Damien Leith Biography
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.
His first single, "Night of My Life" off his debut album 'The Winners Journey' was released in December 2006.
Leith's second single "22 Steps" was released to Australian radio on June 22, 2007. The studio album Where We Land followed and was released on August 18, 2007.
Now Damien has selected songs from his favourite singer-songwriters of the 60s and 70s and re-interpreted them with his amazing vocal style to feature on his upcoming album, 'Catch The Wind: Songs of a Generation', which was released on April 26th, 2008. 'Catch The Wind' sees Damien returning to the roots of his love for music, playing songs that his father played to him and inspired him to become a musician.
Songs such as 'Only Love Can Break Your Heart' by Neil Young and 'Wild World' by Cat Stevens have inspired Damien from a young age and captured the spirit of the times. The messages in these songs still resonates with Damien to this day and now he will be able to share much of his musical inspiration and memories with his fans with the release of his new album.
"The great songwriters of the 60s and 70s have always been a major influence on my own original material. In many ways the songs of that generation are as relevant today as they were back then. I've chosen songs that either mean a great deal to me on a personal level or those that I'd just love people to hear." - Damien Leith
