Prairie Sun Staff and Extended Family

Prairie Sun Staff & Extended Family

Mark "Mooka" Rennick
Owner/Founder

Born in Peoria, Illinois. Avid voracious reader of political science, history. "Mooka" was raised near Galesburg, Illinois, the site of the 1858, Lincoln-Douglas debate.

“I want to be an artist. Period," says Rennick, who in his limited spare time plays in a politically charged spoken-word ensemble, The Abolitionists, and plays bass in various local bands.

"Mooka" has recorded many artists for the Shrapnel Records. Amongst those are Michael Lee Firkins, Ritchie Kotzen, Greg Howe, Eric Gale.

In addition to Shrapnel Record Artists, "Mooka" has worked with Ramblin Jack Elliot, Tom Waits, Chris Duarte, Michael Schenker, Larry Coryell, Commander Cody, and Zero as well as many other industry pros.

Email Mooka

Nate Nauseda
Chief Staff Engineer

Nate came to Prairie Sun in 2014 and quickly showed his aptitude both for studio engineering work and the behind-the-scenes work in the studio office.

Today Nate spends all his time engineering, producing and doing tech work around the farm.

In 2018 alone he has worked with artists in hip-hop, reggae, jam band, acoustic rock, alt-metalish and other varying subgenres and all the clients sing his praises when they head home.

Email Nate

Travis Strain, Staff Engineer
Manager, Prairie Sun Live

Travis first came to Prairie Sun to apprentice as a studio engineer, and while he excelled in that position, he soon moved back to his native Texas to resume work in the live sound business there.

It was not long, though, before Mooka tapped Travis to manage his newly-expanded Prairie Sun Live.

Despite a busy schedule managing our sister company, Travis still finds time to engineer sessions in our studios and coordinate our studio maintenance.

Email TRAVIS

Matt Wright
Engineer

Matt came to Prairie Sun in 2005 and apprenticed under the engineering staff and veteran engineer Oz Fritz. Matt quickly jumped into session work and was soon drafted by Mooka to engineer the projects he was producing.

Matt became our Chief Engineer in 2009 and has produced, mixed, and engineered dozens of records in our studios including albums for Turnpike Troubadours, The Brothers Comatose, Eric Gales, Dead Winter Carpenters, and Anadel.

You can hear Matt's demo reel and view his discography on Matt's website.

Email MATT

Dave Rollans
Videographer, Photographer

Dave first started working at Prairie Sun as a session musician, drumming on a host of projects including Lauren O'Connell's Quitters.

Dave's passion for documenting the sessions he played on soon developed into a thriving business producing "behind-the-scenes" and "live-in-the-studio" videos for many of our recent clients, helping them satisfy their fans' growing demand for multimedia content.

Email Dave

Oz Fritz
Producer/Engineer

Oz Fritz has been a professional sound engineer for more than 25 years working in both recording studio and live concert environments.

He has collaborated on over 60 projects with producer Bill Laswell, engineered three Tom Waits albums (including the Grammy Winning Mule Variations, here at Prairie Sun), and generally amassed a credit list far too large and impressive to fit in this little paragraph!

In one way or another, we've all learned a great deal about engineering from Oz, and every client we've referred to Oz shares our respect and admiration for his craft. Oz also writes a fascinating blog called The Oz Mix.

Email Oz

To schedule a tour of our studios or book your next session call:

707-795-7011

Email Us