Ben Saunders The Voice worldwide . When the originally London soul singer heard that he would not be given a free choice of songs in his blind audition, he said without looking, "just do the song that is at the very top of the list". No one needs to explain how that turned out, because even 12 years later, that magical audition is still clearly in everyone's collective memory...
Wow! How wonderful that we will see and hear Ben Saunders at the John Frost Bridge on September 16. NATIONAL SONG FESTIVAL
Ben first appeared on TV in the late 1990s, together with his brother Dean. They were followed in the documentary Life Is Like A Box Of Chocolates, in which they participated in talent shows at the age of 15 and 17 under the name Daddy's Wish. Two years later, Ben and Dean participated in the RTL 4 program Alles Voor De Band: Follow That Dream, after which they were part of the pop group Follow That Dream and achieved 25th place in the Top 40. After this group fell apart, the two brothers appeared in 2003 under the name Brothers at the National Song Contest, where they achieved less success than hoped and finished in 7 out of 8. After a silence of 8 years, the first season of The Voice Of Holland was released in 2011, which became extremely popular from the first episode. This time Ben Saunders took part in the talent show on his own and completely blew the audience and the five-person jury away with his version of Use Somebody, an original by Kings of Leon. After several successes in the program, Ben sang the song I'm In Love With A Girl by Gavin DeGraw, with which he reached the 19th position in the Single Top 100. In the third live show, Saunders sang If You Don't Know Me Be Now, with which he even reached number 1 in the Single Top 100. This was the first time at number 1, but not the last; Ben sang the song When A Man Loves A Woman in the fifth live show and also achieved a number 1 single in the Single Top 100. Never before has a Dutch artist managed to score two number 1 hits in such a short time. Ben Saunders won the first season of The Voice Of Holland and achieved multiple successes in the following years with major performances, a role as himself in the film Zombibi (2012) and two albums; You Thought You Knew Me By Now (2011) and Heart & Soul (2012).
In 2014, Ben Saunders appeared in the sixth season of De Beste Zangers Van Nederland, but shortly afterwards he disappeared from the spotlight due to personal reasons. Ben needed time to find himself again and threw away his phone with all his contacts. Four years later, in 2018, Saunders appeared as Barabbas during The Passion and released a new single with Shary-An called The Kid.
Since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, Ben has had time and space to write new music. He did this with the help of Maik IJpelaar and Marlon Pichel and soon there was a pile of new demos. Saunders has since had a new permanent band, with which he has been recording and releasing new music since 2020. The first of these new singles is My Gipsy Girl, an ode to his partner Janita. This single was picked up by RTL Boulevard, where the first images of the video clip were shown, and by 100% NL, where it was first performed a day before the official release date. On the release date, there was a lot of interest in Saunders' new music: My Gipsy Girl ended up in several Spotify playlists, including New Music Friday and Eetclub! and was presented with live performances by Saunders and his new band at Giel Beelen on Radio 2, De 5 Uurshow on SBS6 and at Stephan's Pianobar on Qmusic with Stephan Bouwman. With this single, the whole of the Netherlands knew immediately: Ben Saunders is back and better than ever.
Christon Kloosterboer also noticed this, who was working on his new television program De Troubadours. Saunders was asked to participate in this project, after which he wrote and released his first Dutch-language single together with Kloosterboer, called Geen Brug Te Ver. This single is a tribute to the fallen, the veterans and the Battle of Arnhem in the Second World War. "Arnhem and Airborne are very important to me. Now I can finally give something back,” says Saunders. No Bridge Too Far also ended up in several Spotify playlists, including Je Moerstaal.
Ben Saunders has traded his wild hair for a stable family life full of positivity, but the drive to make music is back and he can't wait to show it to everyone. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to the stage; the original Voice of Holland!
