Lumberjack Tracks is a music recording and mastering studio in Salt Lake City, Utah that was started in June 2016 by John Hancock. Their studio is expanding as they grow.
Lumberjack Tracks studio tracks, mixes and masters all genres of music. Hancock said, “Our community can help support our local music scene by networking with us. By tuning in every Saturday to catch the action on YouTube and our Facebook page.” They also have a radio station. They go live on Facebook every weekends, while they interview and record music of local artists.
The CEO of Lumberjack Tracks Hancock got into music when he was 12 years old. He found a box of albums out behind a dumpster. “Someone’s mom must have gotten mad at them and tossed them. It was a goldmine,” he said. “I had Run DMC, Beastie Boys. The collection was ruthless at the time. That’s when I became a fan, by growing up on this stuff.” Hancock also says hip hop raised him.
Lumberjack Tracks studio was founded by Hancock on June 1, 2016. That’s when Lumberjack Tracks was licensed. “My business is almost five months old I have a business plan and I have been meeting the plan,” he said, adding that his business is growing and he hopes to bring on several more clients soon. “In our five months open we have worked with over 100 individual clients, which is a decent number when you consider our hourly rate.” They have more than doubled the square footage since the day they opened. Recently, they added an additional recording booth. Hancock has hired an intern as a personal assistant as well as one to train as an audio engineer.
Lumberjack Tracks operates seven days a week: Monday through Friday 9am-9pm, and Saturday and Sunday from 6pm-9pm but soon to be 9-9 even on weekends. “We interview all kinds of artists, or small business,” he said. “The point is to represent our local people. But part of getting views is bringing in bigger names which is something we have just started to do.” Lumberjack Tracks recently interviewed Cryptic Wisdom who has millions of views on YouTube. That’s one of the biggest views they have had so far.
Lumberjack Tracks has nearly 70 people in their street team, everything from doctors to attorneys to thugs, he said. But everyone has one motive in mind and that is our positive movement. “This is all about supporting our community and making good things happen.” They have roughly 10 members who meet each week and discus about what they should be focused on, they also brainstorm new ideas. He said “This meeting is then recorded and the points are forwarded to a private page where the entire team has access to our agenda.” Many people simply share posts of Lumberjack Tracks or help sell gears through social media and others are more involved by passing the name lumberjack tracks around.
Lumberjack Tracks has donated funds to the Haven and to young people in recovery. These funds come from their merchandise like hats, sweaters, bracelets and t-shirts. They help people with addiction recovery because Hancock had a rough life growing up as kid. He was born in Salt Lake City, Utah, to a middle-class family. Hancock didn’t live in the nicest neighborhood but he said “my mom kept our home spotless.” he said My parents fought a lot and by the time I was 9 years old my parents divorced. “I lived with my mom and rarely saw my father for 20 years after the divorce.” John lost his mom when he was 15 years old. “I was bounced around to different foster homes and proctor homes. I ran away from the state and I was homeless for like two years.”
Hancock lived under a bridge until he was able to land a job and soon rented his first house at the age of 17. “I began to sell drugs to get by, I didn’t think at the time I had many better options to support myself.” he got into trouble with that and got into drinking heavily. About four years ago John got sober. Since then John have almost completed his bachelor degree, Hancock bought and paid off his car, “I bought a home and built a company from the ground up.”
The biggest challenge Hancock faces as the owner of Lumberjack Tracks is making sure that everything goes as planned with his company. “We are growing so fast that I need to be careful about the choices I make and in which areas to develop for growth.” This is a new company so everything is new to me.” He said, “Some investments are losses I simply try and keep them to a minimum at the same time risk is involved and some risky investments have been the biggest pay offs.”
U NewsWriting 