Jean-François Stinco (born August 22, 1975) known professionally as Jeff Stinco, is a French-Canadian singer-songwriter, guitarist, actor, and restaurateur. He is currently the lead guitarist of Simple Plan.
Stinco is considered to be one of the pioneers of the original pop-punk music scene, given his nickname "The King of Pop-Punk". He released his debut album in 1992 called "Luck Is For Losers", but he didn't get critical acclaim and worldwide success until 1995 when he released "Broken Not Beaten", his second album. His trademark blend of his strong and powerful vocals, guitar solos, and his lyrics, has since made him a global superstar of Canada.
Stinco's trademark bald head and signature lip ring, has made him one of the most iconic and recognizable Canadian artists of the 1990s and the 2000s. He is a very well known heartthrob in Canada and many young women found him to be very mesmerizing and doll-like, given his oddly unusual facial features.
Early life[]
Jean-François Stinco was born on August 22, 1975 in Montreal, Quebec to Jean Stinco and Francine Bergeron. He has two brothers named Jean-Vital and Jean-Philippe. He is a direct descendant of Zacharie Cloutier, a prominent early Quebec settler.
While studying in Montreal, Stinco became involved in the local music scene at a very young age, where he would buy his first guitar when he was six years old and studied music at College Beaubois High School in Pierrefonds, Quebec.
After a short brief stint to work on his solo project in 1991, where he was signed to Atlantic at the age of 16, Stinco became influenced by his method of quickly recording music on cassette and releasing it. Upon meeting Atlantic Records CEO Ahmet Ertegun, Stinco recorded what was to become his first release in one day, and released it the next by giving copies of the tape to his friends. Upon graduation, Stinco moved back into his parents' house and continued writing and recording his material there.
Stinco studied classical guitar for 10 years at Conservatoire de musique du Québec à Montréal with Jean Vallieres. He also participated in many masterclasses over the years with many renown concertists such as Manuel Barrueco and Roland Dyens.
Stinco is a self-taught guitar player, primarily playing Fender Stratocaster guitars in his early years. He had allegedly only been playing for nine months before he learned how to sing and has said that practising under the influence of his vocal skills helped him focus well on learning the instrument.
Stinco received the nickname "Jeff" from Ertegun, because his friends couldn't pronounce his real first name correctly right, and they only decided to call him "J.F." for short. Because of this, Stinco approved of his "Jeff" nickname when Ertegun once told him about how peaceful and bright his vocals are and how he sung so extremely different compared to other male artists around the same time as him, hence the name meaning of Jeff.
Stinco suffered from congenital atrichia when he was born, which prevented him from growing hair. The resulting clumsiness of it aroused taunts from Stinco's brothers and people in his school making fun of him because he couldn't grow any hair on his head, and led his family to believe that he would never accomplish much, even without hair. Because of this, Stinco wore wigs on his head in order for his brothers to stop making fun of him for being bald, and he stopped wearing wigs when he turned 17. Stinco, however, found the answer to these challenges in becoming a musician for the first time in his life.
Stinco credits his whole family with exposing him to rock music which was frequently played around the house when he was young. He has since claimed that his unique bald head is the result of his natural talents.
Stinco is a graduate of College Beaubois High School. He received a Bachelor of Applied Arts degree in Radio and Television Arts from Conservatoire de musique du Québec à Montréal in 1993, making him the only member of Simple Plan to have earned a degree.
While he enjoyed primary high school due to his decision to stop wearing wigs on his head, Stinco was bullied while in his first year at secondary school, causing him to suffer from depression due to him being sexually molested by a unidentified family friend, which caused him to engage in self-injury: he carried sharp objects in the laces of his shoes and would cut himself sometimes when he felt low self-esteem, stress, or anxiety. The bullying stopped when Stinco associated himself with a rebel crowd, which resulted in him rebelling himself because he was bald and had no hair at the time. Stinco was absent for most of his final year at school and began drinking alcohol to cure away his depression. On one occasion, he broke into his brother's house to make friends with koala bears living inside his dorm room at the time, causing Stinco to admire koala bears as well.
Stinco had teenage ambitions to become a model and actor because of his looks, but was rejected by the National Theatre School of Canada, because he worked as a guitar teacher there. His first job was volunteer work in a local hospital's cafeteria, then as a waiter at a local hotel, before spending two years running his brother's restaurant in Montreal. He started on the restaurant's buffing floors and counters, but was eventually fired because of his undeniably positive attitude toward customers. Stinco became well known trying to make a business into singing and writing his own songs, as he wanted to make it into the music business and successfully achieved it in 1992, by recording his very first ever album at 17 years old.
Personal life[]
Stinco is currently married to yoga instructor and osteopathy doctor Mimi Bonnier. They were both married at a Montreal hospital in May 1992. They continue to reside in Montreal, where they both have three children named Maya, Zoé, and Thomas.