Don DeVlieger Jr

Don DeVlieger Jr

From My Heart & Soul To Yours

Bio

The Early Days & My Family

I was born and raised in Grand Rapids (Jenison) Michigan in 1963. I grew up with two brothers and one sister - from old to younger Jim (Deb), (then me (Pam)), Jeff (Kathy), and Sue (Andy Wester). My Dad, Don Sr, is an excellent piano and organ player and my mom, Mary, would sing in churches all around West Michigan with my Aunt Evey Danielson. My Granddad was a professional theater organist all his life and also had a small "Big Band". I have played some of the clubs he did while my Dad and mom where there watching me rock out as a crazy young rock star wanna be! They just smiled and kept encouraging me to rock on but also live right! I married Pamela Jean DeWindt on June 3, 1983 in Hudsonville Michigan at Fair Haven Reformed Church. We now live in Holland Michigan and here's our family list as of April 2011: Jared Scott (10), Jessy David (13), Cory Rose - Kori Devo (18 & soon to be married to Dustin Young on July 24th 2011), Donald Jay Stewart III, (23) and his family, Wife Kristie (Kiki) Winslow - DeVlieger (23), Son Donald Jay Micheal IV (2) and daughter Victoria Jade (4). There are a bunch of pictures and videos of my wonderful family on our Facebook Pages if you'd like to see them. Click the names to get there! (My Facebook)

Now Let's Back Up
To Just Before High School
& Shortly After That

My folks bought me my first real six string acoustic guitar from Meijer’s for $35.00 in 1976 and I immediately began to learn Kiss and Ted Nugent songs. The first Band I was in was with Dave DeVries, and two other fellas, and we almost exclusively did Boogie Woogie stuff. I was learning the basics and was lovin' it! Dale taught me so many basics that I have used ever since! Thanks Dale!

Then I started playing in a band, around 9th grade, with my cousin Rusty Danielson, Scott Nysse on Guitar and Randy Goodyke on Bass. We were called The Visitors and played a few school gigs and 1000 basement gigs.

The next band was started with Robert Hanline on guitar and vocals, Brett Ashba on bass, and eventually Greg Secore on drums and me on guitar and vocals. We played one gig at a 6th grade camp some place in north Michigan I think. Robert was jumping around and ended up smashing a window out of the place with his big hair/head - the kids went wild and the chaperons - well, not so much! What memories!

That Band morphed into a band called either Aftermath or The Visitors 2, not sure if we ever figured that out, this was in 10thand 11th grade. The full membership line up was Robert Hanline (Bob's Photography Site) on guitar and vocals, and insane stage antics, now in Seattle Washington doing artistic stuff there, Brett Ashba on bass and sunglasses, Mark Cannif also played bass a few times, Jim Swennee on lead guitar. (Did I spell that right Jimmy? It doesn't look right to me! Sorry!), John

Conway on Keyboards and Kevin Conway on drums. We also had many friends who worked on lighting and blowing stuff up including themselves! (Dale Veroma!) We did a few gigs here and there the most memorable was every Friday night at a skateboard park called Astro Speedway in Jenison Michigan. We tore that place to shreds doing all the great late 70's and early 80's covers mostly and a couple songs we wrote. The place packed out every weekend with all the wayward youth of the area! Some more great times many will never forget!

After High School 1981 to 1986

When I graduated from High School, yes I did graduate, I joined a band called Deadline. Let's see if I can remember them all; John lead singer, Brad played bass, Gary played guitar, Patric Sutton played drums and sang and I played guitar and sang a little too. We played a few parties and had a great time doing it, wrote a couple songs for kicks but never recorded them. We rehearsed in Pam DeWindt's basement. Yes that's where Pam and I meet and soon after married. I wasn't about to let this hot girl get away!

That band switched a few members and turned into Letz! One of the best bands I've worked with to this day. This is now 1982 through March or April of 1985. That line up was first Shannon Bluawkamp on Guitar, Patric Sutton n drums and vocals, Scott Jonic on bass and vocals, and me doing what I did. We later replaced Shannon with Mark Simonis on Lead guitar and wonderful vocals for about 18 months and then replaced him with John

Joseph who played guitar and keyboards. We started playing dives for $600.00 and ended up playing "A" clubs for a few thousand a week. We used to rehearse in an old modified chicken coupe in Hudsonville Michigan for hours every day if we were not gigging/working. I think I played m

y guitar no less than 4 hours almost every day for that period. Never got great at one style but learn a little of many styles though... We had the help of a wonderful lighting tech Jerry Debore and a great sound tech and transportation professional Paul "Morey" Dams. You can here some of those live cuts and view some pictures of that band by clicking here. There are tabs in the top/middle of that page - look for the Albums tab and you'll see it in there!

Then off to LA in May of 1985 - After trying out for many bands I landed a gig with one call Traitor. We

did all originals and it was heavy rock like new/old Black Sabbath stuff. We did a few gigs in Hollywood and hung out with some big "stars" but mostly got messed up in drugs. I was the lead singer and 3rd guitarist. My wife Pam could not take it and decide to move back to Michigan after only 1 year. I had a little common sense and morals left to know she was right and we did indeed moved back home. How's that for a short version of that story? "It was the best and worst of times" and "all the world's a stage!" Enough said on this...

1986 To 2004 - A Big Change In Life!

I had a huge change of heart in 1986. The Spirit of God grabbed hold of me and I could not resist, it was to great a change happening and I rededicated my life to Christ Jesus and started walking it out. After a few short months I joined some Christian bands! We played together from 1986 to the summer of 1989. It was two bands in one really. It was the Church Band that did the Sunday morning music at Resurrection Life Church in Grandville Michigan. Most of that band members in that band were also in a band called Ambassador. We did almost all originals and played prisons, work camps and a few parties. We disbanded when my wife Pam, our son Donny III and I moved to Tulsa Oklahoma to attend Rhema Bible Training Center for two years. We finished that and moved back to Michigan and lived in various places around West Michigan for the next hand full of years. We started a church in Big Rapids for Resurrection Life Churches International on May 21 or 1991.

While we were in Bible School (1989 - 1991) two of my friends back home in Michigan (Scott Nysse from The Visitors and Dave Kuiper on drums (his bands over the years - Red Vensonic, Ten Fingers and Choke)) began writing songs and sending the rhythm parts to me in the snail mail on cassettes (remember them?). This would turn out to be the band Sons Of Thunder. I would rearrange some of them by playing those tapes from one portable cassette player and recording that onto a second one. Then I'd stop the tapes and find the next part I'd like and put that part on the new tape until I had the songs re-arranged how I liked them. Then I wrote the melody and lyrics and sang that, while the second tape was playing, into a third tape to record the messiest sounding songs you've ever heard - Good grief! Then I mailed that back to Scott and Dave. They took the arrangements off those tapes and recorded all the songs that are on the 1st Sons Of Thunder Project before I returned home from bible school. When I returned, I went in the studio and recorded the vocals with Scott and that first project was completed in the summer of 1992. We remastered it in 2006 and that's the version you hear on line today. We are currently working on some new stuff for a second release in a year or so. It will be a fine mix of styles and less heavy for the most part, we are aging some but still like to rock but love many more genres too. Stand by for that project.

In 2003 & 2004 I played part time in a rock & roll church band called The Nite Life Band with a rotating schedule of players of high caliber! You can see more information and live clips from a concert DVD that I produce called The Nite Life Band Live - A Night On The Rock. I released the audio version of that in 2007. Those live video clips are on my You Tube Channel! Great times, great people, great stage... Great God! I began writing new songs and recording them at home while at this job, the first song I did was Broke The Chains, my personal anthem which would appear on my first solo Audio CD.!

2004 To Now
Another Big Change In Life
& The Recordings Started!

See the Discography for the release dates on Completed Projects page!

During all these bands and projects, and from 1991, my main job has been being a Church/Ministry Planter. In 2004 I completed a ministry project with a church and did not have one lined up to go to next. I did some construction work and had a lot of time on my hands and continued writing more songs and recording them in my own studio. Robert Hanline and Dave Russell, a great friend that now pastors a church in Newaygo Michigan, taught me how to get started with a virtual studio in my home office and they are still a big help today!

The first solo album I worked on for two years, there was a huge learning curve on the software and the whole process. That was my first self titled album. It had a wild mix of rock and easy listening tunes on it - a potpourri of music for sure. I continued writing all styles of music until I had enough rock stuff to split the rock tunes off that first album and add them to the new rock songs I just wrote. I release the second album as Retrofit. That was all my rocky songs to date. I did the same with the easy listening songs and released the third album called Rest In You. Then I continued writing songs and split them up according to genre and added them to albums 3 & 4 until I had enough to call them both a double album. They were simply called Retrofit - Double Album and Rest In You - Double Album which we released a half year later.

That brings us to what we are doing these days and that story continues on the New AV Projects Page!