Ben Lee

After launching his music career as the teenage frontman of the Australian alt-rock band Noise Addict, Ben Lee transformed himself into a successful solo artist during the late '90s and early 2000s. He was born in Sydney, Australia, on September 11, 1978, and released his first single — the Noise Addict song "I Wish I Was Him" — in 1993. While continuing to perform with the band, he made his solo debut with the full-length album Grandpaw Would in 1995, then returned in 1997 with Something to Remember Me By. As Meanwhile, Noise Addict broke up, leaving Ben Lee free to pursue his solo artist as an indie-pop songwriter. 1998's Breathing Tornados became his first record to chart, reaching Number 13 in Australia and spawning the international hit single "Cigarettes Will Kill You." Several years later, the double-platinum Awake Is the New Sleep officially catapulted Lee into the Australia mainstream, with the album reaching Number 5 on the ARIA charts. Awake Is the New Sleep won four awards at the 2005 ARIA Music Awards, including "Single of the Year" for the Top 40 hit "Catch My Disease." Lee remained in the Top 40 with the 2007 hit "Love Me Like the World Is Ending," then moved in a more experimental, unconventional direction with albums like 2013's Ayahuasca: Welcome to the Work, which chronicled his experience with the psychoactive drug Ayahuasca. Although few of his releases during the 2010s approached the commercial peak of his earlier material, he cemented his reputation as a prolific songwriter and performer, then returned to the charts with his Top 30 hit "Parents Get High (feat. Washington)" in 2022.