Artist of the Week: Ruel

BIO

Name: Ruel Vincent van Dijk

D.O.B: 29 October 2002

P.O.B: Isleworth, London, United Kingdom

Origin: Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

Genres: Pop, R&B and Soul

Instruments: Vocals, guitar, piano

as long as you care - a single from his latest EP Bright Lights, Red Eyes

Sir Elton John was the ultimate plug when it came to this Australian talent. I first heard the single "Don't Tell Me" while listening to Elton John's segment on BBC Radio where he plays his latest top music picks. Since then I've become a loyal Ruel fan and am constantly surprised at the maturity of the music he has been writing at such a young age.

"it's astonishing that someone so young can write something so good!"- Elton John

Ruel had been surrounded by music from a young age as his parents vast LP collection could be heard playing around their family home. The collection ranged from soul to R&B to jazz to 70s funk. The love he has for the genres and artists such as Bill Withers, Stevie Wonder and Amy Winehouse has begun to be a strong influence in his music.

Amy Winehouse and Stevie Wonder are the influences that can be heard in his single "Face To Face"

Ruel's journey as an artist began at the age of 12 when his father sent a demo of him to Australian Grammy-award winning producer M-Phazes. After his performance on "Like a Version" an international bidding war began where Ruel flew out to LA and London meeting up with record labels.

The idea for his breakout single “Don’t Tell Me” started with a dinner conversation with his sisters. He was talking about a girl he liked at the time and his sisters said he was way too young to be worrying about love and didn't know what he was talking about. It angered him at the time cause he knew what he felt. He began with writing the chorus and some verses and explained that it was first time he saw something he created come to life.

While describing his creative process Ruel says that “songwriting is exaggerating." At his age he acknowledges that he hasn't had a lot of life experiences. When writing songs he takes a small experiences he's had and blows it up to something that has a universal message. This skill has definitely worked in his favor as his songs remain so universally relatable to so many people despite being written by a teenage boy. His most creative spaces for writing is in the shower and surprisingly on planes. His dad then coined the term "air-motional" due to Ruel's unique writing spot.

M-Phasez said that when working with Ruel they weren't punting his age but it was about the art , the music. Unlike his peers Justin Bieber, Austin Mahone and Cody Simpson he didn't have to go the bubblegum pop route before making the music that he truly wanted to make. For Ruel its been about the art first and foremost. I cannot wait to see what more the young talent has in store for us.

To hear more of his catchy tunes and soulful voice listen to Ruel's latest EP Bright Lights, Red Eyes. The EP is accompanied by a unique feature called Ruelvision. This is an online , on-demand and interactive site that offers "television" and special features based off of the new EP. It contains karaoke, to parodies of kids shows to cooking shows. These features, including the music videos for the album took a month of 10-12 hour filming days to complete.