His mother, Margaret is a former singing cocktail waitress, and his father, Maxime, was a hidden child during the Holocaust who emigrated from Paris in 1963; he worked in computers and designed the technology for the first ATM for Citibank.
In 2007, Velard signed a multi-album record deal with Angel Music Group and subsequently moved to London.
[4] In June 2008 EMI eliminated 2,000 positions worldwide and Velard's major label debut, The Planeteer, was shelved.
The album was also released in the Netherlands due to an online discovery by radio and TV host Gerard Ekdom.
[citation needed] On June 16, 2017, Velard released a nine-song LP entitled, Fancy Words For Failure.
The Wall Street Journal[9] published a profile of Velard and his year long residency at Joe's Pub.
Velard's auto-biographical concept album and musical entitled Please Don't Make Me Play Piano Man was released in May 2020.