Nate Ruess Biography

Nathaniel Joseph Ruess (born February 26, 1982) is an American singer-songwriter and musician, best known as the lead vocalist of pop band Fun.

Early life

Ruess was born on February 26, 1982, in Iowa City, Iowa. He is the younger of two children of Bess Zinger and Larry Ruess. His sister, Elizabeth, is one year older. His uncle, John Ruess, was a performer on Broadway.

In 1986, his family moved to a farm in Glendale, Arizona, due to repeated bouts of pneumonia Ruess faced as a child. This is alluded to in Fun.'s song "The Gambler" from their debut album, Aim and Ignite. Ruess remained in Arizona throughout his childhood. He attended Deer Valley High School and graduated in 2000. He joined punk bands in high school (Nevergonnascore, This Past Year) and upon graduation chose to pursue music. In an interview with American Songwriter Nate states, "I'm not one to take lessons, so I decided that the only way I was going to learn how to sing, if what they were saying was true, was to go in my car and put on any sort of music from a vocalist that might be really hard to mimic, turn it on as loud as possible and try to hit all those notes". He took a job in a law firm as a way to support himself while he pursued his musical ambitions.

Circa 1998, Ruess was the vocalist for Nevergonnascore, releasing an EP, The Byron Sessions. The band played regularly at the Nile Theater in Mesa, Arizona. In 2001, at the age of 19, he launched the band The Format with his longtime best friend, Sam Means. The Format was his first musical endeavor to gain widespread attention.

Career

2001"2008: The Format

After forming in 2001, The Format released a demo, titled EP, which generated local interest and led to the band's being signed to Elektra Records in 2002. They released their first studio album, [[Interventions + Lullabies|Interventions + Lullabies]], on October 21, 2003, leading to more local mainstream success. The band's fanbase began to grow. The Format released their second EP, Snails, with Atlantic Records in April 2005. However, while working on their second album, Dog Problems, they were dropped from Atlantic. They eventually created their own label, The Vanity Label, and released the album on July 11, 2006. On February 4, 2008, Ruess announced through the band's blog that The Format would not be making another album.

2008"present: Fun.

Immediately after the split of The Format, Nate contacted Jack Antonoff of Steel Train and Andrew Dost, formerly of Anathallo, to form a new band called Fun. They released their first demo, "Benson Hedges", through Spins September 20, 2009, article. Four months after releasing their first single, "At Least I'm Not as Sad (As I Used to Be)", through Myspace on April 6, 2009, Fun. released their first studio album, entitled Aim and Ignite. Despite receiving generally positive reviews, the album was not a commercial success, peaking at 71 on the Billboard 200.

The band supported Jack's Mannequin on tour in both 2008 and 2010, and Paramore in 2010. On August 4, 2010, they announced that they had been signed to the Fueled by Ramen label.

On May 17, 2011, the band was featured on Panic! at the Disco's single "C'mon". They also opened for Panic! at the Disco during their 2011 Vices & Virtues Tour.

Their second album, Some Nights, was released on February 21, 2012, and featured production by Jeff Bhasker. The album's first single, "We Are Young", which features guest singer Janelle Monáe, was released September 20, 2011. The song was covered on Glee in December 2011 and featured in Spanish on a Taco Bell commercial during the Super Bowl in February 2012, and reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 on March 8, 2012. The album has become a success throughout the world, selling hundreds of thousands of copies. The album's title song, "Some Nights", reached number 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 and reached number 1 on the Alternative Songs chart.

On June 10, 2012, Fun. played at the Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival in Manchester, Tennessee.

On July 9, 2012, they played at Scottish music festival T in the Park in Balado, United Kingdom. On August 4, 2012, Fun. played in Chicago, at Lollapalooza.

November 3, 2012, Fun. performed "Carry On" and "Some Nights" on Saturday Night Live in New York City.

On July 20, 2013, Fun. played to their largest crowd (over 50,000) at Merriweather Post Pavilion in Columbia, Maryland.

On February 10, 2013, the band won a Grammy for their song "We Are Young". Upon receiving the Grammy, Ruess commented, "I don't know what I was thinking writing the chorus for this song. If this is in HD, everyone can see our faces and we are not very young. We've been doing this for 12 years and I just got to say we could not do this without the help of all the fans that we've had keeping us afloat for the last 12 years." Fun also won the Grammy for Best New Artist.

Nate is featured on the track "Only Love" on Anthony Green's second solo album, Beautiful Things.

Nate is also featured on Pink's latest album, The Truth About Love, in the song "Just Give Me a Reason". The song began as a simple songwriting session with Pink. She decided the song needed another side to it and subsequently a male part was written. While at first reluctant, with Pink encouraging him, he decided to participate in the duet. The song eventually topped the US Billboard Hot 100, becoming his first number-one single as a solo artist and his second overall.

He also cowrote "Die Young", the lead single from Ke$ha's second studio album, Warrior.

Discography

See also: Fun discography

Guest appearances

Title	Year	Peak chart positions										Certifications	Album
		US	AUS	AUT	CAN	FRA	GER	IRL	NLD	NZ	UK
"Only Love" (Anthony Green featuring Nate Ruess)	2012	"?	"?	"?	"?	"?	"?	"?	"?	"?	"?	"?	Beautiful Things
"Just Give Me a Reason" (P!nk featuring Nate Ruess)	2013	1	1	1	1	4	1	1	1	1	2	US: 3"? Platinum AUS: 5"? Platinum AUT: Gold CAN: Gold GER: Platinum NZ: 3"? Platinum	The Truth About Love
""?" denotes songs which were not released in that country or failed to chart.