Victor Strong

Victor Strong is an American singer, pianist and songwriter, most famous for his role in the electro-rock band Phoenix Rising, who shot to fame in 2008 with the release of their debut single "Rewritten". Phoenix Rising has had a respectable run of top 10 hits to accompany their hit albums, and Victor has also experienced success as a solo artist, releasing a double A-side duet with Ben Johnston in 2010 that won a fierce chart battle to be crowned the Christmas #1 for that year. Victor launched his solo career in July 2012 with the release of his debut solo album "Great Expectations", and its lead single "Mask".

Early Life
Victor Alexander Strong was born on December 11th, 1986, to Wilfred and Mahalia Strong. Wilfred was a major political figure in San Francisco, and was emotionally abusive to his wife. Mahalia and Wilfred divorced when Victor was only a year old, and she would re-marry; her marriage to Anthony DiNozzo led to the birth of Victor's half-sister Violetta DiNozzo. Victor was raised as an only child, unaware of his other family. Wilfred was just as emotionally abusive to Victor growing up, trying to turn Victor into a mini-clone of himself. Victor grew to resent his father, and was granted emancipation at the age of 16, at which time Victor left home. While he was living with his father, Wilfred encouraged Victor to take up an instrument, in an effort to make Victor more cultured. To his benefit, Victor favoured the push to learn an instrument, choosing to take classical piano lessons. Victor continued his classical piano training even after leaving home. Victor worked multiple part-time jobs in order to pay tuition for the rest of his high school career, and to pay his way through college, where he would meet Alexei Monaghan and Tobias Strait, who would eventually form Phoenix Rising with him alongside James Moss and Benjamin McAllister.

Phoenix Rising
Phoenix Rising was assembled in early 2008, and the band self-funded the recording of their debut album "Eye Of The Beholder", as well as the video for their debut single "Rewritten". The band worked with Max Martin, Dr. Luke and Howard Benson on the album, costing the band a lot in studio time and production fees; a great load of money was poured into the band's first music video. The band was in a lot of debt by the time they independently released their single, which was a surprise success. Throughout the course of their debut era the band achieved strong enough success across the UK and America that they recouped the money spent on the album and all of its promotional material. In the UK, the album reached diamond certification off the back of a #4 peak, and was supported by six consecutive top 10 hits. The album fared similarly in the US.

It was not until 2010 that Phoenix Rising became a household name; the five-piece came back strong with their sophomore album "Vermillion & Ash" and its Brian Transeau-produced lead single "Never Gonna Come Back Down", which both made a heavy impact at #1 in the UK. The album was a colossal UK success, with eight consecutive top 5 hits and a content-heavy re-release. Two of the album's eight hits were #1 chart-toppers, including "Never Gonna Come Back Down" and "Another Year Goes By / The Catch" which was released as a Victor Strong single, in partnership with Ben Johnston. Victor's solo single outperformed any Phoenix Rising single on the charts at the time; he would later be outdone when James Moss released "Kingdom Hearts" in 2012. Phoenix Rising are currently working on their third studio album which is scheduled for release in February 2013.

"Great Expectations" Era
Partly inspired by James' solo career success and partly because he could not wait for Phoenix Rising's planned December comeback, Victor began writing and preparing material for his own solo album to precede the band's comeback. Victor worked with James on his material, getting some more hands-on experience on the production side of things. James produced the majority of the material on Victor's album, although Victor has production credit on the album himself. The album is called "Great Expectations" due to the expectations fans would have of Victor as a solo artist, and how Victor chose to defy those expectations. The album is being led by the single "Mask", an R'n'B-tinged electropop ballad with dark and introspective lyrics. Both album and single were due on July 23rd, but the single's release date was pushed forward by a week while the album's release date remains unchanged. Also included on the album is a solo version of "Ground Zero", which Victor co-wrote with James for Morris David Cat's studio album "Romeo Is Dead". The original duet version was released as the final single from Morris' album on July 16th, and did not count as a proper single from "Great Expectations". The release of the two singles resulted in Victor making URAPS history when he became the first artist to hold the top two positions on the chart simultaneously - as "Ground Zero" impacted at #1 while "Mask" debuted right behind it at #2. Since both releases were tipped to be major chart hits this feat would still have been achieved had "Mask" achieved the #1, as "Ground Zero" would still be #2.

The album was given an extensive and expensive promotional campaign, which led to tensions between Victor and Blacklight Records when the album debuted at #2 on the UK albums chart. Victor was happy with the album's performance, but the Blacklight executives handling Victor's career and album did not like Victor and were not satisfied with anything short of a chart-topper. "If You Cried" was released as the second single from "Great Expectations", with a release date of October 1st, after having been pushed back from the originally-scheduled date of September 10th. It became another top 2 hit for Victor in a fierce chart battle with L'Mondrea Brown of Moodring fame. The song was chosen as the lead single from the album in the United States, and may be the only single from the album with Phoenix Rising's return in early 2013. Because of Phoenix Rising's return being early in 2013, an expanded re-release of the album entitled "Greater Expectations" was issued for the holiday season, in order to maximise the album's sales before Phoenix Rising made their return. The re-release finally brought the album up to #1 on the chart.

To support the re-release, Victor chose to release one of the additional songs included on the expanded album. He chose "This Time Tomorrow" as the third single from the album, because it was a duet with his younger half-sister Violetta DiNozzo. Violetta herself brought the song "Otherworld" into the release, because it was also a duet with Victor; and also for the additional reason that she needed a single to support her UK arena tour. "Otherworld" had been intended for single release all along, and being asked to duet with her brother for a single gave the the excuse she needed to finally go ahead with the release. The collaboration was highly successful for the siblings, with the single debuting at #1. It is highly unlikely that a fourth single will be released from the album due to Victor returning to Phoenix Rising in 2013.

Personal Life
Victor is the father of two boys; both of them adopted. Victor adopted Evane Patrick Strong at two months old, in January of 2009. Evane's birthday is November 11th, 2008. Evane was the son of a drug addict, who attempted to re-claim the baby but she was declared an unfit mother so her claim was rejected and the baby remained in Victor's custody. Victor adopted Maverick Jackson Strong as a newborn on the day of his birth, February 22nd, 2012. Victor is a loving and attentive father to his two sons. Victor is close friends wih his Phoenix Rising bandmates, as well as Ben Johnston, whom Victor has been widely rumoured to be romantically involved with, although neither party has ever confirmed or denied anything. Victor also has a close relationship with his half-sister Violetta DiNozzo, and their baby brother Zacharias Jared Strong-DiNozzo, who was born on July 24th, 2010 to Victor's birth parents - as Mahalia's second husband Tony DiNozzo had testicular cancer and could not have any more children of his own, leading Mahalia to reach out to Victor's father as a sperm donor.

In November of 2010, Victor's life was thrown into upheaval with the return of Wilfred Strong into his life. At first it seemed like Wilfred was just back to make life difficult for his son, but it was quickly learned that Wilfred was in the advanced stages of brain cancer, with several inoperable tumours that had been caught too late. Victor learned that his father's line had a medical history with the cancer, causing Victor great emotional distress which led to a lot of controversy when Victor began behaving out-of-character during the promotion of his and Ben's duet single. In December 2010, Wilfred Strong passed away the same night Victor and Ben were awarded the Christmas #1 single for the year, making the victory bittersweet for Victor. Following the death of his father Victor took Evane with him to Vancouver to avoid the paparazzi, and during this time Victor's cancer fears led him to get checked out for signs of cancer. Victor was declared free of brain tumours, but was discovered to be in the beginning stages of Hodgkin's lymphoma, and swiftly underwent chemotherapy treatment to wipe out the disease early.

During the band's return, there was a massive nude photo scandal surrounding Elice Claire, and Victor was caught up in the middle of it as acting head of Saturdays Records at the time. Victor was in remission, but due to the high levels of stress of the situation, there was fear that Victor would relapse and the cancer would return. Luckily, the cancer did not return and the scare was nothing more than a scare. Victor has now been declared cancer-free having been in remission for a year.