Brian Garcia, a music engineer and producer who worked with artists like Kelly Clarkson and Canada’s Avril Lavigne, has died in California from complications of COVID-19.
Garcia’s was an engineer on Clarkson’s 2004 album Breakaway – which won Best Pop Vocal Album at the Grammy Awards – as well as Lavigne’s 2004 album Under My Skin.
Over the years, he also worked with Canadians like Our Lady Peace, Bob Rock, Phil X and Chantal Kreviazuk.
Raine Maida, frontman of Our Lady Peace, said Saturday he was “gutted” by the news of Garcia’s death.
“Brian touched many lives,” he wrote in an Instagram post on Saturday. “Full of knowledge and inspiration. His contribution to the arts will be a profound part of his legacy but his deep laugh & broad smile will be missed most.”
Maida praised Garcia as “a music junkie & first class engineer” and remembered as an “eternal optimist” who “always had a huge smile & even bigger heart.”
Rob Lanni of Toronto’s Coalition Music commented that Garcia “was such a nice guy. Integrity. Pride in his work. Honest. He saw the good in people. Tragic.”
Kreviazuk also paid tribute to Garcia on Instagram, calling him a man “who'd do anything he could to help almost anyone... that's how I will remember him and I will honour his memory... by practicing selflessness and empathy as Brian did in his meaningful life.”
Garcia was a Texas native who played several instruments as a boy before discovering the guitar at 14. After watching a professional engineer at work in 1987, Garcia enrolled in the audio production program at Houston Community College.
Garcia is survived by his wife of eight months, special education teacher Rachel Staab.