Cascada Biography

Cascada was born Natalie Horler in Bonn, Germany on September 23, 1981, and is of English descent. As she explains it, "As my parents had moved from England to Germany a year earlier, I grew up here with them and my two sisters. My mother Christine is a foreign language teacher and my father David is a jazz musician with the WDR Big Band in Cologne. It is, of course, from him that I inherited my passion for music. He taught himself everything he knows from a young age, and has made such an enormous success of himself that I can only hope to achieve what he has today."


"When I was very young I would often do recordings in my father's studio at home, a lot of the time Jazz and Disney songs. I could never really say when I started singing. I just enjoyed it so much and I knew at a very, very early age that I wanted to be a singer. Also, I've always taken different kinds of dancing lessons, like step dance, jazz dance, hip-hop and street dance, and have acted in a few amateur plays as a teenager. As my father often directed the music of these plays, I also helped him with the vocal recordings and rehearsals. Next to dance music, I also love soul music and due to my father, I love jazz as well." When asked who she admires, Natalie answers, "I admire just about anyone who has a set of vocals to die for! Really, it doesnt matter who it is; if it's Alicia Keys, Mariah Carey, Lauryn Hill, Boyz II Men or just someone I happen to hear singing gospel music in church-- I'll listen and love it!"

On how Cascada came to be, Natalie explains... "At eighteen I started doing studio work. Here and there I'd record some tracks for different DJ's and that's how I ended up meeting Manuel Reuter (Manian) and Yann (Yanou). We did a couple of songs together and they soon became quite successful."

Four million album sales later, dance royalty Cascada return with the biggest record of their career.

Released via All Around The World Records, Evacuate The Dancefloor marks a fresh start for one of the world's most successful dance acts, and looks likely to dominate the airwaves this summer.

Building on the Europop sound Cascada pioneered, the single is a playful, sexy pop stomper that brings R&B, slinky soul and rap to the group's table for the first time. The track is still a euphoric, arms-in-the-air dancefloor anthem, but this time, its moves are more sophisticated, its sonic tricks cleverer and vocalist Natalie Horler's vocals both more personal and powerful than ever.

"We have definitely developed the Cascada sound," says Natalie. "With Evacuate The Dancefloor, we've taken all we learnt over the last few years and moved on. It's refreshing and fun. I love R&B and I've always had a soulful voice, but I didn't have much opportunity to show that off. This song is more of a challenge for me to sing. I can't wait to take it to the clubs. People's jaws are going to hit the floor when they hear it."

Bonn-based Brit Natalie grew up in Germany, but speaks with an accent that betrays the fact that her family are from Southampton. The daughter of David Horler, an acclaimed jazz musician and arranger who worked with the likes of Quincy Jones, Stan Getz and Tony Bennett until he retired recently, Natalie grew up around music, though was more influenced by Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston than her dad's trombone playing.

In 2004 Natalie met Cologne-based producers Manian and Yanou. The pair invited Natalie to front their new project, Cascada. Within 18 months, together they found international fame with their huge, debut hit Everytime We Touch. A smash in the States before the band had even toured there, the song quickly caught on across the globe, followed by a multi-platinum 500,000 selling album that spawned eight singles, including the massive Miracle and a dance cover of Savage Garden's Truly, Madly, Deeply. Second album Perfect Day (500,000 copies sold), led by hit single What Hurts The Most, continued Cascada's reign as one of the world's Top 10 selling dance acts.

Last summer, Manian (the man behind the production) and Yanou (responsible for melodies and most of the lyrics) began work on Cascada's third album in their Cologne studio. "It was lovely to be able to take our time," says Natalie. "You can hear from the album we made how much more we put in to the songs. Some of them are pure pop, not overly dance. Others have house beats or guitars. "The people who have the first two albums will still love the new one but I think we have really progressed and the new tracks are just amazing!"

For Evacuate The Dancefloor, Cascada called on 22 year old rapper Rudi, whose Eminem-like rhymes follow a vocoder verse, change the track's tempo and take Cascada in to brand new territory.

"Rudi was amazing," recalls Natalie. "You'd think he had been rapping for ten years, but he's only just started. Everyone who has heard the song has commented on him. In the clubs, when his rap comes in, kids are going to go crazy."
The stunning video for Evacuate The Dancefloor is a big-budget production, shot in Hollywood's historic Avalon club, where Jerry Lee Lewis used to record his weekly TV show and which featured in Michael Jackson's Thriller video. Directed by Max Nichols (who also directed the Everytime We Touch video) and choreographed by Dan Karaty (who has worked with everyone from Britney Spears to Kylie Minogue and is now best known as a judge on America's top-rated TV show, So You Think You Can Dance), the gothic-themed video boasts a 60-strong cast of extras and a troupe of acrobatic dancers.