Who is FonDeW?

It was suggested to me that people here in the community would be interested in getting to know me a little better so I figured I would tell you all a little bit about my story. I am a 37 year old singer-song writer originally from south Florida, but currently living in Colorado and have been playing music for nearly a quarter of a century...but I've gotten ahead of myself.

So to start, I come from a relatively musical family. On my mom's side, my grandfather played in bands his entire life, playing basically every instrument under the sun, and while he did pass away when I was very young, I'm certain that at least some of my musical talents come from him. My mother was also an extremely talented pianist and I have LOTS of memories of her playing our piano in our living room while I was growing up. On my dad's side, my grandfather was an incredible guitar player and I was lucky enough to get to listen to him play on a number of occasions despite him being relatively absent for a good portion of my life.

Growing up, I definitely messed around on the piano, but in middle school I made the decision to learn the alto saxophone and rotated between 3rd and 4th chair in the middle school band. I played in our concert band, and jazz band, and competed at all of the local band competitions we attended.

Entering high school however, I hit somewhat of a dead end with my music. I also played competitive AAA ice hockey during this time, and when I entered my freshmen year, I was told that I could not participate in the concert band unless I also was in the marching band. The problem with this was that marching band practice conflicted with my hockey practice schedule and I had made the choice long before music that I was going to continue to pursue my competitive hockey career. My choice at that point was to go back to band level 1, which I did for that year, but it ultimately pushed me away from music and I put down the sax for good.

In my junior year of high school I changed schools to be able to graduate with the friends I had made early in life, and was immediately surrounded by lots of music talent. One of my now best friends' dad was a Rod Stewart impersonator and I spent lots of time at their house surrounded by all the instruments and jams that you could imagine, and in my senior year decided to pick up the guitar.

In 2005 I moved to Texas to play Junior B ice hockey and it was during that time that my mom bought me my first guitar. While I wasn't very good, I was determined to get better every day and still have memories of driving my roommate crazy as I played the same chords over and over and over again. Unfortunately I was seriously injured that season and had to move back to South Florida. It was during this time that I had really started to get a solid grasp on playing guitar and I started writing and composing my first songs. Little did I know the path this would take me on as an artist. I wrote a number of songs over the next couple years and played my first live shows in 2007 with a makeshift band composed of some of my closest friends.

In 2009 I had a 3 year relationship that came to an end and I moved to Orlando, FL where I would end up writing my first full length album, and upon returning to south Florida in early 2010, I started my first real band called "EOS: Evolution of Sound" and ended up releasing my first fully produced EP called "We've Only Just Begun". The band toured Florida for about 3 years, performing in some well known local venues at the time such as Bardot in Miami, and the Arts Park Amphitheater in Hollywood, but ultimately due to conflicts between myself and our lead guitarist, the band disassembled and I was left uncertain of the direction I would take going forward.

Luckily, at the end of 2011 I met my amazing partner and she encouraged me to continue to pursue my musical journey. I played a number of solo cover shows at bars and eventually formed 2 different cover bands which played man shows between 2012 and 2016, but ultimately they all fell apart and I was again finding myself pursuing a solo career. In early 2016 my better half and I decided that we would move to Colorado and did so that very summer.

At the time, I had done a lot of research on the local music scene and felt like it would be a really beneficial change of pace for me. Unfortunately however, the move didn't turn out the way I expected in terms of my music. I did play a couple shows in the first few months we were there and it seemed promising, but ultimately I was unable to procure enough shows to make a living like I was in Florida, and so I made a decision to take some time away from my musical pursuits.

Fast forward to just a little over a year ago, I had been away from my music for over 6 years, and one very late night with a few whiskies under my belt, I found my first Twitter space with people playing live music. It was in that space that I first heard a musician that goes by the name of Whale playing live piano and I was immediately encouraged to get on stage and find out how they were possibly getting such good quality to come over the Twitter airwaves. After learning about widespectrum on the iphone, it was a wrap. Since this night, I have gone full circle and returned to music full time. I've released a genesis NFT set of original tracks, selling out my first of the three drops in just two weeks, and even released an official cover on the blockchain as my first collaborative writing effort to be produced. I'm not going to say it's been easy, and certainly not going to say it's been a quick rise to success, but I have felt more fulfilled in the last year doing what I love than I have in a long time.

Thank you to everyone who read this far in my story. I appreciate each and every one of you and can't wait until you all see how much music I have up my sleeve.