Born Ruel Vincent Van Dijk on October 29, 2002, Australian singer Ruel found his big break after his dad Ralph sent a video of him covering James Bay’s “Let It Go” to Grammy Award winning producer M-Phazes.

In April 2017, they debuted their collaborative single “Golden Years”, and since then Ruel’s follow-up with a number of singles including “Don’t Tell Me”, “Dazed & Confused” and “Younger” which were all included in his debut EP, Ready.

Ruel is currently the youngest artist to win the ARIA for Breakthrough Artist, which he won at the 2018 ARIA Music Awards for his track “Dazed & Confused”. 3 of his singles have also been certified Gold by ARIA, “Don’t Tell Me”, “Dazed & Confused”, and “Younger”. He is also the youngest male singer to headline the Sydney Opera House. On September 5, 2017 Elton John played and praised Ruel on his podcast Rocket Hour. Then, on November 22, Dr. Dre featured “Don’t Tell Me” in his Above the Noise film. On November 21, 2017, he was a guest star on the podcast.

In November 2017, Ruel went on his first tour as the opening act for Australian band and brother-sister duo Angus and Julia Stone and open for Khalid on the Australian leg of his American Teen Tour. Later that month, he officially signed to RCA records. In March 2019, Canadian singer Shawn Mendes announced that Ruel will be opening for him on the Australia and New Zealand legs of his self titled tour along with country duo Dan + Shay.

On July 31, 2019 Ruel announced that his sophomore EP FREE TIME would be released on September 13, 2019. He also announced that he would go on his first world tour for the EP. On August 30 at his LA popup shop, Ruel confirmed the track list would include his tracks “Real Thing”, “Painkiller”, “Face to Face”, “Unsaid”, and “Free Time” along with two new songs, “Don’t Cry” and “Real Thing”