Higher Elevation Studio is the culmination of Royce Harris’s vision for ministry. A former recording artist himself, he founded Daybreak Prison Ministry over thirty years ago. He dreamed of being able to broadcast interviews and music into the prison system. His wife has been active in this arena for many years, producing an album partially written by female inmates and launched inside the women’s prison responsible for the songwriting, a first in Canada and possibly in the entire prison ministry world.
Early in 2024, James Salter, Eileen Richardson (DiaDan Holdings), and Scotty Wilbanks put their heads together and came up with an idea to help put Higher Elevation Studio on the map. Wilbanks put together several dozen questions for Royce to put to both inmates and former inmates. The idea was to get ten to fifteen-minute audio or video interviews and then take the answers to the questions and write them as songs. The trio spent a lot of time collaborating, ironing out all of the details involved in utilizing singers, musicians, and songwriters in several countries. Scotty was engaged to write the songs and assess final tracking and mixing after the materials were ready for master recordings.
In April 2024, the bonus for Royce was meeting Scotty for the first time in Calgary, where he was on tour. They were able to spend some time together backstage to go over where we were with the project at that point in time. A project like this cannot happen overnight, and with Wilbanks often on tour, Salter recording and producing in LA, and Eileen Richardson orchestrating and liaising with Harris in Nova Scotia, it took about eleven months before they were ready to bring the project to Nova Scotia.
Scotty enlisted the help of Nashville songwriters and musicians to help him turn the testimonies into creative works of art. The first ruffs were recorded in Nashville and then the team turned to Nova Scotia. In April 2025, everyone assembled in Higher Elevation Studio to record and create the finished products. It was an intense and emotion-filled week as Wilbanks and the musicians he’d brought with him recorded the final cuts. There was laughter and tears, videos and photography, new friendships formed and an exhilarating high as the songs reached completion. Wilbanks and Salter were convinced they had at least one number one hit and possibly two. All that remains now is deciding on a release date for the songs. Once that happens, Higher Elevation Studio will come out of hiding and become a visible recording alternative for Nova Scotia.