Hugo Ferreira

Hugo Fernando da Silva Ferreira (born March 7, 1974) is an Angolan-born Portuguese-American singer, songwriter and musician.

He is best known for being the lead singer and songwriter for the American rock band Tantric.

Ferreira was born on March 7, 1974, in Luanda, Angola, which at the time was a Portuguese colony, to Portuguese colonial settlers.

After the independence of Angola in 1975, his family moved to Hudson, Massachusetts, in the United States.

Hugo began playing the piano at around age 5.

According to his biography, he began thinking about writing and composing music at 14 years of age.

Before becoming a more mainstream artist, Ferreira was a member of wedding bands, dance music groups, "off-tune" rock groups, and Portuguese folklore groups.

After graduating from Hudson High School in 1992, he moved to Detroit, Michigan, where he started the band Merge with Paul Hemsworth.

In the course of the next four years, the band self-released a record and a six-song tape.

After being “fired” from Days of the New in November 1998 guitarist Todd Whitener, bassist Jesse Vest and drummer Matt Taul began searching for a vocalist for a new band.

Ferreira, being somewhat friends with the former members of Days of the New after touring with them while in his band Merge seemed to make sense for him to audition for the band Whitener, Vest and Taul were forming.

Ferreira auditioned and got accepted into the band in March 1999.

Soon after being accepted into the band Ferreira moved to Louisville, Kentucky, to record demos with his new bandmates under the moniker Carbon 14 (C-14).

They later realized that bands with numbers in their names were played out and changed the band name to Tantric after Buddhist sexual practices.

Ferreira commented on his change of bands saying his reason for joining was he felt he needed a change.

He also said "the bass player was working at Hooters cooking wings, the guitarist was picking up what he could, and you don't want to know what the drummer was doing," Ferreira said with a laugh.

"We were beyond broke," he continued.

"All I had was a TV and a VCR, and I sold them to pay for the U-Haul to move to Louisville. I was tending bar at some cheesy beach club and winning karaoke contests singing Frank Sinatra songs competing against toothless drunks with names like Billy Bob Joe."

"I lost weight, I had the Ethiopian thing happening, with the skinny arms and the stomach thing happening."

But it was worse for his bandmates, Ferreira said.

"These guys really had to swallow a lot of pride."

Eight months later Tantric's demo caught the ear of Maverick Records, the two parties soon came to a deal which allowed the band to have the finances to record a strong and well healthy album.

The album was recorded in Nashville with producer Toby Wright producing the album.

Ferreira's debut album with Tantric titled Tantric was recorded and completed by October 2000.

The album was released February 13, 2001.

The album peaked at number seventy-one on the Billboard 200 charts and produced a number one Mainstream rock hit with the song "Breakdown".

The album produced two more singles as well, titled "Astounded" and "Mourning".

Both songs charted fairly well.

Ferreira went on tour with Tantric in support of the album, touring with the likes of Creed and Kid Rock.

In 2003 Ferreira entered the studio to record Tantric's sophomore studio album titled After We Go with the rest of the band.

After a frustrating recording process caused from their label, Tantric finally released the lead single of their new album titled "Hey Now" on December 9, 2003.

After We Go was released February 24, 2004, making it Ferreira's second studio effort with Tantric.

In 2005 Ferreira entered the studio once again to record with Tantric on their third studio album which was set to be titled Tantric III.

Whiteners departure caused Ferreira to be the only remaining founding member left in the band after Jesse Vest left in 2005, Matt Taul was arrested on drug charges and could no longer tour and then Todd Whitener's frustration with the band's struggle to succeed again caused him to opt-out of Tantric.

Because of Ferreira being the only original member Tantric III was shelved indefinitely, however Ferreira expressed his interest of leaking some of the songs out to fans for free as an appreciation for the continued support.

Ferreira leaked out three songs to YouTube titled "Letting Go", the original version of "The One" and "Fall Down" featuring hip-hop group Nappy Roots.

The album was set to be released in May 2006 but was shelved due to Tantric being released from Maverick Records on Ferreira's birthday on March 7, 2006.

On May 8, 2007, three songs from Tantric III were released on the band's Myspace page but was largely overshadowed by guitarist Todd Whitener's departure from the band the same day.

In late May 2007, Ferreira formed a side project band called "State of the Art" with former Fuel and Puddle of Mudd members.

The group recorded an album but the album was only released through the band's Myspace page, making it scarce and hard to find.