Ben Ottewell is best known as a member of Gomez, a British rock act whose debut album, Bring It On, won the Mercury Music Prize in 1998. Gomez never had a designated frontman -- Ottewell, Ian Ball, and Tom Gray all sang, and the band's albums usually included several vocal performances from each -- but Ottewell took the helm more than his bandmates, making him one of the group's most prominent members. After releasing the band's sixth album in 2009, he began paving the way for a solo career, making his debut with the release of 2011's Shapes & Shadows. His sophomore long-player, Rattlebag, followed in 2014. In early 2017 Ottewell released the single "Watcher", in anticipation of the release of his third full-length outing, Man Apart, which dropped later that May. ~ Andrew Leahey