JHONNY NORTÉ
I never really fit in. Neither does my music.
Welcome to my world.
WELCOME TO MY WORLD
I’m the other guy.
The loner. The kid who tried to fit in with the popular crowd and somehow still ended up on the outside. The one who wasn’t always invited. The one people called ugly. The one who spent a lot of time trying to figure out where he fit.
I don’t fit in.
And I’m not apologizing for it anymore.
Maybe that’s also why I notice people. I’m that stranger who might look at you, feel something in your energy and ask, “How are you feeling?” I’ll smile. Wink. Nod. Give you that little nod-and-smile from across the room just to acknowledge that you’re there.
I’m the guy who notices you.
Sometimes somebody just needs to know another human being saw them. I care about people. I listen. I help the next person when I can. I feel things deeply — my own emotions and sometimes what’s happening around me.
That’s part of who I am. And it’s part of the music too.
ROOTS
Music Was Always There
My connection to music started before I can even remember it.
My mom tells me that when I was a baby and I would start crying, my dad would put me in my little rocking chair next to this really big speaker and turn the music on. Within seconds, I would stop crying and start smiling.
My dad tells the same story a little differently. According to him, I would cry, he would put me by the speaker, turn the music on and I would shut up.
That’s my dad’s version.
Either way, music was doing something to me before I even understood what music was.
My grandmother had a small farm and ranch house on about three acres of land. We had horses, cows, goats, sheep, chickens — all of it.
On Sundays, everybody would come together. We had Sunday dinner, and the men in my family — my dad, my uncles, my cousins — would spend hours in the garage playing drums, guitar, keyboard, singing and making music.
We had enough land that nobody was being disturbed. They could play for hours. To me, that was just normal life.
After my grandmother passed away, we ended up living in that house, and the tradition continued. Sundays became cookouts at our place, and once again, the garage would come alive with music.
I didn’t realize it then, but I was watching older generations actually make music in front of me.
Not just play songs. Make them.
SINCE AGE 11
Then I Started Making Music Too
I started playing instruments around 11 years old — alto saxophone, trumpet and trombone. Today I’m teaching myself piano.
When I was younger, my friends and I could walk into Guitar Center, get on different instruments and within about 15 minutes we would have a four-minute instrumental going.
There wasn’t some big plan. We just loved making music.
Growing up, our family eventually became Baptist too, and whew — the choir.
The music. The harmony. The emotion.
That sound stayed with me too.
So did R&B. Disco. Jazz. Hip-hop. Electronic music. Latin music. African music. Pop. Classical music. Music from all over the world.
I’ve never listened to music in one little box, so I don’t know how I would suddenly make music that way.
If I feel it, I’m in it.
That’s still how I listen. And that’s how I create.
A DIFFERENT ROAD
Music Wasn’t My First Career
Music was always there, but I didn’t choose it as my first career.
For a while, I thought my life might go in a completely different direction.
Both of my grandfathers served in the military — one in the Air Force and one in the Army — so military service was part of my family story too.
I joined Air Force JROTC in high school and continued with Air Force ROTC in college for two years.
I wanted to be a pilot.
Not just be on the aircraft. I wanted to be the one flying it.
I was interested in aircraft like the KC-10, KC-135 and C-141 — refueling missions, cargo, humanitarian relief, helping people and getting what was needed where it needed to go.
At the time, my eyesight did not meet the standards for the pilot path I wanted. I was told other aviation roles were available to me, but that wasn’t what I wanted to do.
If I couldn’t be the pilot doing the work, it wasn’t the same dream for me.
So I chose another direction.
And let me tell ya’, that didn’t go too well with my service-member grandfathers.
School. Career. Business. Responsibility.
Retail management. Warehouse management. Corporate management. Human resources. Accounting. Owning businesses.
Lots of operations, employees, customers, numbers, deadlines and spreadsheets.
Very exciting stuff.
But the music never left. It just kept running beside everything else I was doing.
THE SONGWRITER
The Songwriter Was Still There
Over the last ten years, I’ve written more than 300 songs.
Some became music. A lot of them stayed words, thoughts, melodies and emotions sitting somewhere waiting.
Why am I letting all of these songs stay written thoughts?
I’m a songwriter first.
I usually start with the emotion.
Sometimes I’m writing about something I lived through years ago. Sometimes I’m writing while I’m still living it. Sometimes I’m writing about something I witnessed, somebody I care about, or something happening around me.
Then I start shaping it into a song.
I know when the voice needs to rise. I know when it needs to pull back. I know when a line needs to hurt, smile, move, breathe or get out of the way and let the music say the rest.
Sometimes a songwriter just knows.
THE PROCESS
The Tools Changed.
The instinct didn’t.
I grew up watching people make music live.
Then the world became digital.
So naturally, the way I make music today can include both.
I use instruments, my voice, Logic Pro, an MPC, MIDI, vocal processing and other production tools to get closer to what I already hear in my head.
Technology is part of the process.
It is not the reason I make music.
One of the early experiments that taught me a lot was Simulation Express.
I had created the music and experimented with using an AI voice to sing it. I didn’t completely connect with the result. Something about the voice felt off to me.
But I learned from it.
That experiment helped shape what eventually became Simulation and also helped me understand even more clearly how important phrasing, emotion and vocal direction are to me.
You may also hear AI-created female supporting vocals in some of my music. I use them intentionally as part of the arrangement.
Beyond that, I would rather let the music speak for itself.
The song still starts with me.
Simulation Express — an early chapter of the Jhonny Norté project.
WHY NOW?
The Calling Isn’t New. The Timing Is.
I spent most of my adult life doing what adults are supposed to do in this current era. Working. Building a career. Paying bills. Running businesses. Taking care of responsibilities.
And through all of it, the music kept showing up.
Eventually life changed enough that I had to really look at what I was doing and ask myself whether I was going to keep putting this part of me off.
I nearly stopped the music project completely.
I asked Yahweh for guidance, and I came away from that knowing I was supposed to keep going.
I don’t need to explain much more than that.
The time felt right. So I answered.
THE FIRST PROJECT
Energy Never Breaks
Authentically me.
My first project, Energy Never Breaks, is probably the best introduction to me.
It starts the same way I tend to start my day: high energy.
But the album moves through different sides of me.
Some songs come directly from things that happened to me. Others come from things I witnessed, people I cared about, memories, emotions or moments that stayed with me.
That’s why the energy changes.
It doesn’t disappear.
It moves.
And if you really want to know who I am, listen to the songs.
Every one of them has a reason behind it.
Something I lived. Something I felt. Something I noticed. Something I needed to say.
Start listening. You’ll learn me along the way.
EXPLORE THE MUSIC →WELCOME TO MY WORLD
I don’t know exactly where all of this ends.
That’s part of what makes it exciting.
Maybe Jhonny Norté becomes much bigger than I ever expected. Maybe it grows slowly and finds the people it was supposed to find along the way.
Either way, I would rather try and know than spend the rest of my life wondering what would have happened if I had answered the calling.
So this is me answering.
The songwriter. The musician. The businessman. The accountant. The outsider. The guy dancing in the car. The guy who notices you. The guy who feels too much sometimes. The guy who finally stopped trying to fit himself into somebody else’s box.
I’m Jhonny Norté.
Welcome to my world.
BUILD IT WITH ME
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Jhonny Norté is independently funded. If you’d like to help support the music, videos, artwork, performances, and everything else that goes into building the project, you’re welcome to contribute.
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