parents. His father owned a small business and his mother trained as a chef at Johnson and Wales. Though neither of his parents were artistic themselves, Krieger says his childhood was filled with music, specifically vinyl.

“We had records playing all the time at home. My upbringing was Return to Forever, Herbie Hancock, Miles Davis and Frank Zappa,” he says. “Then my mom would put on Joni Mitchell, Neil Young and The Beatles.”

Sunday mornings, in particular, were a dreamy familial scene, with Mom flipping pancakes, and Dad putting on another record as Krieger and his brother danced around the table in glee.

When he was 4 years old, Krieger was given an organ by his aunt, and though it’s certainly a unique first instrument, he credits it with making him into a music producer.

“My first exposure to learning and performing music was one hand on one set of keys, the other hand on the other, and then my foot on the pedals,” Krieger says. “It was this real kinetic thing where I had to engage all of my limbs and think about all the different tones that each limb was playing and interacting with. It set me up to think about music from more of a production/holistic standpoint where I had to control multiple voices.”

When Krieger moved into Big Nice’s first studio space in the mill, turning his project into a business had not yet crossed his mind. He was simply looking for a place where he and his friends could record. But, with the idea of “radical success” always looming in the background, Krieger knew, at least somewhere in his subconscious, that Big Nice was always meant for bigger things.

The first records Krieger produced were for the bands Horse Jumper of Love and Roz and The Rice Cakes — both of whom he had become friendly with through the Boston music scene. The records turned out to be triumphs, cementing Krieger as a credible if not exceptional producing talent.

“The studio wasn’t even complete,” Krieger says. “There was stuff hanging out all over the place. We had no air conditioning. It was like 100 degrees.”

Nonetheless, everyone in the studio felt the magic.

“We didn’t know what we were doing, but we made amazing records together, and they were beautiful experiences,” he says.

In a kind of “if you make it they will come,” scenario, the studio was immediately inundated with booking requests.

“All of a sudden I started getting contacted by local musicians who were like, ‘We heard that record. When can we come in?’ And it started to snowball so fast,” Krieger says.

He had always known that Rhode Island fostered amazing musicians, but had not realized how much these performers needed a recording studio. Suddenly Big Nice came on the scene and instantly provided a service that had long been missing.

“Myself and our producers are of the same caliber as any major studio anywhere else in the world,” Krieger says. “It just so happens that we’re 10 minutes away from Providence on the Blackstone River.”

Three years ago, building owner Pat Ryan decided to retire and sell the 25,000-foot factory. Luckily, she knew just the plucky entrepreneur who would be interested in taking on such a mammoth task.

“She’s my mortgage holder and she made all this happen,” Krieger says. “She’s basically subsidizing the arts!”

Now Krieger is dreaming of ways to fill all that square footage and there are plans for an arts studio/coworking space as well as another smaller studio, aptly called, Little Nice.

“The usable mill space that’s geared towards the arts in Rhode Island is shrinking rapidly because it’s all being turned into luxury condos and apartments,” Krieger says. “I come from the artistic mill spaces, from those artist lofts in Olneyville, and I want to maintain that spirit and do it in a way where people can pay a couple hundred bucks a month to come and work.

“I’m trying to make records, have people make art and have Big Nice be a hub.”

As Krieger says this, we hear his name being shouted from a passing car with the driver also laying on the horn. Krieger laughs and waves back, giving a “Hey, good to see you,” in response. In the hour I’ve spent with Krieger, both of us sipping iced coffees, this is the fourth person who has stopped to say hello to him.

By the end of our interview, I realize it’s not that Big Nice is a hub so much, as that it’s Krieger who brings people together, offering so many artists a place where their dreams can be taken seriously. After all, there would be no Big Nice had Krieger not taken himself seriously all those years ago, when he and Jill wrote down six words they would ultimately live by.

Radical success is the only option.