Australian singer-songwriter Ben Lee has been making mature pop and acoustic music for more than a decade, assembling a discography that belies his youth. Lee began his music career at 13 with the punk band Noise Addict, recording and distributing bedroom-recorded demos until getting picked up by the Ecstatic Peace label. The sextet experienced moderate success before disbanding in the mid-'90s.
The end of Noise Addict signaled the launch of Lee's solo career. His debut, Grandpaw Would, was recorded in both Sydney and Chicago, and featured songs that the 16-year-old had written himself. That hit record was followed by a string of increasingly popular and acclaimed albums. From 1999's synthesizer-driven Breathing Tornadoes to 2005's best-selling Awake Is the New Sleep, Lee has been experimenting and evolving with each new release.
His latest recording, The Rebirth of Venus, is dedicated to the ancient goddess of love and beauty. The entire album is sweet, rife with pop sensibilities and never dull. In this interview, Lee talks about the concepts behind his new record.
"They're a lot about trying to find the balance between the masculine and the feminine," he says of its songs.
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