We were lucky to catch up with JonDutchMusic recently and have shared our conversation below.

JonDutchMusic, appreciate you joining us today. Have you been able to earn a full-time living from your creative work? If so, can you walk us through your journey and how you made it happen? Was it like that from day one? If not, what were some of the major steps and milestones and do you think you could have sped up the process somehow knowing what you know now?

We moved out to the Temecula Valley 6 years ago. We had pressed the reset button on life. My wife went to high school in Temecula, so she had some family that still lived here. We had dreamed of what life could look like out here with a new 1 year old baby boy. To celebrate us moving out here, we went to dinner with her family. At that dinner, there was a solo acoustic musician playing some music. In between songs I leaned over to my mother-in-law and said, “I think I’n going to do that out here.” My mother-in-law said that a lot of wineries had Live Music on the weekends. At the time, I was clueless to how many there actually were. I grew up the son of a music teacher, so I had a musical background. But I had never played solo and sung in a setting like that before.

I spoke to the musician at that restaurant on one of his breaks and asked him for some tips on how to possibly get started playing like him. I jotted down some notes and tucked it away in the back of my mind.
About a year later, my sister opened up a donut shop up in Big Bear. I had previously joked with her about how I wanted bring my guitar up there and play in the corner of her shop and see if anyone would listen. A year went by and she finally called me out on it. She told me, “Get your butt up here and play some music.” A few more months passed but we put a date on the calendar. While I was playing at her shop, there was a couple who knew a restaurant owner in Murrieta looking for Live Music. They connected me and that starting opening doors in and around the Temecula Valley area.
I still had an office job for the first year and a half of music where I would work 40 hours Monday through Friday and then try to fill up my weekends with as much music as possible, dreaming about the possibility of being able to do it full-time.
I can remember the weekend where I made more money in three days of music than I was going to make in five days of sitting at a desk. Before I could walk away from that job, I needed some continuity with the music. I began closely tracking all the variables that would help me do this music thing full-time on multiple Excel spreadsheets. I also created a document that had every restaurant and winery listed that I knew had live music. I started going down the list and figuring out who the Booker was at each of those properties. The most important sheet I created was one with a line graph tracking my number of gigs and income each month my. I am not a stock market guy, but when I saw the line graph over a span of 18 months, it was only going up and it was time to invest in my stock. I stepped away from my full-time job about a year ago and have been doing music full-time.
It has been incredible with tons of great people and memories. The hardest part, however, is leaving my wife and son at home from Friday to Sunday night. When they are home, off of work and out of school, I am gone at gigs. When they are gone at work and school, I am home. It’s tough.

In relation to what I would’ve done to speed up the process, I believe going much faster would not of been beneficial. There are so many things you have to learn with experience and repetition, and by simply putting in the hours.
All that being said, I consider myself very lucky to have fallen into this gigging life. The rhythm and tempo with which everything has fallen into place has been simply amazing out here in the Temecula Valley.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

My dad was the choir Director at my childhood church. This meant that every Wednesday and Sunday, I was crawling under the church pews during choir practice playing with my Ninja Turtle toys. Eventually, a drum set appeared in the church. This was a big deal at the time, as drums were not really a part of many churches. There are podcasts and books written about the early 1990s “Worship Wars.” My dad‘s solution for bringing the drums into church was to put a third grade boy on the drums, that way no one could complain. That boy was me. I started on the drums at an early age, adding in the Trombone from fourth grade to senior year of high school. This gave me a ton of rhythm and music theory foundation that I would eventually build upon. Just after high school, I picked up a Guitar for the first time. I had an ear for music by that time, and I had the rhythm in my strumming hand from drums. It took one solid Summer working at a secluded campground with no cell service to learn guitar— what else was there to do?

I grew up in the cultural melting pot that makes up the cities between North Long Beach and South Los Angeles. All different cultures and people groups make up those cities, meaning, all different kinds of music was very prevalent for me growing up. Out here in Temecula Valley Wine Country, there are tons of musicians covering songs and doing what I’m doing. But from what I could tell, many listeners come up to me and share how some of the songs I play are songs they do not hear other people play out here. I have over 500 songs I cover, and I print all the titles and artist names in laminated booklets that are places on tables for guests to select which songs they want to hear in real time. I have songs from the 1950s to today. Since I grew up, listening to a variety of genres, I enjoy playing a variety of genres. You might hear a Beatles song followed by a Beyoncé song. You might hear an Elvis song followed by an Ed Sheeran song. You’ll even get a little country, followed by some R&B.
Recently, I was playing a gig on my birthday, and my wife surprised me by bringing out some friends from the Long Beach area. It was fun singing all the songs we grew up to.
Middle School is a unique time in a lot of our lives. For some of us, we discover the radio for the first time and how it doesn’t have to be stuck on our parent’s station the entire drive. I remember tuning into the local LA stations, STAR 98.7 and KISS FM 102.7. It is safe to say that if a song was on one of those two stations from 1998 to 2003, that it is one of the ones I cover in my booklet. I like to think that I provide my listeners with nostalgia. Even down to my stage name, “JonDutch.”
Back in high school, the popular, and what some would say, the first viral brand, “VonDutch” came onto the scene. Paris Hilton and Justin Timberlake were seen wearing “Von Dutch” hats. For those who were coming of age at that time, they certainly know the story. Since my last name is a Dutch last name, “Flietstra,” and my first name is Jon, my nickname in high school became JonDutch. When I decided to do the Music thing, I threw around a few stage names, but the one that made the most sense was “JonDutch.” I cover a ton of music from that period of time when VonDutch was big. I’m tapping into the nostalgia, not just with the covering of certain music, but even the JonDutch replica hats that I wear.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

The wedding industry out here in Temecula Valley is huge. Multiple wineries offer incredible views and wedding venues. There are a few private residence’s who also offer backyards for weddings. That being said, I was recently hired to play some music for a wedding. Without knowing, I showed up, and they had planned on using my Sound-system as the main system for the entire ceremony and reception. I learned that I was going to also serve as master of ceremonies and handle all the audio and music for the evening. Instead of panicking and stressing out, I took it as an opportunity to flex some muscles I had not previously flexed. By the end of the evening, everything went incredibly well. I came home and had the idea to create and offer a JonDutch Wedding Package. For the past 15 years, I had already been officiating weddings, marrying multiple friends and their spouses. Because of this surprise scenario last week, I now have a package where I can be the officiant, provide the cocktail-hour music, be the Master of Ceremonies, and finally, the designated Dessert-bar Taste-tester!
Like everyone doing these creative gigs, the goal is to maximize the amount of money you can make in the least amount of time. By offering multiple services for an event, I think I’m on my way to doing that! It made me think about other gigs and venues, and how I can possibly combine services with those scenarios as well.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

I believe all of us creatives want to describe the life we see in front of us. Many of us see the life in front of us in a unique way, and that is the gift we share with the world. That being said, since starting music full-time here in Temecula Valley Wine Country, I’ve actually been missing out on that beautiful life with my wife and seven-year-old son. I’m gone all weekend as they are forced to keep themselves busy without me!
The biggest goal for me is to continue to fall into higher paying gigs (like weddings and private events), so that I don’t have to do so much music on the weekends and be gone all day. Most weekends, I’ll leave the house around 10 AM to get to a gig by 11 and play until 2 o’clock. I’ll pack up everything and quickly rush over to another gig across town at another winery and play from 3:30 to 7:30. I’ll usually be hungry because I had not eaten since 9:30 AM. So, I’ll stick around and eat at the last winery, and return home around 9 PM. That’s a long time away from family.
So again, the goal is to continue to work on my craft and be the top referred artist for higher-end wedding, gigs or private parties in the area. At the same time, another goal is getting to a place where I can actually do less covering other people’s songs and focus on the 50+ originals I have written. I would love to get my band to put some backing tracks to the songs that I have worked on the past 15 years. Life has been quite a roller coaster, and I’d love to share these originals with my listeners the same way that I hear them in my head— and that’s with a full band. But right now, it’s just me on guitar and vocals. With a little more time and money flowing in, the goal would be to hammer out a solid album. I would love to share these songs with family and friends so others could get a better idea of my own story and perspective on this beautiful thing we call Being Human.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @JonDutchMusic
• Facebook: @JonDutchMusic
• Youtube: https://m.youtube.com/@jondutchmusic?fbclid=PAZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAabv-w1PKb9M9PDMrR-xRLGuMo6oRJcMRaPLCDSCQjGuLuoFxK0RhGmDVMs_aem_AWoqBZPV6RZBLeH6PBNErBm6nY2Z1JtvXx5arW_L50XHON1OopExRnRcNXFmNMwnrYaplLAU-5G2i0rYmAS4GWgN
• Soundcloud: JonDutchMusic
• Other: If you’re a golfer, follow my side project on Instagram @SpeedGolfTemecula !