Thirteen years on, Ben Lee's star rises

By Andrew Murfett of TheAge.com.au

ONE of the big stories set to emerge from tonight's ARIA awards in Sydney is the resurgence of Ben Lee.

Lee, once openly spurned within the Australian music industry, is suddenly playing the biggest shows of his 13-year career and, with his fifth record, Awake Is the New Asleep, notching up the best album sales too. "I feel like this is my second act," Lee said in St Kilda this week. "I've learnt that in pop music, you really never know what's going to happen."

Lee's revival follows a dark period for the 27-year-old. His long-time girlfriend, Hollywood actor Claire Danes, broke off their relationship and, after disappointing sales, Lee parted company with his record company.

"It's just all roles they want you to play," Lee says. "In the beginning I was meant to be the prodigy, then I was meant to be the arrogant indie-rocker, and then I was meant to be the heartbroken guy, now I'm the comeback. All these things are pigeonholes people want to put you into."

Resiliently, Lee set up his own record company and instead of writing a morbid album of break-up songs, wrote an album of catchy pop.

"I thought 'this record could mean a lot to a lot of people'," he says. "I don't think about sales and charts; to me it's more exciting to become a part of the pop culture fabric and I feel like this record has."

As well as selling more than 100,000 copies in Australia, the album has been released in the US, across Europe and in South Africa. In Spain, Catch My Disease was featured in advertisements for a transport company and became a hit. Lee even headlined a festival in Barcelona.

Remarkably, tonight's ceremony, at which Lee will perform and, along with Missy Higgins, is expected to win multiple awards, is his first ARIA award show. Lee picked up a suit this week from a store in Greville Street.

Read more at TheAge.com.au


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