Back in 2004, Rolling Stone noted of Ryan Cabrera: “The young Texan seems intent on transcending his Diesel-wearing, mall-kid status and being taken seriously as a musician.” And that is just what he’s done with his hot new single “Say” and on his upcoming album, The Moon Under Water, due out May 13 on Frolic Room/Papa Joe Records. Still a master of the undeniable pop hook — as witnessed by “Say” being the #1 most added single at Top 40 the week after its release — on the album he displays an impressive musical growth and range which assures that both old fans and new listeners will be won over by his masterful pop-rock artistry.
And along with the growth in his music, Cabrera has also grown up in his look and personal style into adulthood. Gone is the spiky dyed-blond hair that Cabrera sported in the early video clips and television appearances that helped make him famous, replaced by long locks in his natural dark brown color and facial hair. After all, since becoming a pop star from the Dallas suburbs at age 19 with his first major label album Take It All Away — and a teen dream pin-up as an unintended result of his musical career — Cabrera has matured into a Los Angeles based sophisticate, which is reflected in The Moon Under Water (named for his favorite pub in London which took its name from the title of a poem by one of Cabrera’s favorite authors, George Orwell).
While on his six-week recent radio tour visiting stations in more than 50 cities, Cabrera did find that radio programmers, DJs and his fans were a bit taken aback by the change from how he once looked as a teen pop prodigy who went on to sell millions of records and how he now appears at 25 years old. “At some of the listening parties that the stations sponsored there would be 40 or 50 girls there. And I’d walk into the room and the only questions they had were: why did you grow your hair out and why isn’t your hair blond?” Cabrera notes. “Not to attribute anything bad to them for asking. It’s just not what I am going for. I’d just rather talk about music.”
Unlike the positive reception accorded to his new music, Cabrera admits that his new look has gotten a “half and half response” from female fans who knew him when. “Some girls are really upset, and some people are like, dude, I’m glad you don’t look like that anymore.”
His new tonsorial style was even a topic for some good-natured and complimentary kidding when Cabrera was a guest on the top-rated Kidd Kraddick in the Morning syndicated radio show on March 13. Kraddick — who has known Cabrera since he was playing the Dallas area clubs and released his independent debut album Elm Street — wondered if his fellow DJs might now mistake the musical artist for a famous and handsome movie star. “What do they say when you show up? Oh my God, Johnny Depp’s here?” Later in the show, Kraddick also compared how Cabrera looks now to “the guy that all the girls were hot for in ‘Almost Famous’” — Billy Crudup playing Russell Hammond, lead singer for the fictional band Sweetwater. “You resemble him a bit with your hair that way,”
But the final word on how Cabrera’s grown-up look is ultimately as appealing as his mature new music was recently provided by teen idol Miley Cyrus, who told Us magazine that she found him “really cute.” Yes, the adult Ryan Cabrera can still set teenage hearts aflutter — and is now starting to elicit sighs of admiration from women of all ages — but the 15-year-old pop singer and “Hannah Montana” star’s liking for his looks is completely innocent. “He’s a friend of my Dad’s!” she reports.
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