Tom Helsen
Tom Helsen’s career kicks off in 1996 at an important Belgium rock contest, Humo’s rockrally; where he, as a solo guitarist, finishes second behind Novastar. The following year, he gathers multiple musicians and between 1998 and 2004 he releases 3 albums; tours through Europe with Hooverphonic and Dido, and the song “Goodbye” from his third album provides him a spot on the Rock Werchter stage.
The song is then covered by a Portuguese Boys band and is sold over 400.000 times, a sound proof that his work knows no boundaries and it delivers Tom an extra incentive to take everything to a higher level.
Tom attempts to produce his own albums as much as possible on his own and he also decides to continue in own management. This step provides him with a lot of behind-the-scenes knowledge, something that he was always interested in.
In 2006, Tom catches his big break in Belgium with his fourth album, in particular with his song “Sun in her Eyes”. He performs twice on the prestigious festival ‘TW Classic’ and receives a MIA award for ‘best pop’.
Tom’s taste in music starts to evolve and he senses that writing songs for other artists will define a large part of his future.
In 2008 Studio Brusselrequests him to write the new song for Music for Life and with the song “Home” he finds himself on the number 1 chart position for 5 consecutive weeks.
Immediately after the release of his fifth album in 2009, Tom decides to take a two year-break to be able to concentrate on other projects.
His first achievement is the album 'The truth about that girl and me', which is completely written by Tom but sang by his favorite Belgian and Dutch singers including Lady Linn, Sarah Bettens, Eva De Roovere, Jacqueline Govaert, Barbara Dex, Marie Daulne…
His cooperation with Regi, Milow, Tom Dice and others also result in big hits.
Totally unexpected, the success of “Sun in her Eyes” is reestablished when it is used a Dutch commercial and the song is played frequently on every radio station. In the Netherlands, Tom then released his new album “Home”, a greatest hits compilation from his previous five albums,.
Besides writing songs for other artists, Tom is working on a new album which is planned for release in April 2011 and, after 2 years of silence; he will perform live next summer.