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Jason LaRocca: The Self-Taught Punk Rocker-Turned-Prolific Film & Entertainment Sound Engineer

May 24, 2023

If you call yourself a true punk head then you’ll most likely have heard of The Briggs, a punk rock band founded in part by brothers Joey and Jason LaRocca. The Briggs are the quintessential Los Angeles-born band that carved their name into the California punk landscape during the early 2000s, and has played an influential role for many other bands coming out of the scene since.

Now, if you’re a film score and post-production aficionado, you’ll have come across Jason LaRocca, a prolific film and entertainment sound engineer who has graced popular titles such as “The Accountant,” “Godzilla: King of the Monsters,” “Assasin’s Creed,” “Coming 2 America,” “Bad Boys for Life,” “Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War,” “Cyberpunk 2077,” “Morbius,” and many… many more.

If you happen to be both, then you can go ahead and skip this part. Otherwise, Jason LaRocca is a master sound smith who has conducted both moshpits and major motion film scores, having cut his teeth recording and mixing demos for The Briggs, to interning for prominent film score composer Mark Isham that led him to the myriad of high profile projects he now works on out of his multiple studio rooms at FAB Factory Studios.

“[My work] has definitely always been something that I can’t take for granted. I always have to—to some degree—keep myself grinding, you know?”

Jason’s introduction to film & TV scoring by way of Mark Isham wasn’t with the intent of getting into that industry. Jason was mostly interested in trying to learn the technicalities behind recording music. “It was not an interest in Film or TV music and production. I didn’t really know anything about those things. My interest was about, ‘I really like outboard gear, I really like consoles, I really like tape machines, and I really like DOS, and how it all gets put together at the highest level.”

There was already both talent and self-taught skill in Jason before his array into the Film and TV music industry. He built his own sound studio as his house, he was already writing and playing in The Briggs, and learned through trial-and-error how to record, produce and edit, but it wasn’t an easy or quick ride for Jason. “It was a really slow grow for me. It was not fast for me in terms of getting myself in the door with other people.” Jason states.

This grind continues today. While titles like the recent “Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves,” “Fortnite,” “God of War: Ragnarok,” “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power,” and the upcoming “The Flash”—to name a few—are major additions to Jason’s already impressive resume, he still takes it upon himself to keep the hustle going. “[My work] has definitely always been something that I can’t take for granted. I always have to—to some degree—keep myself grinding, you know? Now I have a lot more responsibilities with having the studio here at FAB Factory, having several rooms and needing to keep those busy… It’s another level of grind.”

“Fortnite was something that put me here at FAB Factory. It was the first thing I did here. I told myself, ‘I think I’m gonna try this out. I’ll move into a commercial space and see if I can sustain it. So after I got that project, a lot started to snowball from there.”

The first project that brought Jason to FAB Factory Studios was Fortnite. There was a need for a studio capable of producing the quality of sound needed for such a prominent franchise, as well as establishing a new set-up that Jason could manage long-term. “Fortnite was something that put me here at FAB Factory. It was the first thing I did here. I didn’t have a studio and I was trying to find a place to mix it, and I thought, well, rather than spend a bunch of money on a surround mixing room at one of the major studios in LA, maybe I should just buy all the equipment for a studio and find a place where I can keep it and rent it out for hopefully longer than this project, and then keep that going for as long as I can. I told myself, ‘I think I’m gonna try this out. I’ll move into a commercial space and see if I can sustain it. So after I got that project, a lot started to snowball from there.”

Through what was incubated at FAB Factory Studios, Jason now manages several rooms from where he brings in and works on an ongoing list of blockbusters. From films to video games, television series and even working musical legends like Jay-Z, Fiona Apple and CeeLo Green, Jason LaRocca’s ongoing journey into the world of sound may be well established, but it’s far from over.

Jason's Website