As Gino Ferraro looked out into the crowd at The Delancy in Manhattan’s Lower East side two weekends ago, he realized that for the first time, he no longer wished there were more people in the crowd. It was a far cry from years of playing shows at bars to small crowds of mostly friends and family; this was the big time, the most important show he’d played yet.
Ferraro is a singer-songwriter and guitarist from New Haven, Conn., known for his blues-inspired guitar playing and music that combines alternative rock, blues and other genres in a unique fusion. He’s currently the lead singer and guitarist of Aurora, a four-piece band that burst onto the Connecticut music scene this year.
Ferraro first picked up an acoustic guitar when he was 10. It was at the same time when his cousin introduced him to John Mayer with the song “Slow Dancing in a Burning Room.” The song struck a chord with him, and he began exploring Mayer’s music, as well as other legendary guitarists like Stevie Ray Vaughn, Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton. Mayer stood out most to Ferraro, noting that his music “showed me a different path that I didn’t really have until then.”
By the time he got to high school, playing music was the only thing he wanted to do. He started playing shows with musician friends of his, starting with school pep rallies and then moving to open mics and bars.
Ferraro also started writing more songs around this time. He compared writing songs to journaling, using songwriting as a way to express his thoughts, albeit in a way that rhymes and that can be set to guitar chords. For him, his songwriting process has always followed a simple mantra: you have to feel it. He admitted that it sounds cliche, but most of his songs come from quick bursts of inspiration.
“It has to come you, you have to know what you want to write about,” he explained. “You can’t just sit down and be like ‘You know what? I’m going to write about something and I’m just going to figure it out.’”
One of the main things that Ferraro thinks about when he’s creating a song is writing something that people can understand, relate to and make them think. The song “Self Esteem,” his most recent single, is an example of this approach.
“With a lot of my songs, what’s most important to me is that sometimes when I’m writing, I think if someone sat down, really read these and tried to understand, it would have a deeper meaning for them,” he said. “I’m not writing songs to gain someone’s respect, but I do think that if people read it, they’ll see something different.”
Ferraro released his debut extended play “Too Distracted To Understand” in July 2022. This was his first time producing a project and he acknowledged that there were times when he didn’t know what he was doing. He credited Dylan Gagliardi, a high school friend of his who went to Berklee College of Music, for helping him with the production side of the record.
“He had to fix a lot of mistakes because I did not know what I was doing,” he said. “I could write the songs and know how the melody was going, but then for the rest of it, I was just pressing buttons until something worked.”
Making the EP was a great learning experience, as it gave him a better handle of producing and mixing that has carried over to his subsequent releases. Even as he’s improved as a producer, he said that he still enjoys the record, which is rare since many artists tend to disavow their debut releases.
Since then, Ferraro has continued to release singles and perform across Connecticut, utilizing multiple lineups for his live shows. No lineup has been more successful or enjoyable for him than Aurora, his current group. He said that this lineup has been “a long time coming,” as he has known Gagliardi, who plays keyboards, and drummer Dan Marks since high school. The band is rounded out by bassist Dylan Jensen, who Ferraro met while at The Oakdale Theater in Wallingford, Conn. They started playing shows together in September under Ferarro’s name before calling themselves Aurora to create a stronger band identity.
Ferraro goes into every show with the goal of meeting someone new, which he said he’s been able to accomplish. He spoke about his love of playing shows as a way to connect with audiences more over a medium that they can relate to.
“To me, performing is the most fun and the most connected way to get out there with people because you’re literally playing it for them, for people who’ve never heard it before,” he said. “That’s what makes me love it so much and keeps me going with it.”
Ferraro and the band also recently appeared in Storrs when they did a studio session at WHUS Radio in February. He recalled that going into the day, he thought they would only be recording one song but then found out five minutes before starting that they would be recording a full set. Though the band was tired from playing a show the night before and each of his bandmates were operating at varyingly low levels of sleep, they pulled from their set the night before and rolled through it. Ferraro expressed how refreshing it was to see WHUS’ staff so engaged with the endeavor.
“It was so cool to see a bunch of people our age doing such professional work with cameras, directing, filming and sound stuff,” he said. “Everyone there was great to meet. We loved it and we’ll go back anytime they want us.”