Ben Lee

Amid an Australian music landscape where bands held sway, Ben Lee, the four-time ARIA award-winning artist, drew early notice as one of the youngest singer/songwriters to register on the national scene. Before any solo work appeared, attention came his way in his teens through membership in the popular Sydney alt-rock outfit Noise Addict. After that group dissolved in the mid-'90s, Lee issued a succession of well-regarded solo albums that included the 2005 double-platinum seller Awake Is the New Sleep, 2009's Rebirth of Venus, 2015's Love Is the Great Rebellion, and 2022's I'm Fun!

In 1993 a homemade four-track demo taped in Lee's bedroom enabled Noise Addict to persuade Fellaheen Records executive Steve Pavlovic—who, as a promoter, had brought Nirvana to Australia—to attend their first show at a library book sale. A recording contract resulted, and Pavlovic's ties quickly secured high-profile support tours plus several famous admirers. Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore emerged as an early backer and issued the group's demo tape, repackaged as the EP DEF, on his Ecstatic Peace imprint; the Noise Addict members were then 14.

The band's debut single, "I Wish I Was Him," offered a satirical salute to the Lemonheads' Evan Dando that prompted Dando to cut his own version. The Beastie Boys' Mike Diamond likewise became a supporter, leading Noise Addict to release material on the Beastie Boys' Grand Royal label. The six-track acoustic Young and Jaded EP, again captured in Lee's bedroom, appeared through that partnership, though touring remained restricted by school obligations. Lee nevertheless pressed ahead by cutting his first solo album, Grandpaw Would, in Sydney and Chicago. At 16 he toured in support with an American backing band. A full-length Noise Addict album followed, after which the now-graduated members departed for an American tour. The group disbanded shortly afterward, prompting the 18-year-old Lee to return to solo work with the acoustic album Something to Remember Me By.

Lee soon confronted the uncommon circumstance of outselling his domestic market in both aggregate units and per capita in America. That pattern shifted with 1998's Breathing Tornadoes, conceived in his Los Angeles apartment and realized in the studio with predominantly synthesized textures. The single "Cigarettes Will Kill You" became a widespread Australian hit, bringing the perks of celebrity that included a relationship with actress Claire Danes.

Hey You. Yes You. arrived on the Modular label in 2002, uniting Lee's pop/rock craft with the beat-heavy production of Dan the Automator. Two years later Lee exited Modular, simultaneously establishing his own Australian imprint Ten Fingers while signing with New West in America; both outlets issued Awake Is the New Sleep in 2005. The album achieved double-platinum status in Australia, aided by the single "Catch My Disease." Lee moved swiftly into a three-year stretch of work on the follow-up, Ripe, which surfaced in September 2007 and marked the songwriter's 15-year anniversary in music with another set of buoyant pop songs. The 2009 release Rebirth of Venus delivered a sonic homage to the Roman goddess of love. Around the same period Lee married Donovan's daughter Ione Skye, and the couple welcomed a daughter in late 2009. His eighth solo album, Deeper Into Dream, appeared in October 2011 on the new Dangerbird label. The ninth studio effort, Ayahuasca: Welcome to the Work, a collaboration with Argentinian-Australian actress and musician Jessica Chapnik, followed in 2013. Two years later he returned via the pop-oriented Love Is the Great Rebellion, his first release for Warner Bros. Freedom, Love & The Recuperation of the Human Mind, his 11th studio album, surfaced in 2016.

Lee issued two projects in 2017: the family-oriented children's record Ben Lee Sings Songs About Islam for the Whole Family and Radnor & Lee, a duet album recorded with Josh Radnor of How I Met Your Mother. He partnered with Tom Robbins on a musical adaptation of the author's 2009 book B Is for Beer; that album emerged in 2018. In 2019 Lee interpreted a selection of '90s indie rock standards for the New West collection Quarter Century Classix. In 2021 he released "Born for This Bullshit," the lead single from his 14th solo studio album, I'm Fun! Issued in 2022, the album featured contributions from Zooey Deschanel, Christian Lee Hutson, Money Mark, Megan Washington, Georgia Maq, and Eric D Johnson.