Best CATEGORY-DEFYING ACT
Spanish Dancer
If there’s ever a winner suited for a category, it’s Anthony Ferreira and Spanish Dancer fitting into “Category-Defying” artist. Why? Because there’s just no defining him. “For me, there’s no need to join seven different bands. I can do all of these genres and just change my approach.”
Ferreira is positively chameleonic, slithering from freak folkie to glam rocker, from mega-clubbin’ disco head to Top 40 pop star. “With Spanish,” he says, “I can play a dancier show, a heavy rock show, or something a little more avant-garde. All my songs are written on acoustic guitar so I can adjust them to any format. In fact,” he adds, “if the power ever goes out at a Spanish Dancer show, I have an acoustic chilling backstage and I can bust out all the songs acoustically.”
When he first developed his new personality — after his former band Honey¬hander folded — Ferreira worried about whether Providence would accept him. “I’m thinking, ‘The dudes with beards and long hair are gonna hate this!’ ” he admits. “But I played some shows and they came out to see me. They were like, you know, ‘This really isn’t my thing, but I’m gonna say that I actually like it.’ ”
When Honeyhander broke up a few years ago, the first 20 Spanish Dancer shows were in New York City. That’s when we all thought Ferreira was headed out of town to more receptive pastures. But he never truly left, opting to solidify his reputation at home as an evocative artist with a penchant for serving up the unexpected. “It’s good to
know that if I feel like doing something I can do it. I don’t have to run it by anyone in the band. If I want to be the dude that acts like Danity Kane, I do it. If I want to be Justin Timberlake trippin’ balls on angel dust, then I do it. But if you want me to be the guy with the huge, obscure record collection, I can do that too.”
— Bob Gulla
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