Ronn van Etten

So you really want to know me better? Thank you so much for your interest. On this page I'll tell you about my early years. About learning to play the guitar and some drums. I'll fill you in about the bands I played in. About composing and writing lyrics and the production of my CD's.

Enjoy the story!

Where do I come from? The early years.

Born in Voorburg, The Netherlands, on June 3, 1955. I grew up with my parents and 5 brothers/sisters in a happy family. We had a lot of music. Both my parents singing in an opera choir, my dad playing a bit piano (later on organ) and accordion. We often sang a bit during doing the dishes. My older brothers and sister all went to a marching band orchestra, playing trumpet, or clarinet. I didn't fancy that, growingup in and influenced by the sixties, so I got to go to guitar lessons and later on some drumming lessons.

When I turned eleven I got a acoustic guitar for my birthday. Couldn't be happier! See picture left.

Few years later I too shortly joined the fanfare orchestra, because of the chance of playing drums. I found it interesting, especially because of those drumming lessons! But I didn't get to march with them.
My interest was with other kinds of music...

When I was 13, I wrote my first song and many more were to come...

I wrote songs for the bands I played in, or just for fun. Later on recording the songs at home on 2-track, 4-track and later on my 8-track Teac/Tascam machine. Through the years the songs have been piling up to several hundreds! Only some of them released. Quite a few played by several bands at some times. Some of them made it to my own CD's, that I released much, much later (1995, 2015, 2016, 2017).

The middle years; all kinds of bands. One after the other.

In my last year in Primary school I could join a band with some friends, called the TRUE SOUND .
Only played a few gigs.
Whether it really was the true sound, still is a mystery, but we had fun.........

I started out visiting some talent contests. Even won sometimes, by playing my own songs with guitar or piano. Even won a few!

My first really interesting band was BALLOON . A symphonic rockband I joined in 1973. We played a lot of original songs that I wrote during that period. I sang, played guitar and a bit organ and a few songs surfaced on the "All Sorts ... One Guy" - album and on the 2019 album "WAVES". Beautiful music, good songs and definitely quality, but no records or whatsoever. Some songs got played by bands I played in after Balloon and even ended up being recorded decades later. The band stopped 1975.

MUSKIE . The same year -1975 I joined Muskie. A band with lots of sound! LOTS !
We were a hard playing, rock band with mostly original work, partly written by me. Unfortenately the band stopped quite soon.
Some songs from the Balloon- period, but lots of new ones as well. Some songs later on played by Flirt (both versions...) and one song ("Nothing lost today") was a single in 2017, included on my album "Shades of Blue's" !

FLIRT . Dated from 1976, we played 50% original work, that I mostly wrote. We played for a couple of years and stopped in 1978.
Some songs ended up on the "Shades of Blue's" album. Some songs ended up on the bonus CD of the "WAVES" album. Flirt made it to making a demo for recording-possibilities, but never got any further than that. We played around quite a bit untill .... well the band fell apart.

OCY'72 : I joined in 1978 a sort-of in between band ....
Music was very aimed at partying with even some hoempa-hoempa music.
I didn't stay that long, because of the lack of musical challenge,
while searching for a more suitable band.

Meanwhile, with a BUNCH of collegues from work, I played a few gigs with a temporary band.
It was a band that got together for special occasions of the organisation, playing on parties at work.
But nevertheless we had some "outside", payed, gigs as well.

JESSEBAND .
Delft based "plastic pop" band that played about 90% original work, of which roughly 50% I wrote.
Some really nice popmusic. Some songs played earlier (Flirt, Balloon) and latere (Flirt, Prints).
Sadly this band did not exist very long and was no more after only a year of playing and (home)recording.

PRINTS
Prints was a Zoetermeer based band that got formed in 1982 and who played only original work.
We had some nice gigs and after making a nice demo, we even made it to being broadcasted twice on National Radio.
But alas ... that was as far as it went before the band split up in 1984.
Some of the songs recorded are included on a bonus CD of the album WAVES I released in 2019.

The latter years: A long lasting Flirt and flirting with other bands, duo's and solo.

But from 1984 I joined another band, first playing the bass-guitar. After some personel-changes I asked former Flirt bassist Johan Korringa (former Balloon, Cobra) to join and the name FLIRT was re-used ... Flirt 2, so to say.
Flirt with Erik Zandbergen and Paul van Veen and later on drummer Hans Dijksterhuis with whom I played in a short-termed earlier band, played many-a-gig. In the beginning some original songs were played, but the band became more and more a cover band, with a very varied repertoire. Some songs recorded as demo are included on the bonus CD of my album "WAVES", released in 2019.

Mid 90's FLIRT released a CD with covers and end 90's some personnel changes resulted in Arjan Bruinsma on keys, still in the band till now. FLIRT still is playing up till today, after 35 years !!!

I was asked to join Rudy Bennet & New Motion (former: SH Band) as singer/guitarist, playing with well known Dutch popsinger Rudy Bennet (former member of the Motions, Galaxy Lin, and more). Even made it -once- to national TV on the prime time show DWDD.

N ewfield & Cook was an effort to combine old and new. Peter Cook played in Dutch well known duo Greenfield & Cook in the seventies, that had some hits. A follow-up-version was to be Newfield & Cook, also playing original material Ronn and Peter wrote .
We recorded/published one EP-CD, but Peter preferred persuiing a continuation of his former solo-career, so the duo stopped.

In 2012 I was substitute-guitarist in Beauty and the Beats and later on I was asked to join the band permanently. After a few very nice gigs (some of them in Spain), the founder of the band disbanned te group so this band B&tB also stopped after only one and half year.

I then formed the band NEW PAGE , with lady-singer of B&tB, Fabienne Dallau. The band has Peter Seilberger (former Tee Set) on keys, Ruud Saelman on drums and first Marcel van Ee, later Johan Korringa on bass with whom I played in several bands before. We still play up to this day. With singer Fabienne Dallau I recorded a single: Don't wanna let you go, also on my album 61-Etched in Memory.

MIROJO started out as a jam-session-band for one or two occasions.

However, MIROJO was asked in several other places too, so it "sort of became a band", again Ronn playing together with Michael Eschauzier (former Catapult, Shocking Blue) and -again- Johan Korringa on bass. MIROJO plays on reguler -small- gigs.

Singer Rosy Pereira (former Rosy & Andres) wanted to work together a bit and this resulted in the duo : RONN & ROSY ,
having a gig now and then, but also stopped after Rosy preferred to sing in a complete live band.

Together with Michael Eschauzier I played PITCHBENDERS.

This group started as an alternative for MIROJO with bassplayer Paolo Grobben when Johan could not make it. However, this     formation too evolved into a more or less regular line up, accompanied by NEW PAGE Ruud Saelman on drums and play gigs on     an irregular basis.

Last, but not least, I perform SOLO as well. I quite enjoy this way of working: just singing and sometimes guitar playing, but accompanied by nice backing tracks with the rest of the music. Many well known covers, but I also perform beautiful unknown songs, as well as original songs I wrote, from my albums.
In 2019 I got the opportunity to do an Eric Clapton tribute on Cyprus for 5 gigs. Singing and playing guitar with backing files. I was asked back for 6 shows in April 2020 and also was invited for June 2020 to play on a charity event, but that all got cancelled. In the Netherlands too I was asked s to do this EC tribute. New tour planned for September 2021
Last, I do shows as a singer in old age care homes, with songs from the fifties, which also is very enjoyable.