“I’m at my happiest if I have a microphone or a camera in my hand and I’m pointing it at something musical,” says Andy Zenczak, the technician for the Music Center’s Electronic Music Studios. Zenczak is approaching his one-year anniversary of being an official member of the University of California Santa Cruz family, and he has a lifetime of music making experience to help him out.
Born in upstate New York, Zenczak has been interested in music since he was a small child. He was seven when the first Star Wars movie came out. “Star Wars is like 90% music, so I was totally engulfed by the soundtrack,” he says. He begged his parents to take him again. On his second viewing of Star Wars, his parents went to a drive-in. Zenczak brought his cassette recorder and held it out the window for two hours so he could listen to it again and again.
Zenczak went on to attend SUNY Oneonta and receive a B.A. in Music Industry which he describes as “a focus of the general business dealings of the industry, as opposed to a detailed composition or performance-style major.” While there were traditional music courses, like those in composition and performance, most of Zenczak’s classes covered topics including legal aspects in music and merchandising.
After graduation, Zenczak and a friend moved to Austin, Texas with dreams of making it in the world of performance. “We set our course for becoming famous rock stars,” he says, “and that didn’t quite pan out for the multitude of reasons that it rarely pans out.” In the ‘90s he left Austin and came to San Francisco.
However, Zenczak didn’t spend long in San Francisco before he moved down to Santa Cruz. “I came to Santa Cruz because I enjoyed my roots growing up in a smaller town and I wanted to escape the big city vibe that I thought I wanted after I left home,” he says. “I felt like I could be a big fish in a smaller pond.”
While in Santa Cruz he started his own commercial recording studio. In its early years Zenczak worked out of a 10’ x 20’ storage locker, which quickly became a trio of 10’ x 20’ storage lockers. After about 8 years and 250 recordings under his belt, his company, Gadgetbox, eventually made enough money for Zenczak to rent out a commercial space.
In his 17 years of running a music business, Zenczak opened his doors to over three dozen students who wanted to work as interns, apprentices, and volunteers. Many of these students came from UC Santa Cruz’s Electronic Music Minor. “These students never ceased to impress me with their ability to interface with my recording clients and to be able to pull their weight in the studio,” he says.
Zenczak’s work with students paved his way for his current position at UC Santa Cruz. “It’s so fulfilling for me to come full circle and help inspire the next generation of creative musicians from the UCSC Music Center. I love that I’m able to help maintain an environment that helps interested students engage with music production technology and expand their creative goals,” he says.
In 2011, Zenczak had found a new interest in videography, which quickly became another passion.. It started to make less sense to rent out a commercial space as his video work required him to be out in the world, and in 2017 Zenczak closed the doors on the physical studio called Gadgetbox.
Currently, he still keeps himself busy with both music and video production, which he works on at Bear Creek Studio, a beautiful space tucked away in the redwoods of Bonny Doon. Zenczak is working on mixing and engineering two albums and the production of an audiobook. On the video side of things, he enjoys producing live concert music videos, creative music storytelling, and is working on an upcoming live-stream for the Santa Cruz Chorale’s very popular winter concert.
Whether he is working with students or professional musicians, there is nothing he loves more than being in the studio. “I’ve had a fair share of great experiences with famous celebrities and Grammy-award winning artists and all of that kind of thing,” says Zenczak. “But the magic moments for me are the ones where the musicians in the studio trusted me enough to let their guard down and really “go there.” To be able to be in the room and share the moment of capturing the meaning of their songs and lyrics is honestly the ultimate creative privilege.”