About Jett Rebel
Jelte Steven Tuinstra , known professionally as Jett Rebel, is a Dutch singer-songwriter, composer, multi-instrumentalist, music producer and recording artist. The moniker Jett Rebel refers to a solo artist who performs live in different band formations in the Dutch music scene.
Tuinstra was born on January 24, 1991, in Den Haag. His parents played in socialist music groups and choirs with which they also performed demonstrations against racism, nuclear energy, and weapons. At a fairly young age, Tuinstra moved 1993 from Den Haag to Baarn. Despite the distance, the family went to Hengelo every Sunday to rehearse. Tuinstra was allowed to hang out at VONK every Sunday, which was an important factor in his career as a musician. The socialist nature of VONK, including their frequent appearances at demonstrations and playing of protest songs such as The Internationale influenced his music crucially. This becomes apparent in the topics that Tuinstra frequently writes about; humanity, equality, anti-racism, gender equality, and tolerance are recurring themes of his songs. He feels that there is freedom when people express themselves in different ways and he shows this belief in his appearance, clothing, religion, and sexuality, which can be seen in his androgynous appearance. While he feels comfortable in women's clothing, wearing lipstick and nail polish, he can also appear masculine. His appearances can often be called flamboyant, especially on stage. Tuinstra regularly changes his looks and goes through many phases to express himself.
Tuinstra grew up in a musical artist family in Baarn. From an early age he showed a strong interest in music. He started recording music at a very young age, 4/5 years, using a cassette recorder and a toy cassette player . He started by first making songs and later made complete albums. Before the age of 10, Tuinstra played various instruments: drums , piano , guitar , and bass guitar . After his 10th birthday, developed an interest in all kinds of synthesizers and other string-wind instruments. Tuinstra has always enjoyed learning to play as many instruments as possible as a hobby. He also had a talent for singing. In his childhood, he sang in the youth choir of Majel Lustenhouwer on recordings by Rob de Nijs and Jochem van Gelder among others. In 2003, he participated with his first band, The Edge, in the preliminaries of the first Dutch Junior Song Festival. While he was attending the Baarnsch Lyceum, a secondary school, he stood out by winning the 'Grandi Art', a school competition for music, as a pop musician for consecutive years. In this period, he played in the locally known bands Bitter Lemon, Fubroz, Metro Mortale, and The Zoo. Tuinstra explored many different musical genres, from funk to progressive rock, from jazz to medieval choral music. In this period, he had already recorded more than 5 solo records without publishing anything. The first solo album he made was Red Coat from 2009. Red Coat was a concept album about a teenage love in which the foundation for the Jett Rebel sound can already be heard. He played more than 15 instruments on the record when he was only 17/18 years old. Together with Willem Wits and Marnix Dorrestein, he recorded the debut album of Metro Mortale in the parental home of Dorrestein, which was released on May 29, 2010, at bandcamp. Short videos were made of these recordings as in a 'real life soap' in different episodes illustrating how the album was created. In 2009, Tuinstra moved to Amsterdam to study piano and guitar at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam. In that period, he joined the pop groups The Souldiers and Valerius. After about a year at the conservatorium, he quit because of repetitive strain injury from playing too much guitar and because in the end it didn't meet his expectations. On July 16, 2012, Jelte Tuinstra released a single, Beautiful, under his own name via bandcamp. The next day the EP Sundown followed with three tracks . The track Sundown could later be found on Rebel's fourth album Truck. The album Red Coat was later released at bandcamp April 5, 2013, and removed in the summer of 2018 for unknown reasons. In September 2012 Tuinstra decided to make his own music under the stage name Jett Rebel.
The first EP Venus appeared on May 26, 2013, followed by the EP Mars on January 15, 2014. In the EP, Jett Rebel shows his versatility; he played all the instruments and vocals of the EPs himself. The artwork of the EPs is designed by his father, Steven G.Tuinstra. The three singles of these EP's were enthusiastically received and played by NPO 3FM and other radio stations. He performed live in television programmes Toppop3, De Wereld Draait Door and Serious Request, in the supporting program of the B-52's and was proclaimed by radio station Radio 3FM as 3FM Serious Talent. On April 19, 2014, the EP's were merged for one album called Venus & Mars. On April 11, 2014, the 4th and last single of the album Venus & Mars was released. In the spring of 2014 Jett Rebel launched his first sold out "Venus & Mars-tour" in a series of small and medium-sized venues in the Netherlands. Jett Rebel played over 60 festivals in 2014, including Pinkpop and Lowlands. At Pinkpop he had the honor to play with bassist Larry Graham . The official debut album Hits for Kids was released on October 30, 2014. He worked with London-based producer/mixer Tony Platt, who previously worked with artists such as Cheap Trick, Motörhead and Foreigner. Hits For Kids is the last record Rebel recorded with digital equipment. In the autumn followed a 2nd sold-out tour Tour d'Amour in 18 large venues in the Netherlands and ended the tour on December 30, 2014, in Paradiso Amsterdam.
On February 21, he sold out the AFAS Live. Jett Rebel started his three-hour show ten meters above the stage of AFAS Live and slowly lowered himself with his guitar on stage. Several guest artists were invited during this show. On April 9, 2015, he won the Best Live Act at the 3FM Awards. On Liberation Day May 5 Jett Rebel was appointed as one of the ambassadors of freedom. On that day Jett Rebel and his band were taken by helicopter to five liberation festivals: Groningen, Leeuwarden, Amsterdam, The Hague and Haarlem. On July 2, 2015, Rebel was invited by Larry Graham to perform in London and share the stage with him and Mark King of Level 42. A few days later Graham gave an exclusive show in Patronaat and announced that Candy Dulfer and Jett Rebel would share the stage with him. After having already performed on a number of major stages, Rebel performed at the North Sea Jazz Festival in the Nile on July 14, 2015. The critics praised his performance with his then 7-headed band. Rebel had fallen off the stage during this performance: I tried to enjoy myself intensely, so I closed my eyes for a moment during the guitar solo. But then things went wrong. And then I just stepped right off the stage. Rebel had severe bruising on his ribs. That same evening he came to the rescue of colleague Chaka Khan. Khan had to leave the stage because of voice problems. Her backing band and Khan's background vocalists decided to continue the set. Rebel played the song Tell Me Something Good . In June, the first Live double album was released Tight Like A Baby Tiger on his own new Record Label Baby Tiger Records. The album was recorded live at Paradiso on December 30, 2014. In October was the first sold-out solo theatre tour, An Evening with Jett Rebel, in six major venues in the Netherlands including the Royal Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. More than a month later, Rebel left on November 16, 2015, for a ten-day tour in New York City, during an annual Live in Your living Room festival. He played there for the first time with a three-man formation. On December 30, 2015, Rebel organized his own festival for the first time, Rebelfest. At Rebelfest five Dutch acts got the chance to present themselves. Artists who performed were Marnix Dorrestein as IX, Bells Of Youth, Amber Gomaa, Echo Movis and Willem Wits. Rebel himself also gave a three-hour performance.
The double album Truck was released on January 22, 2016. Truck was fully recorded on a Tascam Porta 4 track cassette recorder. Truck was the first part in a triptych; Rebel released three albums within a year. On August 26, 2016, Don't Die On Me Now was released and on January 13, 2017, Super Pop followed. The three albums are independent of each other, but are connected to a triptych: the Experimentalist, the Musician and the Composer. The release of Rebel's fifth studio album was at Lowlands on August 20, 2016. The Lowlands program booklet contained the mysterious sentence 'Don't Die on me Now'. Festival visitors had no idea what was in store for them at the time. The mysterious act turned out to be the title of Jett Rebel's new album, which he came to play in its entirety on Lowlands. The official release date was only one week later, on August 26, 2016. In the same week, it was announced that Rebel would play his biggest show ever in Rotterdam Ahoy on February 4, 2017. At the end of August, the 5th tour followed with the power trio Jett Rebel 3 Live in Concert. Rebel played 5 nights in a row in five small intimate clubs; the tour sold out in 24 hours. In this intimate setting, Rebel wanted to get back to the essence of pure rock 'n roll. In addition to this tour, Rebel visited several record stores that same week to promote his album. On September 3, Rebel was in the Mega Top 50 with Lucky Boy for the first time and entered the list on No. 34, the album entered the Vinyl50 Chart on No. 1. In November, he was in the line-up of MTV Netherlands music week, for a special event to present his label Baby Tiger Records to the general public in Rotown Rotterdam. On December 2, 2016, Rebel released a new single, All The Way, which was the final piece of the then not yet released last triptych Super Pop, which was released together with a lyric video.
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