Arthritis hasn’t stopped Astronauts, etc. from exploring the heart
Anthony Ferraro was going to be a classical pianist, but he was diagnosed with a rare form of arthritis when he was a child. As he grew older, playing piano became painful. “I was told I’d ‘grow out of it’ by the time I was 20,” says Ferraro, “but it grew worse and began to a ect my hands. It flares up every couple of days. Sometimes it’s manageable; other times I’m immobilized. I was about to start the piano performance program at Baylor University when the arthritis spread to my wrists and hands.”
Ferraro dropped out of school and worked day jobs, but music was in his blood. “I started writing and recording music as a kind of selftherapy, he says. “Eventually, I went back to UC Berkeley and finished school.”
While he was in school, two home recordings he made as Astronauts, etc., “Mystery Colors” and “Coldboy,” created a buzz on the Hype Machine site. Shortly thereafter, Ferraro met Chaz Bundick (Toro y Moi). They hit it o ff and Bundick asked Ferraro to join his touring band. With Bundick’s encouragement, he began working on the songs that would become his first album, Mind Out Wandering.
The lush, inviting love songs on the album hark back to the sounds of the Philly-soul productions Thom Bell created for the Stylistics. Ferraro’s simmering falsetto perfectly conveys the confused jumble of emotions of falling in love, while his band provides smooth, soulful grooves to support his heartfelt crooning.
“When I listen to this album, it feels like one big daydream,” says Ferraro. “I have trouble staying in the present, and I think that’s something other people can relate to. We made this record to be performed live. I think people will find that the live set resembles the record, but with a little more energy behind it.”
—j. poet
