Liberation Day YouTube page:
http://www.youtube.com/group/liberationday

Liberation Day Audio Stream:
http://capi001.edgeboss.net/wmedia/capi001/ferras/audio/ferras_liberation_day.asx

Ferras Official Site:
http://www.ferrasmusic.com

Myspace page:
http://www.myspace.com/ferrasmusic

YouTube page:
http://www.youtube.com/ferrasmusic

Ferras (pronounced Fer-AHSS) approaches a big pop hook the way a Formula One

driver approaches a straightaway — he floors it. Take the payoff of “Aliens and

Rainbows,” the psychological and stylistic centerpiece of the 25-year-old artist’s

album of the same name. Symphonic strings are cranked to the max, a vocal chorale

summons up a celestial ahhh-ahhh, an electric guitar spins out a quicksilver figure

and Ferras’ own elegant piano underscores the grandeur as he sings, “I would rather

be with aliens and rainbows / On the other side of the universe / And finally…” —

here he slides up into a goosebump-inducing falsetto — “This is me / This is my coup

de grâce / My reality.” That urgent, stirring passage is a quintessential example of a

risk-taking artist holding nothing back — which is what makes this audacious

newcomer such a blast of fresh air.

Produced by The Matrix (Avril Lavigne, Jason Mraz, Korn) with their frequent

collaborator Gary Clark (Natalie Imbruglia, Lloyd Cole), Aliens and Rainbows contains

undisguised references to the greats — David Bowie on the anthemic “Liberation

Day” and the widescreen rocker “Something About You,” Elton John on the narrative

opus “Hollywood’s Not America” and Stevie Wonder on the silky ballad “Soul Rock.”

Other songs isolate his own hot-wired psyche: “Dear God” is a prayer of desperation

and defiance (“If you’re so full of grace / Then send it / On down”), while the sensual

“Take My Lips” is a jaw-dropping expression of emboldened vulnerability.

“Because this was my first record, I decided to draw on the artists who’ve inspired

me — Elton John, Bowie, Queen, the Beatles — because of the huge impact they’ve

had on my own music,” Ferras explains. “But I also wanted to make a record that’s

personal and tells a story, and every song is either something I’ve experienced,

something I hope to experience or something I can really connect with. These aren’t

just random pop songs— they come from a real place; they explore feelings.”

Ferras comes by all of these classic influences organically. Growing up in a small

town in southern Illinois, separated by a vast cultural and emotional chasm from his

surroundings and contemporaries, the youngster turned to radio and the Internet for

companionship and validation, conjuring up a world of his own to inhabit.

It wasn’t the first time he’d been rescued by songs on the radio. “When I was 5,

right after my parents got divorced, my dad, who’s from Jordan, told me he was

taking me to Disneyland,” Ferras recalls. “On the way to the airport, we stopped at a

Wal-Mart and he bought me a little Casio keyboard so that I’d have something to do

on the flight. When we got on the plane, I began to realize that he was kidnapping

me and taking me back to Jordan. I spent three months in a big house in Amman,

and his family treated me lovingly, but I missed my mom, and I somehow connected

the songs I heard on the radio with my feelings. One day I picked up the Casio,

made up a melody and wrote a song for my mom, bizarre as that sounds. When I

played it for her over the phone that night, she cried. Three months later, she

rescued me and brought me back home.”

But Illinois didn’t feel like home to this self-described alien either, and he continued

to take refuge in music. “I was attracted to choruses, melodies and expression,” he

says, “especially the emotionality of ballads.” Also around this time, after Ferras got

it in his head that he belonged in California, he somehow managed to convince his

mom to make the move, and they relocated to Santa Barbara. As soon as he could

drive, Ferras was regularly bombing down the 101 to L.A., on a mission to get a

record deal.

There were nibbles, but nothing substantive — “They’d always say the same thing:

‘You’re great, but we don’t know what to do with you,’” he says. Then a ray of hope

entered in the unlikely form of Limp Bizkit leader Fred Durst, who was so blown away

by Ferras’ songs and singing that he put the wheels in motion to sign the kid to his

Interscope imprint. But when Durst’s label deal began to unravel, Ferras was

crushed, despite the fact that his benefactor vowed to get him signed to a major.

At that point, Ferras did what any self-respecting prodigy would do — he applied to

Boston’s Berklee School of Music, which accepted him despite the fact that he

couldn’t read a note of music. But the academic life didn’t suit Ferras, so he was

elated to find out that Durst had set up an audition with Capitol Music Group

Chairman/CEO, Jason Flom, during spring break.

“We met Jason at the Beverly Hills Hotel,” says Ferras, “and I played him two songs

on the piano in the lobby. Right away he seemed different — he was actually

listening rather than messing with his BlackBerry. Then Fred told me to play ‘Take

My Lips,’ this ballad I’d written when I was just 17, and when I finished, to my

amazement, Jason said, ‘That’s brilliant — why didn’t you play it first?’ Four days

later I was in New York doing solo demos, and he signed me right after that.”

“From the start, all I wanted to do was write and sing songs that would make people

feel something,” he says, “and I’m grateful to have gotten the opportunity to be who

I am. At this point I can truthfully say that I’m proud of what I’ve done, the person

I’m becoming and the journey that led me to this moment.”

It’s already been quite a journey for Ferras, and after listening to this album, you get

the distinct impression the adventure is just beginning.