Wouter Hamel

Foto: Peter de Jong

Hamel seems to stroll along the full array of musical styles and confidently picks out what suits him best. He flirts with jazz and pop without being bogged down by one particular style. At times he croons like Mel Tormé or Frank Sinatra. Hamel and Benny (Benny Sings) - who produced the album - have managed to seamlessly fuse the complete history of pop music into twelve catchy songs.

"As a teenager I listened to P.J. Harvey, Smashing Pumpkins and was a... Meer »

Foto: Peter de Jong

Hamel seems to stroll along the full array of musical styles and confidently picks out what suits him best. He flirts with jazz and pop without being bogged down by one particular style. At times he croons like Mel Tormé or Frank Sinatra. Hamel and Benny (Benny Sings) - who produced the album - have managed to seamlessly fuse the complete history of pop music into twelve catchy songs.

"As a teenager I listened to P.J. Harvey, Smashing Pumpkins and was a huge fan of Jeff Buckley. I played my guitar to their albums and wrote songs trying to copy their styles. When I started studying music everything changed."

Hamel fell for the legacy of vocalists such as Mel Tormé, Mark Murphy and Anita O'Day. Their mastery became his standard.

The obvious Great American Songbook material is not to be found on Hamel's album. "I adore standards but wanted to seize the opportunity to debut with my own compositions." Bart Suèr from Dox Records introduced Hamel to singer, songwriter and musician Benny Sings. Their combined styles - Benny's pop approach and Hamel's jazz background - are a perfect match. "We love sing-along songs, with a clear, catchy melody that may even sound familiar at times. It wasn't hard finding common ground when Benny heard my songs."

2007 is a very successful year for Wouter Hamel. The Dutch press is laudatory about his debut album and Wouter appears in several national TV and radio shows. The album HAMEL receives no less than 4 prestigious awards (a.o. Essent Award, De Eerste Prijs and a Silver Harp). An internet hype arises when Hamel invites several YouTube users to record their own version of Don't Ask. The music video that resulted form these endeavors was chosen as Editor's Pick by YouTube and given a prominent spot on the international front page of the website.

Japan also discovered Wouter Hamel; November '07 saw the release of his debut album on the Japanese label P-Vine Records. Wouter wrote some extra tracks especially for the Japanese release, which resulted in the release of a limited edition with three bonus tracks back in the Netherlands. Early 2008 Wouter went to Japan with his band to do a series of concerts in the Billboard Live clubs. On request of Billboard Wouter brought along Benny Sings (producer of "Hamel") as special guest.

In February 2008 Wouter receives a Gold Record, celebrating over 15.000 sold albums. Later that year, after a radio hit with As Long As We're In Love, two clubtours with many soldout shows, a support-show for the Dutch pop-legend Doe Maar in stadium De Kuip, a hectic summerfestival-schedule, new releases scheduled for Korea, Taiwan and Thailand, Wouter and Benny Sings decided to start working on the second 'Hamel'-album, titled 'Nobody's Tune'.

This album will be released in the Netherlands and Japan early 2009. After releasing the new album 'Nobody's Tune' Wouter Hamel and band will be touring throughout almost 40 cities for a theatre tour. The official cd release party will take place in pop-temple Paradiso in Amsterdam, February 21 and there's a showcase in the Tower Records building in Tokyo. « Minder