The Midway State

With a memorable shaggy afro and a humble but charismatic demeanor, Midway State's piano-playing frontman Nathan Ferraro made a conscious decision at an early age that he was going to take a shot at breaking their piano emo-rock outfit into the music industry. Growing up in a musical family with seven siblings, he started writing songs at age 12 and a few years later, while attending high school in Collingwood, Ontario, he paired up with longtime pal and drummer Daenen Bramberger and started performing as Midway State with bassist Adam Beamish and guitarist Ryan Horning. Just after their first tour, with Ferraro and Bramberger at the ripe age of 17, the band packed up and moved to Toronto to settle into a single bedroom apartment and pursue their dreams of playing their songs for the masses. After being together almost three years and a brief period working in a flower shop, in September 2004, Ferraro received a phone call from producer Gavin Brown. Impressed by their homemade demo, he befriended them and encouraged that they refine their sound by replacing the weaker musicians with seasoned professionals. Beamish and Horning were let go after much debate, and the remaining duo started searching for replacements on the East coast, taking auditions from music students from various schools, including Berklee School of Music and The University of Toronto's jazz program, before settling on a new lineup that consisted of Nathan Ferraro (vocals, piano, acoustic guitar), Daenen Bramberger (drums), Mike Kirsh (bass), and Michael Wise (guitar). After a brief tour to promote the new group, Brown spent over a year honing and perfecting their sound before recording their debut EP, Eponymous which was released in 2006. A year later, in 2007, their second EP Met a Man on Top of the Hill was released on Interscope and a video for their radio-friendly single, "Change for You" soon followed.