He was the man that helped usher in a new era for Perth music, yet few would know his name.

Shaun O’Callaghan was a wiry guitarist from Albany, who could play like Stevie Ray Vaughan.

But it was his work behind the recording desk that helped create a seminal period of music for WA, and meant Perth kids would never again think they’d have to head ‘over east’ to make a world-class record.

And he did it all through a fog of Champion Ruby tobacco smoke and a permanently attached carton of Masters Iced Coffee – watched by his sleepy, loyal canine ‘Hendrix’.

As a sound engineer he worked with a generation of Perth’s best artists – Eskimo Joe, John Butler, Little Birdy, Jebediah and Abbe May all spent time at his Fremantle studio, Couch.

By 2002, booking time at Couch was no easy feat, such was the demand to work with O’Callaghan.

Eskimo Joe front man Kav Temperley said O’Callaghan had an immense influence on his band.

“Shaun came about in a time when Perth bands were just moving into the idea of staying in Perth and producing music that was as good a calibre as any other band in the country or around the world,” he said.

Camera Icon Shaun O'Callaghan in 1997. Credit: Dan Jarvis / Supplied

“There’s a kind of pre-Shaun era where there was a lot of bands who were doing the DIY thing, but there wasn’t that level of sophistication – no disrespect to anybody’s band - in their sound recordings.

“You couldn’t put it on the radio or next to another CD.

“If you listened to it you’d say ‘that sounds like an indi band from Perth’.”

Perth did have big, professional recording studios prior to Couch – but they were expensive, especially for fledgling original bands scrapping for their next gig.

It was O’Callaghan’s embracing of Pro-Tools, then a relatively scarce computer recording program, that helped a generation of rock stars craft their sound.

His friend Dan Jarvis, leader of Perth band Prawns With Horns, was a co-conspirator in the early days of Studio Couch.

“I really got to know him when we were both working as dish pigs at The Witch’s Cauldron in Subi,” Jarvis said.

“He borrowed my four-track and we started recording a bit.

“I moved in with my brother in ‘96, in White Gum Valley, and he had a big lock-up garage and a granny flat off the end.

“Shaun decided to buy a bunch of gear, and we set up there.

“We acquired an old Pro-Tools system, just four tracks of Pro-Tools for mastering.”

Camera Icon A collection of Couch gear. Credit: Dan Jarvis / Supplied

It wasn’t long before the pair upgraded from Tascam DA-88 (digital tape) machines to a full Pro-Tools system.

“By the time we got to Henry Street, in Freo in 1998, we had 16 tracks of Pro-Tools,” Jarvis said.

“A lot of the other studios around were still on tape machines, and had invested hundreds of thousands of dollars in outboard gear.

“Digital recording really emerged when we started.

“Shaun would have been one of the first with a Pro-Tools system, in a converted house.”

One of O’Callaghan’s early success stories was John Butler, who ended up living in the downstairs portion of the studio.

“I was introduced to Shaun by another legendary ‘music enabler’ George Nikoludos,” Butler said.

Nikoludos was instrumental to Couch’s success, loaning O’Callaghan high-end microphones, compressors and other equipment to make the studio a cut above the other home studios that were emerging.

“George basically insisted that I make my first album with Shaun at Couch Studios and so I did,” Butler said.

“I ended up making my first three releases with Shaun.

“I moved down stairs at the studio in Henry Street during the last sessions of my second full length album ‘3’, which was about a year given my touring and speed of how I chose to record.

“Shaun had a great mix of engineering chops, production ideas and was a great musician - I mean an awesome guitarist, far better than I considered myself to be.

“Those were some of the best days - hearing bands who I really respected like the Eskies do their thing upstairs and being able to hang at nights with Shaun talking to the wee hours about all things musical.”

Perhaps the biggest feather in O’Callaghan’s cap came after Eskimo Joe, now signed to a major label, travelled to Sing Sing studios to record their debut album Girl.

“We went into a big studio in Melbourne, paid ridiculous amounts of money, then walked out of there realised we were really unhappy with the result,” Temperley said.

“We convinced our record company at the time to give us just a little bit more money and basically what we did is went in with Shaun and we did extensive post production and mixed the whole album with him.

“We knew we could get the results we wanted with him.”

From Henry Street, the third and final incarnation of couch was built in Pamment Street, North Fremantle in 2004.

O’Callaghan was taken from us much too soon.

On December 2, 2010, he was returning from a windsurfing trip in Lancelin when he suffered a heart attack and died. He was 44. A few months later he was inducted into the West Australian Music Industry (WAMI) Hall of Fame.

Temperley believes the Perth music scene in the late 1990s and early 2000s was the perfect storm, with bands taking themselves more seriously and an increase in production quality.

“I think it was a symbiotic relationship of the bands stepping up and production stepping up,” he said.

“The records he was putting out were as good a quality as any of the records that were coming out anywhere else in the country.

“You didn’t have to go over east to record.

“Shaun, with the gear that he had, was enabling that to happen.”

Butler says O’Callaghan played a huge role in elevating the Perth music scene.

“My first radio breakthroughs or ‘hits’ were made with him and even my first video was made downstairs at Henry Street,” he says.

“Shaun’s studio played a massive role in the development of recordings coming out of the west that the world could actually take seriously on a recording and production front.

“I have a picture of Shaun in my studio in complete recognition and remembrance for our time together, his bottomless passion, and the sound of so many bands that he impacted.”