BIOGRAPHY

And the winner of Australian Idol 2006 is… Damien Leith.

Music is in Damien Leith’s DNA. In fact, even if the charismatic Irishman wanted to escape music, it would not be possible.

Damien was raised by an extremely musical family and performed with his siblings throughout his teenage years. Even up until his triumph of this year’s hotly contested series of Australian Idol, Damien was working as a chemist in Sydney and was consistently surrounded by musical workmates. But for a lad who has passionately pursued his musical dreams, he wouldn’t have it any other way.

Damien had a very interesting childhood, following his engineer dad to exotic countries like Libya and Botswana. Despite the transient formative years, Damien vividly remembers his parents as ‘party animals’ with music always playing a major role in family life.

Ironically, considering his beautiful falsetto, Damien’s first garage band in Ireland was a death metal act, soon followed by a family band called Leaf. The band impressed a US label, which courted Leaf and took them to the US but Damien returned to Ireland, disillusioned. Reforming the band as Releaf, the new combo had success on the Irish charts and plenty of gigs but Damien headed for Australia and now lives with wife Eileen and baby son, Jarvis.

With diverse musical tastes, Damien is far from being the stereotypical Irish crooner, loving many genres, from Seattle grunge to old crooners to local Australian singer/songwriters such as Alex Lloyd and Pete Murray.

The amiable singer is an active character who loves the entire creation process of music, whether it be performing or writing - but for the time being it seems that Damien Leith’s attention will be focused on the biggest opportunity of his life – the release of his debut single, “Night of My Life” and the recording of his album with major record label, Sony BMG.

The single, “Night of My Life” was written by Adam Reily and is the first of the winner’s singles to be penned by a local songwriter. The song resonates with meaning which is essentially open to interpretation by the listener.

Damien’s amazing vocal lifts people up and captivates them into each performance he effortlessly delivers.

His highly anticipated album will be released in early 2007.

www.damienleith.com.au
www.myspace.com/damienleith