Ferras

Ferras Alqaisi (born 1982), known as Ferras, is a Jordanian-American Los Angeles-based singer-songwriter who has signed with EMI as part of Capitol Records.

Ferras grew up feeling out of place in a small Illinois town called Gillespie. This feeling was only compounded when, shortly after his parents’ divorce, his father took him to the airport, promising him a trip to Disneyland, but instead he actually spirited him away to his homeland of Amman, Jordan, an experience he often jokes about but also says was fairly «traumatic» at the time. While there, Ferras took solace in the small Casio keyboard that his father bought him and began writing his own songs. His mother eventually succeeded in bringing him back to the United States, but his sense of alienation persisted until they moved to Southern California, where Ferras began pursuing a music career in earnest. Ferras was eventually signed to EMI’s Capitol Music Group after an audition for the label’s chairman Jason Flom while on spring break from the Berklee College of Music. After being signed by Flom, Ferras then flew to New York City to record demo versions of his songs, which would eventually form his debut album.

In April 2008, Ferras released his major record label debut with Aliens & Rainbows via Capitol Records. The album was produced by The Matrix (which has co-written and produced with the likes of Katy Perry, Avril Lavigne, Shakira, Heather Nova, Jason Mraz, Korn, Liz Phair, Hilary Duff, Britney Spears and Skye Sweetnam) and Gary Clark (musician) (who’s worked as a writer and/or producer with artists such as Natalie Imbruglia, Demi Lovato, Liz Phair, Melanie C and Lloyd Cole). The album features the lead single «Hollywood’s Not America,» which was used as the «exit song» during the semi-final round of the seventh season of the American reality series American Idol before being replaced by a single from Ruben Studdard. The choice gave Ferras a moderate amount of exposure and publicity for the song.
On February 8, 2010 Ferras confirmed he has started recording new music on his Twitter account. He is currently writing and recording his new album with producer Jason Pennock of the writing/production team, The Heavyweights . No song titles have been revealed, but the album is over halfway completed.

In June 2010, Australian singer Michael Paynter released the song «Love the Fall» featuring The Veronicas which was co-written by Ferras and Gary Clark. It became the most added song to Australian radio in the first week of July and was the first top-20 single on the ARIA chart for Paynter. In late September 2010, the single went gold. In January 2011, German singer Lena Meyer-Landrut performed the song «Good News» (also title song of the album Good News) which was co-written by Ferras and Audra Mae for the Eurovision Song Contest 2011 but was not chosen for the German preselection finale.