We recently connected with Garrett “Tha G.O.A.T.” Lofgren and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Garrett “Tha G.O.A.T.”, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to go back in time and hear the story of how you came up with the name of your brand?

Since 2nd grade my nickname has been Goat. It may have started with my teacher who had a thick accent and pronounced my name “Gart” so the kids in my class started calling me Goat. I’m an Aries which is kind of a goat, I was even born the Chinese year of the goat. When I heard about Earl the G.O..A.T. Manigault and that G.O.A.T. meant Greatest of All Time, I loved the idea. The idea, not of being better than everyone else, but the absolute best version of myself, Don’t get it twisted, you can be the goat of yourself, there is no competition between us in being our fullest potential self.

So naturally when I founded my first company, I wanted to pay homage so I named it G.O.A..T Productions. I branded my car with logos and when I built my first studio, I had a huge sign facing the main strip in a college town in Texas. What I failed to realize was in that particular southern town goats had a negative, “the devil” type connotation. After three slow years of mostly promoting concerts as a way to make connections with bands to drive them to my studio to record, I realized I needed a change.

When I joined forces with another amazing musician and engineer, Kevin Chubirka, we agreed to form a partnership. We wanted something that felt inviting and non-judgmental. Our first idea was Sanctuary, because it even had a bit of a “church” feel. Turns out there was a major group based out of the UK that was using Sanctuary so I literally used a thesaurus and looked for synonyms. When I came across Haven , I was sure that was the one. It even sounds like Heaven. My partner and I loved the thought of a safe haven to record, that’s our slogan! We formed Haven Recording 2005. We’ve operated in Texas and now California ever since.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I had dropped out of college because I wasn’t satisfied with my original major, criminal justice, after graduating the police academy. I tried theater because I had done acting as a child with some success, but that’s one of those majors where 12 hours of credits take 36-40 hours a week with rehearsals and production. So I moved to Houston and got a dead end job selling meat.

My brother came to visit after a few years living in Istanbul Turkeye and for the first time he brought his guitar and I brought my bass and we played some of his originals. He playfully said “you should come to Turkeye and we can start a band.” 3 month later I moved there and we played at coffee shops and some universities. While there we went to two recording studios and I was amazed at the good quality recordings with what appeared to be inexpensive, older gear. I had the idea to return to the college town, Huntsville TX and build a studio.
At first it was concert promoation and I used financial aid money to front the costs along with local businesses to make the shows and began to turn a profit.

After teaming up with Kevin Chubirka and Calvin Blake and rebranding to Haven Recording the business took off.
We were considered the best option in our area. To find better you would have to travel over an hour to some of the more prominent in Houston TX.

After 5 years I attended a week long bass guitar intensive training at Musicians Institute in Hollywood CA. I loved it and wanted to take our big fish in a small pond to be a guppy in the biggest pond in the world. In ten years working in Los Angeles the LA Times just listed us as one of the top studios in all of souther California.

Have you ever had to pivot?

When we were nearing the end of the year of 2019, we were deciding what to invest in the studio to make us more valuable. After knocking around a few ideas, we decided that we could add a few GoPro cameras, some lighting, and a switching board to be able to film bands, while rehearsing or maybe even live streaming. This truly set us up for success. As soon after we had made the purchase of some of the video equipment Covid was declared, and we could no longer operate with large groups of people the way we used to. There were many times where we were recording a band, and between the musicians, the producers, the boyfriends and girlfriends, they would be 15 people in a room. That became completely out of the question.

At the same time, one of our good friends, who is a traveling comedian, was no longer able to tour college campuses or work the cruise ships like he had them. We decided we could stream his comedy show and have the watchers suggest different impersonations, and different bits through the comments function. We were able to book a large number of the colleges he had been scheduled to perform, live in person, which then led to corporate gigs, including 160 episodes for a Casino.

I’m not sure how we would have survived without having the video component during the Covid times where we were able to operate with one sound engineer, one video engineer, comedian and producer. Since then we have added backdrops, green screens, lighting, and we have the capability of streaming full bands, with studio quality, recording, and HD video with all the bells and whistles, like picture in picture and graphic overlays.

Can you tell us the story behind how you met your business partner?

Huntsville, TX was a relatively small music scene so most of us knew each other. As I was going to concerts and organizing shows, I heard the legend of a drummer from Shortbus Superheroes who was recording folks in the basement of the local music store. He had all the best equipment because he had access to the music store. At the same time the location that I had built was a far better physical space with sound treatment and higher ceilings.

Over a beer we decided that we should join forces and bring his equipment to my location and that was the beginning of Haven Recording. One of the first clients I had was a tuba player named Calvin Blake, who recorded an audition at my studio. He and Kevin worked at the music store and Calvin specialized in music theory. My business skills and high profile combined with Kevin’s engineering and planning skills along with Calvins genius level understanding of music we were a force to be reckoned with..

Contact Info:

• Website: havenrecording.com
• Instagram: @masterofmusicindustry
• Facebook: Facebook.com-GarrettLofgren1
• Twitter: @havenrecording

Image Credits
Kevin Chubirka