Meet Joel Van Dijk of Mystical Joyride in Westside

Today we’d like to introduce you to Joel Van Dijk.

Joel, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
My story started as a youngster I suppose. I had always been surrounded by music as my parents were big music fans. My father tended more towards jazz and psychedelic rock, while my mother tended more towards blues, folk, and soul. Both played a little bit of guitar. I hadn’t really been interested fully until my teenage years brought me to the rock guitar sound of Aerosmith and others. Then whilst garage sailing with my mom one day I saw what would become my first electric guitar! A small Harmony Guitar with a little portable amp…. and it had begun!! I would crank that thing all the way up to get whatever horrible sounding distortion I could get lol. My folks taught me the basics of what they knew… but I was starved for music education, got it wherever I could! This was the pre-youtube era, so I would scour the internet for html text documents and tabliture.

I took various lessons, including classical guitar… after high school and wandering lost for a couple of years, I refound music. A new friend I met had a 12-track recorder at his house and some cool gear. He was interested in engineering and producing. Thus we made my first solo project, a guitar instrumental album called ( T R I P ). It brought me back to the love of music. I had been working doing Plumbing construction for my dads business, but I knew it wasn’t my life’s goal. One day while watching an amazing video of Victor Wooten and smoking weed with a homie it just clicked… I want to be this good, I want to do this for my life, I want to pursue this all the way and stop messing around with whatever I was doing. That was the moment my life changed from my small town identity to something bigger. I immediately started saving for a move to LA to attend the Musicians Institute (their advertising in Guitar World magazine worked on me after years of reading). I did it, moved to LA in the classic fashion, from my small town of Grass Valley, CA to this daunting metropolis.

And I stayed course, met plenty of awesome colleagues and friends in school, many I still work with today. Played all the gigs, free, paid, fun, whack, church gig, slanged concert T-shirts at venues on the side. Eventually one of the many artists I played with, Aloe Blacc struck some gold with his song “I Need A Dollar.” Luckily the band who co-wrote and produced the project wasn’t available to tour so myself and a couple of friends known today as The Grand Scheme took off on tour! We played all the places, tv shows, toured extensively in Europe and worldwide, did TV. Basically leveled up my career. Since then I have had many great studio/songwriting experiences, played on the Black Panther Album, co-wrote with Yuna on her “Best Love” track, produced for numerous artists, etc… Now, with my wife we have a band together “Mystical Joyride” which is where I am putting all my efforts for the moment!

We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
Is any road smooth!? Struggle seems built into the human experience. Being a musician is like being a permanent roller coaster rider. The highs are high and the lows are low. Music is not generally valued monetarily in the same way other things are. The hours put in aren’t counted hourly, nor the years of development to become. And since taste is so subjective with music and art, success is never guaranteed. I have yet to be monetarily successful as an artist per se (though many argue the merits of artistry are varied 😉 .

In the music industry, there is lots of money chasing, trying to balance between doing what your soul wants and what pays the bills. Save your money… and re-invest some of it are what I have learned mostly. It’s important to have many revenue streams. Being a touring musician kills your in town hustle, so you save your money and keep working on the side as much as possible still. There’s a ton of speculative investments as well. Songwriting is generally not paid up front, and you are hoping the song will make the record, and then that the record will make any money worth reporting. It’s a grind. But every struggle makes you better at navigating the next one, so it’s all for the cause. And yeah, it’s mostly fun at this point. One of the benefits of being in the game for a minute is the ability to weed out the things you don’t want to do.

So, as you know, we’re impressed with Mystical Joyride – tell our readers more, for example what you’re most proud of and what sets you apart from others.
My small empire if you will, is freelance musicianship, This varies from Guitar session work, Music Production, Songwriting, my Artist Projects and live playing/touring. I’m most known for my guitar work. I have put the most hours into developing my playing style, and particularly my taste when it comes to music production. Since I’m also a producer and musical director, my guitar playing in the studio is all for the cause of supporting the song and creating the sonic palette for the music to work altogether. I’m not the flashiest guitar player for the most part, my intention comes from the sound of all the instruments working together, grooving and sound great.

I can still shred though, when called upon, it’s still a tool in the box 😉 I’m proud of my growing credit list of session guitar work and co-writes, including artists like Ceelo, Yuna, Black Panther Album (Bloody Waters), Niia, Kyle Dion, Alina Baraz, DNCE and more. Many of them come from working with my favorite producer Robin Hannibal, him and I have created some awesome works over the years. Recently I have done some dope work with famed produced Oak Felder and various artists with him. As a producer, I’m most proud of my artistic works. Most recently Mystical Joyride “CONDUCTO” is a full-length album I executive produced, co-wrote, mixed, played a bunch of instruments on and am super proud of.

So, what’s next? Any big plans?
Stay course! The most important thing in any business is to be consistent. As an artist it will take time (and hopefully some luck), as a songwriter, it will take alot of songs, as a guitarist there is always more to explore and learn. I am definitely interested in getting out across the world touring with Mystical Joyride though, we are working hard on creating an airtight set that will get the people moving with their hearts open.

Contact Info:

• Website: mysticaljoyride.com
• Email: tripjoel@gmail.com
• Instagram: instagram.com/mysticaljoyride
• Facebook: facebook.com/mysticaljoyride
• Twitter: twitter.com/mysticaljoyride

Image Credit:
Stephen Dietrich, Guy Waller

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