Marc Martel

Based between Montréal and Nashville, Canadian singer-songwriter Marc Martel has developed a career at the intersection of Christian rock, pop rock and reinterpretations of classic rock. Born in Montréal, Marc Martel first gained attention in the late 1990s with the Canadian band Downhere, formed by musicians who met at a Bible college in Saskatchewan; with that group he toured North America and recorded within the Christian rock scene. From the early 2010s Marc Martel pursued a more personal direction, marked by the EP The Prelude (2013) and the album Impsonator (2014), in which he steered his songwriting toward melodic pop rock supported by a wide-ranging voice. At the same time, the timbral similarity of his voice to Freddie Mercury's led him to join Roger Taylor's Queen Extravaganza project, to develop international tours around Queen's repertoire, and to lend his voice to certain sung parts in the film Bohemian Rhapsody in 2018. Between original compositions, regular Christmas releases and cover work, Marc Martel thus occupies a distinctive position between the North American Christian circuit, the independent pop-rock scene and Queen tribute shows.