Natalie Horler

Natalie Horler
Horler in Berlin, 2010
Background information
Birth name	Natalie Christine Horler
Genres	Eurodance Eurotrance Electropop

Natalie Christine Horler (born 23 September 1981) is a British singer and television presenter born in Bonn, Germany. She is known internationally as the lead singer of Eurodance/Eurotrance group Cascada. She is popular in Europe and America, as well as in several Asian countries. Cascada consists of Horler and DJs DJ Manian and DJ Yanou. She is bilingual and speaks German and English fluently.

Early life and family

Natalie Cascada was born in Bonn, then West Germany, to English parents from the United Kingdom who moved there in 1980. Her father, David Horler, is a jazz musician and her mother, Christine, is a foreign languages teacher. Horler grew up with her 2 siblings.She has stated that she had a very British childhood. Natalie soon began singing jazz songs in her father's studio as well as songs from Disney movies.

Career

Musical beginnings

Horler began her musical career by singing in bars and casinos. At 18, she then went on to working with different DJs recording a number of tracks in a studio. This is how she met future bandmembers Manian and Yanou. Her most notable song of her pre-Cascada era is "Piece Of Heaven" as Akira. In addition, Horler appeared on the German adaptation of Star Search in 2004.

Breakthrough with Cascada

In 2004, she formed the group Cascada with DJ Manian and Yanou (the latter known for his smash hit with DJ Sammy and Dominique van Hulst, "Heaven", released in 2002), and began touring with her dancers Essa and Falk.

On 21 February 2006, Cascada's 14-track album entitled Everytime We Touch was released in the United States. Her most successful song in the U.S remains the band's U.S. debut single "Everytime We Touch". It was a worldwide hit, peaking at #10 on the US Hot 100. In addition, it peaked at #2 in the UK Charts, #1 in Israel for 2 weeks and #1 in Ireland for an impressive 6 weeks. Horler has stated that at that time that they were overwhelmed at the success they had, suggesting they came along at the right time, and were very lucky (particularly in the tough American market, where Eurodance music hardly ever accomplishes mainstream chart-success). The success of the album gained them a World Music Award, winning them World's Best Selling German Artist in 2007. Other well-known Cascada songs include "Bad Boy", "Miracle", "Evacuate The Dancefloor", and covers such as "Truly Madly Deeply" and "What Hurts The Most".

The band's second album, Perfect Day, was released on 3 December 2007. The album charted well across Europe, peaking at #9 in the UK Album Charts. The single "What Hurts the Most" was a success in countries like U.S., Canada, and Germany. It climbed to #10 in the UK Charts, did even better in the Swedish charts, peaking at #5. But its highest peak was in France at #2, the same position it first entered. It also peaked at #3 in the Austria Singles Charts. Other singles from the album include "Faded", "What Do You Want From Me?", and "Because The Night".

Cascada's third studio album, Evacuate The Dancefloor, was released in the United Kingdom on 6 July 2009. It spawned out one of the act's most successful singles "Evacuate the Dancefloor" which was number one in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands. The album itself made it to #8 in the UK Albums Chart and #7 in the U.S. Billboard Dance/Electronic Albums. Other singles from this album include Fever, which failed to chart in the United Kingdom probably due to no physical release. However the single reached #18 in the Slovak Airplay Chart and did reach #3 in the UK Dance Chart, and the final single from this album was Dangerous which made it to #2 in the Dutch Tipparade (Bubbling Under) Chart and #10 in the Finnish Singles Chart, the song also had minor success in the United Kingdom charting at #67 in the UK Singles Chart.

Horler often shows off her Southern-English accent when she speaks some lyrics of her songs, such as "A Neverending Dream", "How Do You Do", "What About Me" and "Stalker".

Television work

In the autumn of 2006, Horler made her first foray into television as the guest host of the viewer request show Back @ Ya on bpm:tv, a Toronto, Canada-based cable channel that broadcasts all across Canada and some parts of the United States. bpm:tv specializes in playing dance and electronica music videos. Also in 2006, she appeared on Live with Regis and Kelly to promote her album, Everytime We Touch. She's also presented The Clubland Top 50, exclusively to the music channel, 4Music and has performed on countless television shows, mainly in Europe, one of which was promoting the UK version of Perfect Day on the UK breakfast show GMTV in 2007, performing Last Christmas live. Horler then returned to GMTV on 28 July 2008, performing "Because The Night" live. She returned to the GMTV studios in June 2009 to perform her new single "Evacuate The Dancefloor" with Carlprit. Horler has also made numerous appearances on the Dome, mostly to perform Cascada's latest singles although she did a one-off performance with her co-stars during the 52nd installment where she covered Heal the World. In 2012, Horler will be one of the new judges of the 9th season of Deutschland sucht den Superstar.

Personal life

Horler currently resides in Bonn, Germany. In a German article published in early 2010, it was shown that Horler was engaged to a man known as Maurice, a banker and former model who comes from North Rhine-Westphalia. They were privately married in Italy in May 2011, with Horler wearing a dress she had designed herself. She appeared on the cover of the German August 2011 issue of Playboy magazine.