Born in Berlin, Germany on August 15, 1978, Tawil first rose to fame in the '90s as a member of the boy band the Boyz; Tawil and his close friend Florian Fischer were recruited by producer Triple-M after he spotted them in a talent show, and the group made its debut in 1996. In 1998, the Boyz's single "One Minute" went Top Ten in Germany and Austria, but the group split up at the end of 1999. In 2002, Tawil's career took a turn for the better when he met former Ideal and Humpe & Humpe vocalist Annette Humpe while providing backing vocals for a session she produced and wrote. Tawil and Humpe discovered they had similar musical ideas, and formed the duo Ich + Ich, who released their first single, "Geht's Dir Schon Besser?," in 2004. In 2005, the duo's self-titled debut album went Top Ten in Germany and earned a gold record, but their real breakthrough came with 2007's Vom Selben Stern, which went all the way to number one in Germany, went Top Five in Austria and Switzerland, and sold six-times platinum in their homeland. Released in 2009, Gute Reise was similarly successful, but Ich + Ich went on hiatus, and Tawil, who had already collaborated with Azad and Tobias Schenke on successful singles, began considering a career on his own. In 2013, Tawil made his solo debut with the album Lieder; the title tune was a hit that rose to number two on the German singles chart, while the follow-up, "Aschenflug," peaked at 18. Following the success of the album, Tawil announced he would hit the road for his first solo tour in 2014. ~ Mark Deming