Jean-Paul De Roover

Artist Information

Biography

With an innovative and original approach to music, Jean-Paul De Roover is much more than just a solo artist. Live looping with guitars and a voice used as an instrument this multi-instrumentalist constructs his songs piece by piece before your eyes. Beginning in silence his performance could lead anywhere as he builds it live, inviting his audience to become a part of the unique final product.

Although he was born in Thunder Bay, ON, De Roover was raised overseas in Africa, Asia and South America before moving back to Canada in 2001. This distinct upbringing has led him to create a post-pop style that is decidedly his own, blending ideas from rock, pop, a cappella and electronica.

In regards to his impressive live approach De Roover said, “I wanted to challenge myself by having to record every part of my show live, on the spot. It provides a unique show for anyone that sees me.” Combine this with his performance set up and you’ve got an aurally and visually stimulating show that keeps generating audiences and quality music, whether he's playing solo or with his band.

De Roover has worked hard to develop his one-man-show, touring relentlessly since 2007 with his signature red piping platforms. Over the past 6 years he has had the opportunity to share stages with artists such as the Beach Boys, Goo Goo Dolls, The Weakerthans, Beardyman as well as countless others. He has showcased at international music festivals including Canadian Music Fest and NXNE, and has been reviewed in publications like Exclaim!, Earshot!, and Vancouver’s The Georgia Straight. With over 10 tours under his belt, two videos featured on MuchMusic, and a growing collection of other achievements, the future certainly looks bright for this talented young artist.

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PRESS & REVIEWS
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"Intensity is the cornerstone of Windows and Doors...And really, that’s the brilliance of this album: De Roover’s ability to take rather simple chord progressions...and create deep layers of interest. This isn’t an album of dreamy, purposeless folk rock; it’s an album on a mission. (3.5/5)" - The Georgia Straight

"What Jean-Paul De Roover has delivered is something that is inspirational, creative, engaging, calming and intensely disturbing at times. What this album ISN’T is safe, formulaic, and predictable. The few tunes that are set to a more traditional 4/4 time rock beat seem to act almost as traps, blinding you of the rabbit hole the next track is going to plunge you headlong into. …this album is custom made for anyone that demands a little more than what is offered from their music." - The Argus

"Windows and Doors is a mixed bag – but that just adds to the whole theme of choices, the listener has a variety to pick from and no choice is the wrong one" - Interrobang

"Armed with an acoustic guitar, a drum machine and an arsenal of effect pedals...Furiously multi-tasking with apparent ease, De Roover added layer upon layer of vocals, guitar and drum samples...as he built a thick wall of sound" - The Charlatan

"I have my eye on Jean-Paul De Roover. I think he'll be as good as, as influential as, Robert Fripp - never heard of King Crimson? Then you're younger than I am. But if you have, you may want to go if only to make comparative notes, and rekindle the feeling of truly seeing something fresh." - The Chronicle Journal

"Jean-Paul has a fantastic sense of melody, song craft and a devious mind when it comes to musical experimentation." - CILU 102.7 FM

"To describe it is nearly impossible and to shove it into any genre is unfeasible" - The Argus

"Once you’ve seen him perform once, you can’t help but love his music. His unique style combines live guitar playing, voice and percussion with synthesized sound filters and bizarre electronic effects...It is hard to capture such a unique performance as delivered by Jean-Paul De Roover...he has created a music genre of his own and his talent and creativity never cease to impress and amaze" - The Argus

"He does experiment with ambience and acoustic, almost tribal guitar work (“Catharsis”) and neat, classic rock-inspired melodies on the visceral “Elements”...” - Exclaim!

""Elements", stands out as unique with deeper vocals and contrasting beat boxing offset by acoustic guitar. Not only is the music interesting, the lyrical content is as well." - Northern Rocks Magazine

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SHARED STAGES WITH:
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Beach Boys, Goo Goo Dolls, Beardyman, The Weakerthans, Low Level Flight (w/Ryan Malcolm from Canadian Idol), Shawn Verreault (Wide Mouth Mason), Peter Elkas, Said The Whale, Sean Ashby, Suzie McNeil (of Rockstar INXS), Slowcoaster, Hello Operator, Coco Love Alcorn, Wax Mannequin, Rae Spoon, Rich Aucoin, Ladyhawk, The Hot Springs, Bend Sinister, Craig Cardiff, Rah Rah, The Liptonians, Volcanoless In Canada, Miracle Fortress, Layah Jane, Carpenter, Chasing Mercury, Tele, Ninjaspy, Big Rude Jake, Billy Joe Green and many more.

In his previous bands (Night Safari and Vaya), he also shared stages with Simple Plan, Treblecharger, Alexisonfire, Bif Naked, Ten Second Epic, Sloan, David Usher, Raising The Fawn, They Shoot Horses Don't They?, and many more.

Festivals include:
Canadian Music Week (Toronto, ON), NXNE (Toronto, ON), Robson Valley Music Festival (Dunster, BC), Field Festival (Craik, SK), Nocturne (Halifax, NS), Live from the Rock Folk Festival (Red Rock, ON), FAM Festival (Windsor, ON) Sioux Mountain Music Festival (Sioux Lookout, ON), Canada Day Festival (Thunder Bay, ON), North of 49 Festival (Hornepayne, ON), Art of the Harbour Festival (Thunder Bay, ON), World Junior Baseball Championship Festival (Thunder Bay, ON), Harbour Arts Festival (Thunder Bay, ON), Bay St Film Festival (Thunder Bay, ON).

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VIDEO
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The music video for "You" was directed by Curtis Jensen, and funded by the Ontario Arts Council. It was featured on MuchMusic's 'The Wedge' beginning in October, 2010.

The music video for "Fix" was directed by Shannon Lepere, and featured on MuchMusic's 'The Wedge' beginning in March, 2010.

Both videos were screened at the Bay Street Film Festival (2010) and FAM Festival (2010). They have also both been featured online on Zunior.tv, Aux.tv and other video sites and blogs.

You can watch them on YouTube here:
FIX - www.jeanpaulderoover.com/fix
YOU - youtube.com/watch?v=W7QnxUgGQPc

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RADIO
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"Windows and Doors" has received airplay on the following stations:

- CILU 102.7 (Thunder Bay, ON) [over 5 weeks at #1 - Oct '09 - Nov '09. As of June, 2010, the album was still on the charts]
- CBC Radio One (Thunder Bay, ON)
- CHLY 101.7 (Nanaimo, BC) [reached #2 - Nov '09]
- Rock 94 (Thunder Bay, ON)
- CHSR 97.9 (Fredericton, NB)
- CFOU 89.1 (Trois Rivieres, QC)
- CJMQ 88.9 (Sherbrooke, QC)
- CHUO 89.1 (Ottawa, ON)
- CHRY 105.5 (North York, ON)
- CFRU 93.3 (Guelph, ON)
- CKMS 100.3 (Waterloo, ON)
- CFUR 88.7 (Prince George, BC)
- CHOQ FM (Montreal, QC)

"Windows and Doors" reached 46 on the Earshot! campus radio charts for the week of November 24th, 2009.


"Dichotomy" EP has received airplay on the following stations:

- CBC Radio One [featured on several episodes of Bandwidth]
- CILU 102.7 (Thunder Bay) [over 6 weeks at #1 - Dec '07/Jan '08]
- CSCR Fusion Radio (Scarborough)
- CHMA 106.9 (Sackville)
- C101.5 (Hamilton)
- CFBX 92.5 (Kamloops)
- HOT 105.3 (Thunder Bay)

"Dichotomy" also reached 94 on the Top 200 of Earshot! campus radio charts for January 2008 as well as 152 in December of 2007.

Instrumentation

Jean-Paul De Roover - Vocals, Guitar, loops

Discography

"Complexity in Simplicity" CD:
- Funded by the Ontario Arts Council
- 10 tracks
- Produced by Ben Leggett & Jean-Paul De Roover
- Engineered/Mixed at Dining Room Studios
- Mastered at Lacquer Channel Mastering
- Released March 23rd, 2013


"Live at the Tomlinson Block" Video EP:
- 4 videos with corresponding audio tracks
- Produced by Jean-Paul De Roover
- Engineered/Mixed at Dining Room Studios
- Released December 1st, 2012


"Pitch Pipes" EP:
- 3 tracks
- A cappella renditions of 'Fix', 'You' and a medley of the 'Windows and Doors' album.
- Produced by Jean-Paul De Roover
- Engineered/Mixed/Mastered at Dining Room Studios
- Released February 11th, 2011


"Windows and Doors" CD+DVD:
- Funded by the Ontario Arts Council
- Includes 14 track CD, and 2 hour DVD featuring live performances and bonus features
- Unique digipak format that folds into a 3D house
- Produced by Jean-Paul De Roover
- Engineered/Mixed at Dining Room Studios
- Mastered by Phil Demetro at Lacquer Channel
- Released September 12th, 2009


"...dichotomy..." EP:
- 4 Tracks: Junior, Catharsis, Elements, Lapse
- Recorded at Dining Room Studios
- Released November 25th, 2007


"Sooth" Live DVD [sold out]:
- 3 tracks: Help Me Help Myself, The Bay, Reggie
- Recorded live at Definitely Superior Art Gallery Thunder Bay, ON, on March 21st, 2007

Official Website

http://www.jeanpaulderoover.com

Links

• Facebook
• MySpace
• Twitter
• Last.fm
• YouTube

Audio

• One By One
  Listen   Download
• Hope
  Listen   Download
• You (a cappella)
  Listen   Download
• Fix
  Listen   Download
• Elements
  Listen   Download

Lyrics

• One By One
• Hope
• You
• Fix
• Elements

Video

Photo Gallery

Press

• Complexity in Simplicity review [+ Show ]
  

  "Relentless beats and surges of complex harmony. Lyrics full of real talk.  A sumptuous travelogue ..."Relentless beats and surges of complex harmony. Lyrics full of real talk. 
  A sumptuous travelogue through the chambers of an artist's heart." - Paul Corby (Corby's Orbit)

• Complexity in Simplicity review
  

  "a clean, sharp, and resonating chapter of music." - Mady Ritzker

• Windows and Doors review [+ Show ]
  

  “…the mad scientist of the Thunder Bay music scene…Jean-Paul De Roover live, is a spectacle that you...“…the mad scientist of the Thunder Bay music scene…Jean-Paul De Roover live, is a spectacle that you NEED to see.” – Jason Wellwood

• Jean-Paul De Roover's Windows and Doors marked by intensity [+ Show ]
  

  by Miranda Nelson - The Georgia Straight Proving you don’t need a major label deal to produce a ...by Miranda Nelson - The Georgia Straight
  
  Proving you don’t need a major label deal to produce a slick album package loaded with extra content, the unexpectedly intense Windows and Doors, from Ontarian Jean-Paul De Roover, comes complete with a DVD of live performances and the quirky CD packaging can be folded into a house.
  
  Thankfully, his innovation doesn’t end with the album’s presentation. A self-proclaimed “one-man band” who builds his songs from the ground up with live looping and prerecorded material, pulls out all the stops (and some excellent additional musicians) on Windows and Doors, including hauntingly beautiful harmonies and a sassy brass trio.
  
  This 14-song album opens with “I Need You”, a melancholic song featuring strangled synth loops and Morse-code percussion, before launching into “Fix”, a jangly acoustic number with frantic fingerpicking and strong vocals. And the delicate vocalization on “Walk” can’t help but conjure up thoughts of the reigning kings of Canadian folk-rock, the Weakerthans.
  
  Most of the songs on Windows and Doors are underscored by more than a hint of melancholy, including “The Knife”, a spare offering anchored by a sexy acoustic guitar line and hand drums. However, De Roover manages to sneak in some humour, including a cheeky piece of vocal modulation at the end of the dirgelike “Dead”. “Windows and Doors” defies the album’s overarching sense of sadness, and is instead a remarkably joyful song. Beginning with panic-stricken fingerpicking, the song builds with a number of dense layers—aided by the aforementioned brass trio—before morphing into a triumphant, vocal-jazz-style chorus.
  
  Intensity is the cornerstone of Windows and Doors, and “Corners” is as close to hesitant as this album gets. This four-chord song features longing vocals, and with instrumentation right out of the Matthew Good playbook, it sounds a lot more epic than it would in less experienced hands. And really, that’s the brilliance of this album: De Roover’s ability to take rather simple chord progressions—often only two or three chords—and create deep layers of interest. This isn’t an album of dreamy, purposeless folk rock; it’s an album on a mission.
  
  3.5/5

• Windows and Doors review [+ Show ]
  

  “I’m a ‘metal guy’. Everyone knows that ‘metal guy’s’ don’t use the word gorgeous to describe music....“I’m a ‘metal guy’. Everyone knows that ‘metal guy’s’ don’t use the word gorgeous to describe music. One listen to Jean-Paul De Roover’s debut full length ‘Windows and Doors’ and I caught myself saying it over and over again. There is an incredible attention to detail that a lot of other people either miss or ignore… [he] has a fantastic sense of melody, song craft and a devious mind when it comes to musical experimentation. – Jason Wellwood

• The Hunger Cabaret [+ Show ]
  

  "I have my eye on Jean-Paul De Roover. I think he'll be as good as, as influential as, Robert Fripp ..."I have my eye on Jean-Paul De Roover. I think he'll be as good as, as influential as, Robert Fripp - never heard of King Crimson? Then you're younger than I am. But if you have, you may want to go if only to make comparative notes, and rekindle the feeling of truly seeing something fresh." - Duncan Weller
  

• De Roover's Windows and Doors "houses" eclectic talent [+ Show ]
  

  “Windows and Doors is a mixed bag – but that just adds to the whole theme of choices, the listener h...“Windows and Doors is a mixed bag – but that just adds to the whole theme of choices, the listener has a variety to pick from and no choice is the wrong one.” – Jessica Ireland

• Three names, one-man band [+ Show ]
  

  “Armed with an acoustic guitar, a drum machine and an arsenal of effect pedals…Furiously multi-taski...“Armed with an acoustic guitar, a drum machine and an arsenal of effect pedals…Furiously multi-tasking with apparent ease, De Roover added layer upon layer of vocals, guitar and drum samples…as he built a thick wall of sound.” – Colin Harris

• Windows and Doors review [+ Show ]
  

  “What Jean-Paul De Roover has delivered is something that is inspirational, creative, engaging, calm...“What Jean-Paul De Roover has delivered is something that is inspirational, creative, engaging, calming and intensely disturbing at times. What this album ISN’T is safe, formulaic, and predictable. The few tunes that are set to a more traditional 4/4 time rock beat seem to act almost as traps, blinding you of the rabbit hole the next track is going to plunge you headlong into. …this album is custom made for anyone that demands a little more than what is offered from their music.” – Derek Wall

• Live at the Pearl Company show review [+ Show ]
  

  “He is a sensitive singer with a flexible voice, he lays down harmonies and background sounds (inclu...“He is a sensitive singer with a flexible voice, he lays down harmonies and background sounds (including percussive noises) with an ease and facility that is amazing to watch/hear. He reminds me at various times of Brian Wilson, or Lindsey Buckingham.” – David Kidney

• ...dichotomy... [+ Show ]
  

  De Roover "experiment[s] with ambience and acoustic, almost tribal guitar work (‘Catharsis’) and nea...De Roover "experiment[s] with ambience and acoustic, almost tribal guitar work (‘Catharsis’) and neat, classic rock-inspired melodies on the visceral ‘Elements’…” – Sari Delmar

• Local Spotlight: Jean-Paul De Roover [+ Show ]
  

  “’Elements’, stands out as unique with deeper vocals and contrasting beat boxing offset by acoustic ...“’Elements’, stands out as unique with deeper vocals and contrasting beat boxing offset by acoustic guitar. Not only is the music interesting, the lyrical content is as well.” – Christy Pyette

Setlist

Can do regular sets and acoustic sets. Full band optional.

Set duration can be 20 minutes to 2 hours. 45 min - 60 min preferred.

Songs:
Silhouettes Pass
Blue
Walk (a cappella)
Fix
Break My Soul
Float on Down
Man With No Hands
Clarity
I-30
Hope
Junior
We Will Be
One By One
You

*I have a flexible repertoire and can do multiple sets if requested. Additional repertoire of cover songs.

Basic Requirements

Calendar