Jett Rebel

Jelte Steven Tuinstra (born January 24, 1991, in The Hague), 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 (Verenigde Oost Nederlandse Kompanjie, also known as VONK) 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.

That Tuinstra was allowed to hang out at VONK every Sunday 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, wear lipstick and use 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's family in Baarn.

From early on he has shown an interest in music.

He started recording music at a very young age, 4/5 years, using a cassette recorder and a toy cassette player (a technique called Ping-pong recording).

He started by first making songs and later made complete albums.

Before the age of 10, Tuinstra played various instruments: drums (5 years), piano (6 years), guitar (8–9 years), and bass guitar (9–10 years).

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.

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.

After his 10th birthday, developed an interetst 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.

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.

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 (Sundown, The Real Deal and Deeply in Love With You).

The track Sundown could later be found on Rebel's fourth album Truck.

In September 2012 Tuinstra decided to make his own music under the stage name Jett Rebel.

The album Red Coat was later released at bandcamp April 5, 2013, and removed in the summer of 2018 for unknown reasons.