Aces of Trades: A love of music leads to a career for Marion's Brian Jester
Brian Jester knew his path from childhood.
“I was a very curious child,” recalled Jester. “I loved to build things and take electronics apart and see if I could put them back together.”
“When I was in my teens, my dad asked me what I was going to be when I grew up? I told him I was going to be a rock star," Jester said. "He asked a few more times and I came to the realization that this wasn’t going to happen, so I chose a path that was working with the rock stars. I did feel the path of music was for me and my road to where I am now.”
Today, Jester has JCR Studio and Sound.
“I started in 1999 in my basement,” he said. “I became an LLC in 2006 as Jesters Court Recording Studio. I started the studio part first as the name reflects, but in Marion it’s hard to make a living just doing one part of the craft, so we expanded into live sound as well.”
Mark Boyer, founder and general manager of Rise FM Ohio, is a client.
“When doing a live concert, it’s very important that the attendees have a great experience, especially when it comes to hearing the bands they’ve come to see," Boyer said. "Over the past 10 years, I always call Brian anytime we need sound production and lighting for a concert because I know he’ll do the job I need to help us have a great event. Knowing he’s in charge of this aspect of our concerts brings great peace of mind.”
Jester, 43, initially grew up in Marion. Then his family moved to Delaware when he was a sophomore in high school. He graduated from Delaware Hayes HS in 1999 “with lots of music classes,” then earned a recording engineering associate's degree from Recording Workshop near Chillicothe in 1999 and a recording engineering and percussion associates degree from Musicians Institute in Los Angeles, California in 2000.
“I’ve found sound interesting from a young age,” he said. “We had a home-base CB that we would talk to truckers and each other. I was also involved in ham radio and Morse code as a young child. I always wanted to know about sending stuff over the air, so maybe when I was 7 years old, I started getting into building Radio Shack radios and doing recordings on tape decks and reel-to-reel.”
“I also loved playing music in groups as a young man,” Jester concluded. “It’s a rush to go to an empty field and see a stage come in and make a show happen for thousands or tens of thousands of people to have a good time. It’s a feeling that’s hard to beat.”
For more information, log on jcrstudio.com.
Aces of Trades is a weekly series focusing on people and their jobs – whether they’re unusual jobs, fun jobs or people who take ordinary jobs and make them extraordinary. If you have a suggestion for a future profile, let us know at news@marionstar.com.
This article originally appeared on Marion Star: JCR Studio and Sound owner has a love for music
