Staten Island’s New Dorp Plaza North is a quiet, commercial street, minus the occasional train whirring through the tracks that separate it from its southern counterpart. It is lined with hair salons, restaurants and dance companies, but sandwiched in between these complexes lies Goose Room — the recording studio looking to bring some noise back into the forgotten borough.
Founded by local musician Rain Johannes in 2022, Goose Room is Staten Island’s newest recording studio. Feeling like the current studios on the island were pricey and small — tailored to artists without instruments — he aims to make the studio an accessible and comfortable environment for musicians of all kinds.
The idea for Goose Room hatched in Johannes’ old Westerleigh family house in 2017, where he moved back to after two years at Bard College. He was pursuing a degree in Music Technology at NYU, and would help his friends from his days at LaGuardia High School mix and master their tracks in a DIY-basement studio. When the opportunity arose to move his practice into a rental unit in the East Island neighborhood of New Dorp, he took the chance to further expand his reach to the musicians of the island.
Johannes first learned to play guitar from his dad, and went to lessons throughout his youth. During his time at LaGuardia, he joined a songwriting ensemble, and continued to make music in his bedroom as he started college. “I wanted to maintain as much of my home studio setup in this space as possible,” Johannes, now 27, said. “Studios can sometimes be really stifling, especially when you have never been inside one or are coming from only playing songs in your bedroom.”
Johannes wants artists to feel at home at Goose Room. A studio he interned at during his career at Bard provided musicians with a separate living space to relax in during downtime. Inspired by this hospitality, he set up a kitchen, bedroom, bathroom and backyard area — “so they can smoke in between takes,” he jokes. Comfy couches with colorful pillows line the large, sleek living room area, filled with natural light from floor-length windows. A large, welcoming rug is laid in the recording space itself, and iconic records adorn the walls. is With personal picture frames, bright green plants and stickers of local bands placed all around, it feels like you’re visiting a long distance friend and working on a collaborative passion project.
As word began to spread about the new studio space, Johannes started to meet several Staten Island musicians eager to work with him. One of these bands was rock group Our Own Yokos, who, after fifteen years of making music in the borough, finally released their first single “Sir Chunk” with Goose Room in February of 2023.
All three members of the band — guitarist Shaun Gold, bassist Brian Buchanan and drummer Cole Rice — were born and raised on Staten Island. When it came to recording their music, they longed to do it at a hometown studio — a perfect homage to their immense pride in its music scene.
“We don’t hide the fact that we’re from here,” said Buchanan. “We play here, and we go to shows here. The community infrastructure of the scene right now is really strong, and a recording studio is just a natural part of that infrastructure.”
In their lengthy history of playing in Staten Island bands, the members of Our Own Yokos have seen many music venues and spaces disappear. Despite the lack of stages, they find that the friendship between the local bands is tighter than ever, and their newfound camaraderie in Johannes.
“He’s another musician in the room — not someone that just presses his buttons and hits record,” said Gold. “He’s someone that really has a good sense of what his clients are doing and has been an asset to us in many ways.”
Along with becoming a hub for the already-existing scene on Staten Island, Johannes hopes that Goose Room can show musicians outside of the borough all of the things the community has to offer. “I find that I end up becoming an unofficial ambassador of Staten Island,” he says. “I think for some people in other boroughs, coming here is part of the adventure, because it’s different from where they’re from.” He’s directed artists from elsewhere to the best bagels and pizza in town, but now wants to lead them to venues and other music spots to check out.
So far, Goose Room Recording Studio has furnished recordings with more than 30 artists. For now, Johannes aims to connect more with the local scene, as more clients from the forgotten borough learn about his practice through word of mouth. He hopes to connect with even more musicians, forming bonds that help make the kinship between artist and engineer stronger.
“I really enjoy the experience of recording with someone and being engaged with them musically,” he said. “That’s something kind of unique to me in this space that is always a given. It’s part of it’s part of like the environment I try to foster here and something I appreciate.”
