Biography
While growing up in suburban north Jersey during the grunge ’90s (circa 1991: The Year Punk Broke!) all young Mike Ferraro wanted to do was rock. But as Mike soon learned, rocking out to his favorite bands on the radio simply wasn’t satisfying enough. For lying dormant throughout these formative listening years were clandestine aspirations to learn to sing and play guitar–maybe even for a project of his own someday. And learn he did: first covers of rock songs by the likes of Nirvana, The Beatles, Guided by Voices and Neutral Milk Hotel, eventually finding his own voice in original compositions, beginning in earnest during the fall of 1998 while attending Rutgers University.
Since those autumnal collegiate nights Mike has refined his singing and songwriting in a variety of projects ranging from a home-recording collaboration to an acoustic coffeehouse duo to a frenetic rock trio and back again, all the while favoring melody over gimmickry, minimalism over complexity, with the song itself always the focus. Ferraro’s evocative work has been compared favorably to its major influences while simultaneously transcending the pastiche so common among the hordes of retro-imitators and indie rock hipsters. As one critic noted: “Music this sweet is universal” (Channel 4, UK).
Beginning summer 2003, Mike has played regularly throughout NJ and NYC, and beyond,with notable appearances at Maxwell’s in Hoboken, NJ opening for Lou Barlow (Dinosaur Jr., Sebadoh, Folk Implosion) and at Don Hill’s in NYC for the surprise debut of Norah Jones’s punk rock side-project, El Madmo. Other highlights include: a string of solo dates in the UK (spring 2005), releasing a collection of home recordings on the MP3 indie pop label (disguised as a blog) A Bunch of Beatniks Riding a Rocket (BoB006) and seeing a song from that release, “Song for Friendship,” featured on NPR’s All Songs Considered: Open Mic and legendary indie rock station WOXY.com’s Unsigned program.
With a re-tooled power trio in tow, comprised of veteran Jersey indie rockers Ralph Capasso on drums and Jonathan Andrew (ex-Souls Release) on bass, Mike Ferraro & the Young Republicans are poised to destroy as many stages, parking lots, and VFW halls as necessary in pursuit of indie rock domination.
In the meantime, Mike and Co. recently completed a ten-song cassette retrospective for Italy’s Best Kept Secret label entitled Forgotten How to Lose, featuring the new five-song EP Awful Killers.
Work on a debut full length is currently underway.
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