Hard Sometimes
Ruel
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Browse piano sheets by Ruel on Zen Virtual Piano. More than half a million views came within 48 hours for a video of a performance, and Flagrant began fielding calls from American record companies. American labels entered a bidding war for him, and RCA Records came out on top. Two EPs followed in quick succession, Ready in 2018 and Free Time in 2019; across them Ruel moved back and forth between the indie-electronic-blues sound he began with and more sombre piano ballads. A video that drew calls from American labels within two days shows how quickly attention can turn into a deal. London is where Ruel was born, to a father who was an advertising executive and a mother in the film industry; the family moved to Sydney when he was three or four and made their home on the northern beaches. His earliest musical memory is banging on his father's electronic drum kit, and he first performed live in recitals at the Crows Nest instrument shop where he had singing and guitar lessons. A drum kit at home and lessons at a music shop suggest a start that was local and ordinary before the attention arrived. Among the songs on Free Time is Hard Sometimes, a gospel-tinged piano ballad that includes the line that he tries to be happy but it's hard sometimes. He explains the lyric by saying he had his first experience touring overseas and really missing home, and was alone with his thoughts in a hotel room after being the centre of attention onstage. A song about loneliness after applause reads as a frank pairing of success and homesickness. By 16 he had a platinum record, had been called an astonishing talent by Elton John, and had won an ARIA award for breakthrough artist, the youngest person to do so. He says that 90 percent of his writing career has started from chord progressions, with him messing around on keys or piano in a session. A habit of starting from chords at a piano suggests that his songs begin with sound more than with words, a quiet contrast with the fast attention that his video drew.
Browse piano sheets by Ruel on Zen Virtual Piano.
More than half a million views came within 48 hours for a video of a performance, and Flagrant began fielding calls from American record companies. American labels entered a bidding war for him, and RCA Records came out on top. Two EPs followed in quick succession, Ready in 2018 and Free Time in 2019; across them Ruel moved back and forth between the indie-electronic-blues sound he began with and more sombre piano ballads. A video that drew calls from American labels within two days shows how quickly attention can turn into a deal.
London is where Ruel was born, to a father who was an advertising executive and a mother in the film industry; the family moved to Sydney when he was three or four and made their home on the northern beaches. His earliest musical memory is banging on his father's electronic drum kit, and he first performed live in recitals at the Crows Nest instrument shop where he had singing and guitar lessons. A drum kit at home and lessons at a music shop suggest a start that was local and ordinary before the attention arrived.
Among the songs on Free Time is Hard Sometimes, a gospel-tinged piano ballad that includes the line that he tries to be happy but it's hard sometimes. He explains the lyric by saying he had his first experience touring overseas and really missing home, and was alone with his thoughts in a hotel room after being the centre of attention onstage. A song about loneliness after applause reads as a frank pairing of success and homesickness.
By 16 he had a platinum record, had been called an astonishing talent by Elton John, and had won an ARIA award for breakthrough artist, the youngest person to do so. He says that 90 percent of his writing career has started from chord progressions, with him messing around on keys or piano in a session. A habit of starting from chords at a piano suggests that his songs begin with sound more than with words, a quiet contrast with the fast attention that his video drew.
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Common questions
Ruel is a singer-songwriter born in London to an advertising executive father and a film industry mother, whose family moved to Sydney.
It is a gospel-tinged piano ballad on the EP Free Time about the downside of sudden fame and missing home.
RCA Records ultimately won a bidding war between US labels.
He won an ARIA award for breakthrough artist, the youngest person to do so.