Biography of Wouter Hamel

Wouter Hamel was born on 19 may 1977 in The Hague. His parents are Boudewijn Hamel and Janine Findhammer.

His mother had an antique shop and his father works for the Bovag (cars) while Wouter himself doesn't even have a driver license!
He has a younger brother Ernst Jan and a sister Julia.

Wouter grew up in the district Bohemen, a very protective environment, because most of his family lived there too. His uncle and aunt lived on the other side of the road and his grandparents a few houses further on. It was a district where a lot of people from Indonesia lived. There were lots of garden parties around with music, dancing ("from the hips, Wouter!") and food (the traditional satays).
The three children played outside a lot, and all three of them got hurt in the face, resulting in scars there. Wouter has a scar close to his eye.
When Wouter was young, he was suffering of asthma. When he was eight years old, his doctor wanted to send him to Davos in Switzerland, but his mother refused. She found it inhuman to let a child go for a year to a foreign country.
As a child Wouter was very happy and talkative. He was always creative and having plenty of ideas. He organised plays, could draw very good (according to his father) and was experimenting with music on a little tape recorder. He liked dancing, and did ballet for a year. Unfortunately he was teased for it at school and when the family moved to another town, he quickly gave it up.
But one thing was already clear: do not settle for less, aim for success. Wouter used to say that he wanted to become a prince "or at least someone famous!"
When he was older the family left the Randstad (crowded area in the west of the Netherlands) to start living on an old farmhouse in the Betuwe (near Utrecht). Wouter had to go by bicycle to his school in Doorn. That daily exercise was very good for him and his asthma completely disappeared.
Wouter finished the Revius Lyceum in Doorn in 1995. He was not very self assured at school. He was worrying about his clothes, shoes, everything. Was he fitting in?
Later on that changed and he grew more self assured.
Meanwhile he was always busy with music. He was learning to play the guitar, joined in with high school musicals en sang on school-events. One of his best memories is singing Hallelujah on stage while the whole audience was in awe.

But a teacher told him not to go to the Academy of Music because he would loose his own style and authenticity. For a year he followed that advice and went to the school for Journalism instead.
There he had hardly time for his music. He decided to audition for the Academy of light music, just to see if he would pass. He did! So after a year he left the Journalism and went straight to the Academy of Music, light music.
"Not so light," Wouter said once, "They went as far as the bossanova and Stevie Wonder, while I was a fan of the Smashing
Pumpkins and Jeff Buckley."

Although he was warned not too loose his own style there, he practically did everything to loose it. He wanted to learn everything his teachers could, and above that, wanted to be the best in everything. So he became a great performer of all kind of styles, using his voice in many different ways, but what the AM did not learn was how to become an artist of your own, to stand out in the crowd instead of being the next jazz virtuoso who sang all the jazz standards. He also didn't learn how to write his own music.
It is a well known problem in the Netherlands. Most musicians are very good in the technique and can play everything, but there is less originality. Jazz singers all want to sing the standards, but don't dare to do something new. But that is changing nowadays.
In 2001 he had his graduation performance, but he failed to finish his papers.
He went living in Amsterdam, sang in restaurants, gave singing lessons and did voices for all sort of things.

He sang with Intermezzo (a close harmony group) and with the Young Sinatra's, who performed the old songs of Frank Sinatra etc. But although he could sing that repertoire very well, he felt out of place singing those masculine songs like "I got you under my skin'
And then his life changed!