It's another great day to get better. Becoming undone is the podcast for those who dare bravely, risk-model and grow relentlessly. Join me, Toby Brooks, as I invite a new guest each week to examine how high achievers can transform from falling apart to falling into place. Taking our way in life can often times be a difficult thing to do. Some are mixed between our passion, our opportunities, our skill set, and our purpose is what author and speaker Ryan Lee characterizes as our sweet spot. Oh sure, maybe you inherited a massive business from your family and you're good at running it. So it hits on the opportunity and skill set part of the equation. But if it isn't something you're passionate about and it doesn't align with your purpose, it will always feel somewhat unfulfilling. The challenge for most of us is that when considering our futures and our jobs at least, it can be so difficult to adequately know whether or not something will provide that magical alignment where we love, where we have a chance to do, what we're good at, and the purpose we feel in our soul is ours to fulfill and can all align. Making things even harder still, some careers are particularly difficult to find your way into, the sports and the performing arts being chief among them. For Lovex Texas native Jonathan Frujet singing and performing wasn't necessarily the dream early on, but it was always there. Through time and practice it became clear that he had the passion and the skill to make it his work. But jobs in the performing arts aren't exactly plentiful in the dusty plains of West Texas. With time and trials and ever-present love for the power of music, he managed to make a career of it and found success, resulting in opportunities to perform on stages around the globe, then COVID-19 hit. Perhaps no industry was as decimated by the global lockdowns as the live entertainment business, and Jonathan found himself at a crossroads. With a beautifully unfamily to support and flickering professional dreams and uncertainty, he did what he needed to do for a season and put those dreams on hold. And while the future still remains unwritten for the talented and hilarious tenor from Texas, one thing is certain, he was born to inspire. Here Jonathan tell his story of overcoming fear and adversity, while entertaining audiences around the world in episode 17. Sing. Well, listeners, this week we've got a wonderful guest who really marks kind of a pivot for us. We've talked to a lot of athletes, we've talked to some entrepreneurs, we've talked to people from all different walks of life. But my good friend Jonathan Frujee is joining us today, who is our first artist on the show, and he won't be the last, but certainly the first. So Jonathan, welcome. Thanks, Joey, thanks for having me. So Jonathan, your background is distinguished, loan, currently the technical director and production manager for three red knick tenors, your background, BA and musical performance. Jonathan, you perform in Carnegie Hall, you perform Walt Disney concert hall over 20 years, leading roles, your career is very well established. My family just went and watched your show and they came away just absolutely blown away. They said, man, we knew Jonathan could sing, but now wow, it's, he's got world class. Well, I tried. Let's start at the beginning. From your earliest childhood memories, who and what did Jonathan want to be when he grew up? Well, to be quite frank, singer was never in the picture. I, I sang in church from very young. I did my first solo in church at the age of two. And when your dad is the music minister, it's a little bit expected of you. And I was involved in music all the way through junior high and high school. But until my, it ended my junior year of high school, my goal in life was to pursue a degree in engineering. I wanted to, I wanted to design roller coasters. That's one of my biggest and most, like that's one of my life's pursuits. I'm super passionate about it. But there's a thing called math class that you have to pass, become an engineer. And I couldn't manage to get through algebra two, much less the calculus and trigonometry that, that comes into, into play when you, when you have to, and the physics that you have to know to be able to do all that. And I sat down actually with our pastor, Adam Hardew. And Adam reminded me that not only was I capable of singing, but that every other door, every other pathway away from music had seemingly been shut. And so, yeah, from the very beginning, it was always a thing where I didn't want to do it, but God knew that music was going to happen. And, and I think even my family and my friends knew that music was going to happen. It was just waiting for me to catch up. So, they are you. Yeah, several times during interviews, we've kind of come across this theme about how our career pursuits really involve tension and tension involves a push and a pull. And so, did you, at the time, did you feel like you were pulled towards music or you were pushed toward it? I really felt, I really felt pulled toward music. I spent an entire three years of high school pushing away. I spent a lot of time trying to break away from that identity. And I know that I know a lot of times for artists, the tension actually comes when you have to decide things like whether you want to be a performer or an educator or whether you want to sing opera or music theater. For me, it was, be a singer, don't be a singer. And the biggest reason for that was, and no offense to my father, he's a great man, but I didn't want to be Alan Frujay Park II. So the tension for me was always, I was trying to back away and it was constantly pulling. Yeah. So you mentioned early on maybe a career as an engineer and that didn't really flesh out. At that age, did you view that as a failure or was, were you wise enough to recognize that this is just part of the learning process and I don't have to have it just right? No. And to be honest, so there are things that are hobbies for me. Roller coasters and I know that this is a crazy concept. Roller coasters are not a hobby for me. It's kind of like when you had the cars, it is such an integral part of who Jonathan Frujay is. A lot of people don't know that about me, but I literally have a roller coaster at minimized on my computer right now as I'm talking to you. So it is truthfully an addiction almost. Yeah. I totally understand what Jonathan is saying here. He knows me well enough to know that I've had my own issues with a passion and a pursuit that not everyone can understand. For me, it was what has and continues to be the biggest financial mistake and most public failure of my life. A wild 2005 Mustang project car that I completely mishandled and ultimately gave up on and sold after eight painful years of mistakes. For Jonathan, the passion was and continues to be roller coasters. No judgment here, Jonathan. But God can be a lot of things. In this case, he's a bit ironic. Jonathan had his sights set on the literal ups and downs of being an engineer that designed thrill rides. But what lay ahead was instead the figure of ups and downs of a career in the performing arts. And so when I realized that roller coaster that that part of designing roller coasters was not going to be something that I could pursue and something that I could do at Texas Tech because Texas Tech was one of those places that I knew from night frame that Tech was the it school. But realizing that my math scores versus what Tech needed for an engineering degree were just totally opposite. So it was a big, it was a big lie down. I spent probably a good portion of my senior year in this sort of limbo. And my dad would even, and my dad and Adam would even tell you that I auditioned at the very last audition for the school music. I went to the very last theory place, for example. I waited so long to do music because it was just like I felt not, I don't even know what the word is, not passionate about music yet. And I'll clarify that later, but yeah, it was a big let down. It was a big let down. Yeah, especially at that young age, it's really difficult to process how a failure in some ways. I mean, you could define that in many different ways, but lots of times for me at least, if I don't meet a standard, I view that as a failure and all failure to add. And the whole point of this entire movement and this message is to recognize that failure is part of the process. It's not something to run away from. It's something that we embrace. Like, I love the children's animated movie, Meet the Robinson's, where they celebrate when they fail, right? Yeah. And that's such a powerful shift. But as you're talking, I'm thinking how fitting it is for a guy who loves rollercoasters to embrace a career in the arts because such a roller coaster, you know, it's not a nine-toned study paycheck. Like it is, it is up to the end. No, no, no. And I also think to, there was, there was a period of time where an education, thank, thank goodness is on a, on a pace to change. But when I was coming through high school, teachers were not taught to use specific language for students. And they were basically allowed to iterate whatever they were feeling. And I can't tell you the number, the number of times that a math teacher or a science teacher looked me square in the face and basically said, you're dumb. And I don't mean that as a, they were right. They were absolutely right. But it is one of those things where I felt down about the coaster thing. And then really there was nobody building that, building me back up. And what it had happening is music was what built me back up. Right. So you audition late, you, you enter the program. I've certainly heard you sing now, all artists grow, but obviously you had a capacity for I mean, you've, you've sung your entire life and you've grown up in a musical family. What was that first year or two at Texas Tech like where you're pursuing music full time for the first time in your life? The first year was a nightmare. And for no other reason than the first year of college for me was spent breaking all of the habits that I had learned throughout high school. I was, I was a, a devil threat if you want to, if you want to say that. I did both band and choir. And the great Toby Brooks, Dr. Toby Brooks can relate to being the bander. I was total bander. I was also total choir. And so because of that conglomeration, I, I developed some really horrible habits for a, for a classically trained professional singer. And so I spent the first year at Tech really breaking down these little beaty pieces of my voice and then rebuilding them. And at the end of my first year at Tech, I had a very important decision to make. And that was, do I keep pushing on to my sophomore year? And at Tech at the time, your sophomore year was a barrier. So you had all of the performance majors had to pass your sophomore barrier to continue on as a, as a vocal major. And basically, even though you had a jury at this, in December, you had a, your sophomore year was this umbrella effect. And my sophomore year, I struggled through theory and I struggled through, I struggled through all of my core classes. But I had choir for this week. And then in my sophomore year, I actually added a fifth day a week in the magical stairs. And being in a community of singers, being in a, and you talk, we were talking about tension earlier. This is where I started feeling tension from two other sources that weren't me. In high school, I really feel like that I was the source of one end of the tension and the music with the source of the other. In college, it became voice teachers and my choir director. And they wanted me to do this thing. My choir director needed me to do this thing. And my sophomore year was the first year that my choir director came to me. He emailed me. He called me. He sat me down and he said, I need you in my center section. No, nobody had ever said, I need you for this. There is power here, my friends. I feel like so often, too often. We go about our days, doing our jobs as best we can. And while I can't speak for others, I know that there's a real vulnerability that I'm usually not willing to expose and telling someone that I need them. However, in this instance, and I'd venture to say in many similar circumstances for the rest of us, that was exactly what Jonathan needed. And to hear here, to be allowed is one thing. To be welcome is another. But to be seen and needed, that's an awesome thing for anyone feeling their way through the darkness, trying to discover their purpose. And the lesson here is simple. Don't be afraid to tell someone that you need them. You just might impact and inspire them and exactly the way they need in that moment. And so you talk about pole, that was the biggest pole ever. And my sophomore year, I decided that in there that I was going to do as many fires as I could, no matter what anybody told me. And I think that that was the biggest growth that I experienced at Tech was being in those coral ensembles. I grew as a vocalist, no matter what. But there was something about the power of community. And it's very, very similar to being a football player on a team, you grow as a team. And it's the same with choir. We grew as choir. And Carnegie Hall and Walt Disney Hall and the Myers Center and the Gonzalez Convinch Center is Antonio. And all these venues, I performed as part of the Texas Tech University choir. And listen, that's why it's the first thing on my resume. You know, when I'm listing my credits, it's like Tech's choir. And so the first two years of Tech was the first year I was just breaking down everything. And then my sophomore year was this gigantic, just forcible pole into that world of choir. And so this is probably the first time in your life where you're thinking like, this isn't just something I'm good at. This is my career. What did success look like to sophomore in college, Jonathan Fruze down the road? Well, the first thing was the sophomore year I started getting, I started being recognized for what I brought as a solo artist to the community of singers. So it's like getting named first string quarterback. It's that idea of I deserve to be in this ensemble. But now I'm lifted even higher. And so sophomore year was the first year that I started getting major solos, not just little inkling kind of solos, but we're talking full on. I had a Messiah solo in my sophomore year. I sang an entire role with a lot of chorale in a concert version of the HMS pinnifor. So as a sophomore, I did that over 20 other tenors that were also studying at the same time. And again, all of that was just a pull. I mean, whatever it was, it was this giant force that was just leading me right into the chorale world. And also in my sophomore year, I finally had a, and I won't call it a change of faith because that's not, that's not it at all. But I did leave Highland for six years between my sophomore year and the end of my graduates school year. And I went and joined Westfitz or Presbyterian. That time taught me my faith all over again. The Highland that Jonathan is referring to here is Highland Baptist Church in Lubbock, Texas, where we both now attend. Sometimes we need a change of scenery or to be surrounded by new personalities in order to grow. And that's what moving to a new church had done for Jonathan. With a new professional goal inside and a growing faith, he continued down his path. But it wouldn't be without its obstacles. And so that started in my sophomore year as well. I had a lot of, a lot of stuff. I saw it somewhere here. Yeah. Well, certainly that experience of performing in places like Carnegie Hall and being exposed to what a life in the arts could actually offer you. What were your wildest dreams at that point? Where did you allow yourself to take this to a logical conclusion? My goal was always just to be the best choir member I could be. And I know that that sounds like a church answer. But because of the constant fighting between the two departments, the choral department and the vocal department, I never, I was not allowed to dream outside this big box. And so I would get a solo choir and my voice teacher would say, hey, maybe you can go into singing or it's Oreo for living. Or maybe you can go into singing opera for a living. And it was, it was a constant like, well, maybe this, maybe this, maybe this. But in my wildest dreams, I just envisioned standing on whatever the, whatever the stage would be. Walt Disney Hall, for example. Under that incredible organ, singing to a thousand people as a Texas tech choir, that was dream come true for me. I mean, I felt so, I felt so much pride. We, you know, we were representing Texas tech on a national and a global stage. And we were, and I don't, if I do say so myself, we were incredible. I mean, it was, it was one of the best concerts I've ever been. That particular year was one of the best concerts I've ever ever. And so as far as dreaming, I didn't really do that until I think I was a senior. And I think a lot of that has you with the curriculum. I think when you're in scolamps, didn't that curriculum. And you know this is a professor. You have no, you have no time. You have no brain power outside of that. So I think I really started to let myself imagine what a future would look like once I finished my senior. Right. I remember, I believe it was shortly after COVID, we were talking. We hadn't known each other very long, but Brennan had just announced that she was, she was not going to pursue an English degree, which was the safe. The, the, you know, I think she would tell you she never really wanted English. It was just she didn't, she couldn't think in her mind how she could make music work. Yeah. And you said, you know, I've, I've always been able to pay the bill singing ever since, you know, up until COVID. Yeah. So you graduate at that point. What's it look like for you? Well, I graduated in, I graduated in 2009 in, in August. And the summer of my graduation, I was desperately trying to pick up the, the last little pieces of my core classes. So like I went to South Claims insert English classes and things like that. What ended up happening was is I got involved with Moonlight News. And for the first time in my, this is a policy that has since changed thank goodness. But while I was in school, if you got passed in a show, you had to have your voice teacher sign off on the role. If your voice teacher didn't want you to do the role, it didn't matter how good your audition was, you weren't doing the show. Wow. So I didn't do a show at tech until I had finished at my first show at tech was the same semester as my CD recital. And they actually were about two weeks apart. Give or take a few days. And so 2009 was a really important year for me because for the first time, I was auditioning for shows and not asking permission from anybody to do that. And what that did for me is it actually put the power over it put a little bit more power in my corner of a control over my own voice. I started exploring genres and roles that I would never have even thought of as an undergrad. And during that summer, Gerald Golds or Kandomey and said, hey, I know you just finished your undergrad. But you are developing so quickly as an actor and as a stage performer, I think that we can further develop this in your master's degree. And I thought, you know, I'd been like, okay, I might go for a master's degree, what the heck? It's only two more years. But when I decided firmly to go for it, I also decided that I did not want to go back to the same voice you know, not into that being a little bit of a mistake. For those perhaps unaware, the moonlight that Jonathan is referring to here is moonlight musicals. Originally founded in 2005, it's now a critical piece of the art scene here in Love It. A charming but expansive outdoor amphitheater today serves as the venue for several high quality musical theater productions each season under those beautiful star-filled skies of West Texas. The doctor dolder here who Jonathan is referring to is Dr. Gerald Dolder, faculty member in the Texas Tech School of Music and founder of moonlight musicals. While on the surface, Jonathan's decision to change studios from undergrad to his master's program seemed perfectly natural for a young vocalist, looking to maximize the impact of the coaches and teachers in his life. The political fallout of that decision was not something he'd considered. And unfair as it was, it would come back to haunt him later on. Right. That was one of the, when you emailed me about becoming undone, that was the first, this is leading to the first really undone moment of my entire musical career. So in this particular season, like you said, you hadn't, I mean, you had encountered some resistance, but it pretty much been all uphill. It was. It was very much all, it was, especially toward the end of the undergrad, it was smooth sailing as far as, as far as singing was concerned. Before we headed off in that direction, I think it's really important to kind of zero in. Like you had some people in positions of authority in high school who really spoke down to you and that even today, I mean, I can hear the voices of doubters. But then you also had people speaking into you and, you know, your choir director, Dr. Dolder, tell me about the importance of those moments. Where someone you respected took the time, even if it was just a moment to tell you, Jonathan, you belong. We want you here. We need you. You are important to what we're doing. They are what continues to carry me through my career at this moment. I, and you mentioned it perfectly about the way that Brinne and Phil going into school with, I don't know how I'm going to make music work. I didn't know how to make music work. I just knew that music was the only option I had. But I had some very important people. My assistant band director in high school was this really short, really short woman named Kalice McElvin. And Kalice is now a superintendent in Dallas. But her mantra for me was, if you don't, you won't, she ended up pushing, she pushed me to audition for Elaine Mizorah at Cornell High School. And I ended up being the first person, first high schooler to sing that role, Jean-Basant, off Broadway, the first high schooler to do. That being said, I attributed all of that to Kalice. After the show, I remember something very important happened. She pulled me aside one day and we were talking about it. I was thanking her. I was saying, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. And she said, why are you thanking me? And I said, because you pushed me to audition. And she said, but you were the one who did the performances. You learned the role. You've sang the role. You have to the role. And that single bit of the reminder of be thankful, but don't forget that you put in the work. I think that was one of the reasons that the compliments, the comments, I need you, I want you. Those were so important in college because they were followed by examples of them saying, you've done so much work to get to this point. You are doing such great work. You lead the tenor section. You memorize your music faster than anybody else. You are always on time for rehearsal. You never are sick. You're always at the top. There were these, even with the negative voices, there were those positive reinforcements, but it was positive reinforcements of things that I was doing, but that people remind you of. And I don't know if it makes sense in this context, but there's one of the things that I feel like God does in the biblical sense. God reminds us of the things we do well, and yes, he revokes us for the things we don't do well. But in Paul's letters and the New Testament, they are always, let me tell you what you're doing well. Let me remind you of the fact you're doing something right. And those moments with my teachers were invaluable. And Jerry, Gerald Vulture, to this day, I have things that he told me and that he reminded me of in my graduate degree that I utilize in every performance I give. And so to say that they're important is almost an understanding. It has solidified my career. Yeah. I love that if you don't, you won't. Another thing comes to mind, sometimes I refer to it as the four inch gap between your brain and your mouth. We can think of thought of encouragement, but if it doesn't make its way to our lips, we've really robbed that person of the benefit of knowing how much they mean to us, how much we appreciate what they do, how much we believe in them. And that's such a tragedy to me that I actually conjured the thought. I only want to know about it. Yeah. If I don't tell you how much I appreciate you, it only lives in my consciousness. And that could be that could be the difference between someone viewing them, not just viewing the situation as for you, but viewing themselves as failure. Right. Versus, wow, maybe I'm on to something here. Maybe I do have a future here. And that voice is just enough to keep me going in that tough day. Yeah. I am a goose bumpy emotional wreck as we're talking here. Some of the things you're saying just chill down my spine to think about how important those words of encouragement are, especially appropriately timed. Yeah. Going back to our roller coaster analogy, like you're climbing, climbing, climbing, and you're getting ready for the first big drop, right? From the sounds of it, maybe some political fallout or other things you didn't envision from essentially picking a different coach. Yeah. So I decided to go with Jerry for my master's degree. And the School of Music has always been a political mess, but at the time there was a very big rift between Jerry and pretty much all the other voice faculty. And I picked Jerry and started my master's degree. And Toby, it was wonderful. I was finally in that place where music was the only thing I was doing. You know, that's the best thing about a master's degree is that you don't have the math, science, the English, all that crud clogging up what you want to be doing. And so I was soaring through my music classes. I was acing on my projects, I was doing great work with Mr. Jolter. I had a wonderful experience going through my first year. I was in shows and things were going great. Second year, in your master's degree, you do not present most board titles. You have one recital and it is your master's thesis recital. And so I, you and I will get to know each other more as the years come in, but I am a very dramatic person. And so I came up with an idea that I was going to have Halloween in Paris. So I scheduled my master's title on Halloween night. The whole thing was in French. It was top to bottom of the, I have Mr. Jolter and I picked one of and still to this day, it is one of the hardest recitals any master's student has ever presented. I will tell you one of the reasons why it had nine, nine opera areas on it. You do not sing nine areas in an opera by itself, much less, you know, much less all of the other art songs I have put in there. And I worked my tail off for that recital. And I hired the best pianist and I did all the things. And one thing that they do at a tech is at your master's degree recital, every voice faculty member had to be there. Well, there was a wind storm because love and then two of the voice faculty were affected by the wind and then two of the other voice faculty did not show up. So I had Mr. Jolter and one other teacher and they failed me on my master's degree recital. I had spent that was the culmination of a of 18 months of solid practice and preparation and learning and memorizing and nuance and all this stuff. And in the master's title program, you do not get a great you get either a passer fail, there is no a BCD, whatever. And Monday morning after my recital, my recital was on Saturday night. So the very next day, Mr. Jolter sat down with me at my last sentence and he had me sit down at the chair and of course, you know, this is the drop. I mean, the we've already fallen off the top of the roller coaster. And for me, I didn't know at the time, but I have a mental disorder and I was spiraling way out of control. And so the last thing that needed to happen was Mr. Jolter to sit down with me in that moment because he's not a therapist and should never be a therapist. But he sat me down and said, I want you to know you have nothing wrong. And I was like, what how do you say that? But then he said, they failed you because of me. Well, that just sent sparks of light. And he said, I want you to know we're going to fix this. We're going to give it another recital next fall. So he said, we're going to add another semester to your master's degree. And he said, we're going to completely scratch your oversight on it and we're going to do exactly what they want you to do. And he literally sent an email to every voice faculty and said, what would you like to hear Jonathan sing? And they sent a list. And I got 14 songs, 14 brand new songs that I had six months less to learn and perfect. And off we went. And I spent the better part of three weeks in this terribly, I mean terribly depressed place. It was the first real detractor from the career. And the last time I felt that was when COVID hit. That was the next time I felt that badly about my singing career. And for me, and most of it is because I think mental disorder speaking here, when I failed, when I failed at that recital, I failed at singing. I failed at music. I failed at life. I failed my parents. I failed my, soon to be wife, Susie. I failed. You know, it was just the entire umbrella just ruptured and it was every bit of negativity coming through for that. What did you say yourself to keep going? I didn't. I did not. My mom and my sister and Susie actually forced me into a doctor's office and forced me to get to talk to a doctor and then they forced me to talk to them and I said, I'm ready to hang it up. And they're like, why? I said, because there's no point. There's no, I failed the master's title. That's it. That means that I'm not good enough. And they said, you failed the master's title because somebody had to stick up there, you know what? It wasn't your fault. And again, with the reminders of the things that I did write it, I had friends at school when I went back, I took about three days off from school and when I went back on Thursday, they were flabbergasted that I failed the recital. They were like, you should have passed the recital on the virtue of what you brought into the recital alone, much less singing it proficiently just to make it through the recital. And so I didn't do any of that. My wife, my mom, my sister, my friends at school, my other teachers, they all, they all really surrounded me and carried me through that extremely dark time for me or the really the first one. Right. Yeah. And for me, that's the scariest thing is when you're going through this for the first time, you don't, you can't see the finish line. You don't know when this season, when this cloud is going to drop and when you'll see the sunshine again, or if it ever will. Yeah. And it's so lonely and so hard to communicate in that time. Only through retrospection, are we able to really realize that the work that does to us on us for us? Well, and, you know, there's some, there are some musicians that when they're in their master's degree or even in the, in the end of their bachelor's degree, they have this goal. And they're like, I'm going to Broadway or I'm going to the Chicago, Lyric Opera or whatever the case may be. I didn't have any of that. I, all I wanted to do, all I wanted to do was perform. I didn't care how, I didn't care why I didn't care where it was just to be a performer. And when I failed the recital, they told me, you're not a good performer. That was what I heard. And so, to have those people that really came alongside and just scoot me up, there was some harsh words. My dad was one of the biggest proponents of stop feeling sorry for yourself because my dad went through the exact same thing. He failed his final examinations at seminary because his teacher got jealous of him. And so we, you know, we had that common ground and my mom, who actually, yesterday was the two year anniversary of her death. My mom was such a huge proponent. She was like, baby, you have to finish this degree. You cannot quit. You have started it. You have to finish it. And I remember that there were the times that I would go just sit in her living room because I didn't live with them and just sit there and mom would throw my hair or pat my back or whatever. And it was that continuous encouragement from her that really carried me through that season. So where do you go after that experience as an artist? Well, I, you know, everybody picked me up by my bootstraps. I didn't do, I really, I really will say, I didn't do any of this myself. They got me back up on my feet and I went back to work. And it was, it was that there was a moment where I was very selling and really miserable doing the work and also had it turned back into joy. And then it turned into, and I hate, I hate using this, but there is a, I think there is an element of vengeance. I, I wanted that, I wanted the right to walk out of the room that I was going to do that recital and and say, now don't you feel really, really bad or don't you feel maybe a little wrong, you know? And so I pushed, I pushed, I pushed, I pushed, I pushed, I pushed, I pushed, I pushed, Jerry scheduled my recital and my oral examinations to back back. They were, they were a week apart. And we scheduled my recital. He was so angry that he promised me that there was, this recital was going to be the end of all of faculty recital. And so he invited nobody but the faculty. He hired, he paid for my accompanist, he got the best graduate accompanist he could. And I walked in that room and I sang my heart out. And when I left the room, he stood up and said, I want you to know that you made him pay for four more months of grad school. I want you to know that he has not, he has not, cursed you, he has not, he has not said a negative word about you. But I want, also, I also want you to know that I will never forgive the five of you for doing this to him. And then he walked out. And of course, not only did I pass it, but they gave me the highest, the highest credentials that, that I could have gotten. Friends, this is the kind of educator and mentor that I aspire to be. Someone who not only speaks life into those that I serve, but who also vehemently defends and champions those people in the face of adversity. Jonathan's teacher and mentor didn't shield him from the pain or the consequences of failure and rejection, but he walked with him through those months of uncertainty. And that new work on the path to redemption. You can hear it in Jonathan's voice. It was a lesson he'd never forget. Now it's kind of like the first real kind of climb up the first hill. So I'm back on the mountaintop. Blue light musicals is going great. I go the next week into my Orals, pass those with really flying colors. And I don't know how to be honest. And I propose a Suzy the very next day. And we got engaged. And so yay, things are great. And things got even better. Adam returned to Highland in March of the next year. My things were just really, really good. And then I got the audition with the Rannock Titters. And again, things kind of coasted for a long time, for a really long time. I graduated my Master's degree in December of 11 in COVID-19 in March of 2020. And yeah, everything was kind of coasted alone, pretty okay. So tell me about the Titters. So you've performed in Branson. You've performed all over. I've performed in, I've performed in 12 or 13 different countries. I've performed in every state except for South Dakota. I've done shows for, we were on the tonight show with Jimmy Fallon. At the beginning of 2020, we've done TV appearances. We've done news appearances. We've done all this stuff. Yeah, it's been a crazy experience. And I'm actually, we talked about it before the podcast. I am speaking to you from Georgia, where I'm doing a show tonight. So COVID hits. And every artist, every athlete, I mean, this definition of essential personnel kind of hits those industries harder than most. It says essential as the arts are in the midst of a pandemic. Theaters are closed. That's anything just down. And along with that, pay check stop. And so talk to me about that season, 2020. 2020 was the hardest year. 2020 as a whole was, I won't say it's the worst. You're my life because there's no, there's no room for best or worst. It's just, it was the hardest year that I've ever experienced. We got furloughed for COVID in March of 2020. When we got furloughed, Susie and I have just resigned our lease in our apartment in Prosper, Texas. We had another baby on the way. We had a four year old, or a three year old that was turning for at home, or just turned for at home. My wife got furloughed from her job, I got furloughed from mine. And because of our tax bracket, because of the pay that I had received for three rennet centers, we were not eligible for the first round of health assistance. So both of us went to work for a program there in Prosper. And we, for eight weeks, when she was at work, I was at home with the girls, and when I was at work, she was home with the girl with Charlotte. And we just, we switched. She and I rarely saw each other because she would come home at like 11 o'clock at night, and I would go in at five in the morning. So we didn't have time for each other. And I called it the boiler room of seasons because the pressure just built and built and built and built. And at the time, again, didn't know what my mental disorder was. But I was taking a prescription that was, I was taking medicine prescribed to me by a doctor in their endalis. And when COVID shut down, his office shut down. And I couldn't reach him to get a prescription filled. And so all of a sudden, about seven weeks after everything shut down, I no longer had medicine. And I did pretty okay. I kept working. I kept doing what I was supposed to do. I kept doing what they needed me to do. And the guys had gotten, and this is not anything to get to them, but they got, they were able to get the payroll protection loan. And but because I was contract labor for them, I was not eligible to receive any of that money. So they helped me where they could, but it just was available. And June 27th, I got off work and had, I had had a hard day, went and picked Charlotte up a daycare, and as three year old four year olds do, she pushed a button that needed to be pushed. And I totally flipped out. And I ended up being taken to an urgent care, and then ended up being admitted to the hospital. And I was in the hospital for a week that happened to be the week before Shirley was born. So I got out of the hospital on Sunday. She was born on Monday. And yeah, it just, there was, there was this feeling of being really low and then these little pops of highs. And then my grandfather died in October, and then was followed by my mom in December. And so 2020 just took this incredibly steep nose dive. And all the while, I wasn't performing. I think in 2020, between March and December, I think we did four shows total. And I was used to doing between 40 and 60 total. And yeah, it tanked. I mean, it just absolutely tanked. And like I said before, the feeling that I felt when I felt my Rosadil was the exact feeling that I started getting in 2020. My whole identity, my whole existence, in my opinion, was tied up and singing. And now not only was I not singing for the three-row neck terrace, I wasn't singing anywhere. And it was just like, what was it all for? I, you know, I have $100,000 tied up at Texas Tech University. What did it, what did it all mean? And so that was a 2020 was a very COVID, was a very dark time. And it was for everybody. But. Well, certainly stress is cumulative. So you've got financial stress, heaped on, family stress, heaped on. I mean, it's all piled on. Yeah. But then what really resonates with me is you're a world-class performer. You're passports full of stamps as an artist. And now you're working at Kroger? Yeah. The humility. And just the, I mean, you're doing what you have to do because you're a provider and you recognize your role as the head of this household. I'm going to do whatever has to be done. But talk me through mentally what it meant to go from a stage performing a thousand to stocking shelves or whatever it was you did specifically at a grocery store. Yeah. It was one of the, it was one of the most humbling experiences I've ever had because I kept, you know, when COVID hit, everybody was trying to get, or people that needed to hourly work were trying to get jobs. But they didn't have, they didn't know what the pandemic was going to do. And so the hourly jobs were only paying, you know, ten dollars an hour. And that reality of seeing a paycheck and going, it's the mentality of, so I'm only worth ten dollars an hour. That's where I got stuck. And I really did. There's, I think there is tension. And there's always been tension in my career. But there was, this was the one part of my career where nothing and nobody could lift up. And I was stuck. And nobody could, there was nothing anyone could do. It was a very big, 2020 was also the first time I had a real press faith because I, I got to a point where I was going, okay, so you let me down this road, you put me in these places, you let me sing, you let me represent you on a global stage, being the only Christian in the show that I perform it, doing all this stuff, representing high level of experience and the people of my parents, everything, you let me do all of that just to take it away. And it really, Adam preached on Joe, one of the Sundays that we had moved right after we moved back. And I was, you know, shaking my head going, okay, I guess it even happened even to the best of us. And so I will say that because of my job at Crobert, I got better at my job with the three-row net dinners. Because of the constant, I mean, the eight hour days of, and I worked in the online ordering department. So because of the constant days of chasing down lists of items for people, I became a better list maker for the three-row net dinners. I learned how to navigate through some of the more complicated computer systems and things like that that I would not have done, have I not worked at Crobert. And so there were, that was the sunshine. And I ended up, when we moved back to Lubbock, I ended up going back to United as well in the bakery. And now I am the assistant bakery manager. So I'm not only touring with the three-row net dinners and that's great. But I also have a job at home. I have people that need me at home and people that tell me like we've talked about all morning is I have people that tell me we need you. And that's important. And that's important. Right, absolutely. How would you say these experiences have shaped you? None of us would probably say that the way my story is unfolded is exactly how it would have scripted it. Lots of times stuff happens that we never would have wished. But it did. And it changed us. And it changes us. How would you say you're different as a result of what you've been through? And how do you think your journey shaped you the most? The biggest change in my life is my consciousness of the hand of God in it. I think so much the time and unfortunately we have to lose everything before we start to recognize that. And I don't think that I'm not going to say that I didn't cause the pandemic. But way back when God knew that I was going to need the pandemic to turn our family back to him. We had stopped going to church because we just didn't want any endalus and all of that stuff. And because of the pandemic we ended up back in love. We ended up back at Highland. We ended up with our girls learning from Miss Christi because she's awesome. We ended up meeting new folks like you and Christy and Aaron and Bo and all of these folks that have suddenly become family. And I know I didn't cause the pandemic but I also know that God knew the pandemic was going to change my life. For the better. And it's taken two years but I see that it indeed was for the better. What advice would you give maybe that Jonathan that figured out? Engineering is not for me. I'm going to do this music thing. You get to sit down, sit in a comfy chair in the lavishly appointed music building in Texas Tech. That's our chasm for those who don't know it. What advice would you give him? The mold dome. The biggest advice that I have for anyone going into, anyone going into any career, you have gut feelings for a reason. And if you're a believer like I am, those gut feelings come from the father. And that gut feeling of your supposed to pursue music is why I'm sitting here. I don't know where I would be if I hadn't pursued music. I certainly wouldn't be married to Suzy. I may have gone off to school some ungodly place. I wouldn't be a Texas Tech Red Rader. I wouldn't be. I would not have met any of the people that have molded and shaped and made me who I am. But the most important thing is stick to your guns once you make that gut decision. Paul says that you cannot be lukewarm. You have to have to be hot or cold. It's the same with the career. It's the same with the degree in school. It's different for, I love how people are going to be like, but Brennan switched schools. You have a student switch majors. Brennan made a decision to make her career that much better. I, Brennan is one of my role models right now. Don't tell her that. I didn't tell her, Jonathan. You did. But it's so important that you stick to your guns. Don't give up. Don't let the naysayers and the things. And I know that we hear that in music lyrics and all over the place. But there's an intrinsic quality to you. You will not get better if you don't commit. You won't finish. You won't complete your degree. You won't complete your career. You won't do it. If you don't commit to it. And sometimes it is just the biggest giant leap of faith and you go for it. You have to go for it. And I'm doing that even right now. I took the job at United because I had to go for it. But I'm also out here because I need to perform. And so it's been a while right. Last question. Let's get of everyone. What for Jonathan and for Jay remains undone? Jonathan and for Jay, there's a couple of things that I want to do. The first thing is I want to see both of my daughters that are college. That's very important. My sister and I are two out of 12. And for a very long time, the only two that were even in college, much less finished college. And so I really want to raise my girls with a yearning for that next level of education. Then taking a step back from college, I want both my girls to become followers of Christ. And that's my next undone. Neither one of my girls has made their profession of faith. Charlotte is six and she's asking questions. And I want to be the person that tells her. I love Adam. I love Christy. I love Aaron. I don't want any of them to tell her. I want to tell her. I want to share that important part of my life with her. And I want we had a baptism at church, Sunday of a young girl. And it was one of those precious moments I've ever seen in my life. It was absolutely incredible. And I want that. I want that for my kids. So those are my undone. All right. Well, I said last. This is kind of the last half question. How could listeners connect with you and say, want to view your work and get involved with what you're doing? Yeah. I'm on Facebook. I have both a personal page and a performer page. Johnson Fruget. The performer pages Johnson Fruget, comment, tenor. And then you can check our show out on three rednecktenors.com. And we've also got a Facebook page. And yeah, we keep we keep pretty active there. So check us out. The shows are right mobile homeschooled. The whole. Yeah, absolutely a fun time if you get a chance. Well, Jonathan can't thank you enough. Really appreciate your willingness to be on the show. Just love having you and our family's life. You and your family are so precious. And you know, you're welcome anytime, really. Thanks, Toby. See you soon. You as well. In the weeks that followed this interview, Jonathan made the difficult decision to step away from his music career. At least for the time being. And he's left his role with the three rednecktenors. In a Facebook post in early January, he announced his decision. After nearly 10 years, thousands of performances and miles and miles traveled by Bittadou to Billy Bob and close my chapter with the three rednecktenors. My final performance was on December 23, in Gillette, Wyoming. Such a decision is hard. And when you've spent your whole career in pursuit of a dream, such a move can feel like, well, failure. There was a time in my life where I thought that unless my business card had a division one school or an NFL team's logo on it, that I was a failure. But to call a family and fatherhood finally worn out over my ambitions. I was on the road working a football game when my daughter took her first steps and the moment was painful. I couldn't help but wonder how many firsts was I going to miss if I kept doing what I was doing. I couldn't be the husband or the dad that I wanted to be. But I made a decision on a change my path. I don't know what the future holds for Jonathan Frujay with the former. He might not yet either. But I do know this. All the world can be a cold, dark and lonely place. It's better when Jonathan Frujay's voice and his wit and his smile are there to inspire us. Keep singing my friend. Becoming Undone is a natural, high creative production written and produced by me, Toby Brooks. If you or someone you know has a story of resilience and victory to share for becoming Undone, contact me at undonepodcast.com. Follow the show on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn at Becoming UndonePod and follow me at the TobyJ Brooks. Listen, subscribe and leave us a review at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher or wherever you get your podcasts. Until next time, my friends, be good and better.