We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Jakob Lawson. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Jakob below.

Alright, Jakob thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Can you tell us about a time where you or your team really helped a customer get an amazing result?

One of my clients, known professionally as TheArti$t, reached #2 on the iTunes R&B Charts!

One night, after working at my old job at a steakhouse, I was sitting in my car, endlessly scrolling on my phone like most of us (probably shouldn’t) do, when I came across a live performance from Arti$t, it had an insane amount of views and engagement, and I didn’t expect any type of response from her manager when i inquired about mixing some songs for her.

The next morning, I woke up to a message from Fame (Arti$t’s Management) asking to hear some of my previous work. Once I sent some of my brother Jordan Lawsons music that I had helped work on, they decided to go ahead and send me a song to try my services out!

The next day, after the song was sent to them, they loved it, and we have been working together ever since. I had the pleasure of mixing most of her debut project, “ArtChives”, which reached that peak point of #2 on the iTunes R&B charts. The project also had a multitude of different songs that were added to official Apple Music and Spotify Playlists.

This was a huge turning point in my career, as I hadn’t seen music that I had worked on have this much impact and commercial success. It also opened doors for me to work with many insanely talented people.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

Hello! My name is Jakob (heykob) Lawson! I have been working in the music industry as a music producer and audio engineer for the past 4 years.

I began this journey thanks to the pandemic, as I had always been interested in music, but never really took the step of trying to make a career out of it until Covid shut down school for me. I was a freshman at USC Upstate, and with a sudden abundance of free time on my hands, I decided to give music a try. Between watching countless Youtube tutorials and lots of late nights, i slowly began making progress as a producer, thanks to my brother Jordan letting me use his equipment when he wasn’t using it.

After a year or so, we began trying to find a place to record my brother music, and after our first visit to Speaklife Studio, i knew i wanted to be involved in this field anyway that I could. Once Speaklife announced that they were offering an internship program on engineering, I jumped at the chance, and eventually made it through their internship program and claimed my first job as a Recording Engineer. Speaklife closed its doors near the end of 2023, but my business partner Jessie Garrett took over the space, and we now have our own studio in the same location, named Sound Standards Recording Studio in Spartanburg, South Carolina.

As far as services go, we provide recording sessions for artists to record their music, as well as mixing and mastering services to ensure that their music’s quality is “industry standard”. I also provide custom production sessions, for artists who want to have a certain type of instrumental that they can’t find elsewhere.

Our clients have truly made us who we are today. We have been blessed with an abundance of talented people that we have been able to work with, and the recommendations that they give others for the work that we do is appreciated beyond anything i can put into words. We have had clients come from all across the East coast, with one of my favorites being a group of guys that regularly record with us that drive down from Louisville,Kentucky which is roughly a 6 1/2 hour drive.

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

My business partner now, Jessie Garrett (Jessie G) was the engineer that ran my brother’s first recording session in a professional environment. After my internship program with them, we became co-workers together along with the studio owner, Jordan Easler. Me and Jessie have always gotten along together greatly, and once Jordan Easler moved on from the recording studio to pursue other endeavors, we have been partners ever since. His knowledge of engineering as well as his support as a boss/friend is something I will always value.

What else should we know about how you took your side hustle and scaled it up into what it is today?

Before I got into music, I was an Economics and Finance major at USC Upstate. While I am still interested in this field, i knew that the music industry was where my heart and mind were both set on pursuing. After classes I would go home and begin working on making instrumentals or mixing songs, while simultaneously working at a steakhouse. After working at the studio for 4-5 months Full Time, i took the risk of leaving the steakhouse to do music full time, and have been doing so for over a year and a half now. The moment that was a key turning point for me was getting the opportunity to record NGeeYL, an artist signed to 300 Entertainment that i had been listening to since i was in high school. After meeting him and running sessions for him, i knew that i was prepared enough to take the leap and start focusing on just music as a career and not a side hustle.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @heykob_

Image Credits
Pictures taken by Jordan Easler, and @camxyou on Instagram. (I can provide additional info depending on which pictures are used!)