Benjamin Ely (born 13 September 1970) is an Australian musician and artist best known for his work with alternative rock band

Regurgitator Regurgitator are an Australian alternative rock band from Brisbane, Queensland, formed in late 1993 by Quan Yeomans on lead vocals, guitar and keyboards; Ben Ely on bass guitar, keyboards and vocals; and Martin Lee on drums. Their debut stud ...

Early life

Born in

Brisbane Brisbane ( ; ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and largest city of the States and territories of Australia, state of Queensland and the list of cities in Australia by population, third-most populous city in Australia, with a ...

, Ely's family moved to the outer suburb of

Cleveland Cleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located along the southern shore of Lake Erie, it is situated across the Canada–U.S. maritime border and approximately west of the Ohio-Pennsylvania st ...

. During his high school years he became friends with musicians members Dave Atkins and Jim Sinclair, with whom he would later form

Pangaea Pangaea or Pangea ( ) was a supercontinent that existed during the late Paleozoic and early Mesozoic eras. It assembled from the earlier continental units of Gondwana, Euramerica and Siberia during the Carboniferous period approximately 335 mi ...

. He met guitarist

Quan Yeomans Quan Yeomans (born 12 December 1972) is an Australian musician best known as the frontman of the band Regurgitator. Early life Yeomans was born in Sydney to a fifth-generation Australian father, Neville, and his mother Lien, a well-known Vi ...

in 1993, with whom he formed Regurgitator. He claims that meeting Yeomans is the most important thing that has ever happened to him, stating that "I am a big fan of his work. I guess that helps when you play in a band with them". With regard to his musical influences, Ely has previously stated "

Metallica Metallica is an American heavy metal band. It was formed in Los Angeles in 1981 by vocalist and guitarist James Hetfield and drummer Lars Ulrich, and has been based in San Francisco for most of its career. The band's fast tempos, instrume ...

and

Black Sabbath Black Sabbath are an English rock band formed in Birmingham in 1968 by guitarist Tony Iommi, drummer Bill Ward (musician), Bill Ward, bassist Geezer Butler, and vocalist Ozzy Osbourne. After adopting the Black Sabbath name in 1969 (the band ...

made me who I am today".

Music

Aside his tenure in

, Ely has worked on other music projects: *

is a

punk Punk or punks may refer to: Genres, subculture, and related aspects * Punk rock, a music genre originating in the 1970s associated with various subgenres * Punk subculture, a subculture associated with punk rock, or aspects of the subculture s ...

and

metal A metal () is a material that, when polished or fractured, shows a lustrous appearance, and conducts electrical resistivity and conductivity, electricity and thermal conductivity, heat relatively well. These properties are all associated wit ...

band from

, Australia that Ely fronted since the early 1990s. * Jump 2 Light Speed released a self-titled album in 2006 and featured Ben Ely on bass and vocals, Graeme Kent on guitar (later replaced by former

Channel V Channel '' ("V" as in the letter, not the Roman numeral "5") is a Chinese and former Asian pay television musical network originally launched by Star TV Hong Kong (now Disney Networks Group Asia Pacific). It was part of the unit of Disney In ...

presenter Steve Bourke), Keita Tarlinton on keyboards and Stella Mozgawa on drums (later replaced by Tim Browning). * Broken Head is a dub band featuring Skritch and Guy Webster and formerly Ely. * The Stalkers is a punk band with Regurgitator member

Peter Kostic Peter Kostic is an Australian drummer best known as a member of Regurgitator and prolific black metal band Nazxul. Kostic joined Regurgitator in 1999 after its original drummer left. He has also been a member of Hard-Ons, Front End Loader, ...

along with Ray Ahn and Raymond Lalotoa. * Ouch My Face is an experimental punk band from Melbourne, Australia featuring Ben Ely on Bass, Celeste Potter on guitar and vocals and Ben Wundersitz on drums. * Pow Pow Wow * Ely also co-wrote, (together with Decoder Ring), the music to the 2004 Australian film ''Somersault'', starring

Abbie Cornish Abigail Cornish (born 7 August 1982) is an Australian actress. In film, Cornish is known for her roles as Heidi in ''Somersault (film), Somersault'' (2004), Fanny Brawne in ''Bright Star (film), Bright Star'' (2009), Sweet Pea in ''Sucker Punch ...

. The soundtrack won an AFI Award for Best Original Music Score and the song 'Somersault' won the 2004 Best Original Song Composed for a Feature Film, Telemovie, TV Series or Mini-Series Award at the Australian Screen Music Awards.

Personal life

Ely is also a successful practising artist and has exhibited work at The TAP Gallery in Darlinghurst, Sydney, and Flipbook Gallery in Brisbane as well as an exhibition in Fitzroy, Melbourne with his female Ouch My Face bandmate. ''Game Over!'' art exhibition. Ely was the partner of

Yumi Stynes Yumi Tasma Stynes (born 2 June 1975) is an Australian feminist podcaster and author. She is the presenter of the ABC Radio podcast ''Ladies, We Need to Talk'' about female health and sexuality, and thSBS AudiopodcastSEEN where she talks with tra ...

from 2001. They separated after eight years, in 2008. They have two daughters, Anouk and Dee Dee. He later remarried and had more children with his new partner.

Discography

Albums

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ely, Ben 1970 births APRA Award winners Living people Musicians from Brisbane Australian male songwriters People from Redland City