How Tony Berg is building a home for music's future

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Set us as preferred When Tony Berg was 18 years old, he discovered that Bruce Johnston of the Beach Boys lived just down the street from his parents’ house in Los Angeles.Berg is known these days as a Grammy-winning record producer and A&R exec, but in the early 1970s he was just another teenager trying to get noticed with his rock band.“So I left a note in Bruce’s mailbox that said that anyone who could write a song like ‘Disney Girls’ would like my band, and we’re playing the Ice House on Sunday,” Berg recalls.

“Sunday comes, and there’s Bruce in the audience.We became friends — he’d call and say, ‘Hey, I’m coming to pick you up, and we’re going to a session at the Beach Boys’ studio in Santa Monica.’ I walk in — there they are singing backgrounds on Elton John’s ‘Don’t Let the Sun Go Down.’“I was a kid watching the greatest musicians in the world make a song that would have an impact on millions of people.”Half a century later, Berg is the one happily fostering young talent.

Working at his historic Sound City recording studio in Van Nuys, the 72-year-old has played an instrumental role in the rise of Phoebe Bridgers and Sombr; this year he co-produced Bridgers’ “Lost Weekend” album and Sombr’s single “Homewrecker,” both of which are expected to turn up when Grammy nods are announced Nov.16.

And he’s just formed a joint venture with Warner Music called Crime & Punishment Records that will launch in early 2027 with a debut by the gifted newcomer Elle Bramhall.“I’m obsessed with popular music’s effect on young people,” he says, “because there’s nothing more profoundly influential on a young person than the music he or she listens to.Think about it: If you love a book, you might read it two or three times.

If you love a song — if you love ‘St...