The unconventional artist As Dean says ... “Ive been called mysterious, intense, confusing, crazy and captivating. But at the end of the day, I’m just a guy with a guitar and a story to tell. Live and love...”

Australian audiences became aware of Melbourne-based singer Dean Ray on April 4th during the auditions of X-FactorAustralia. Dean had the crowd wildly cheering to his own rendition of 'Bette Davis Eyes' with Redfoo telling Dean to 'check your passport, because you're out of this world man.'

Dean grew up in tiny Meandarra, QLD with his father Chris, a contract stockman, and mother Angie, a stay-at-home mum. Dean says he was born into music. While heavily pregnant with Dean, Angie was playing bass in rock bands. In fact his parents were musicians on the country-music circuit, which lead to Dean traveling Australia with his parents. and sleeping in guitar cases while they packed up their gear to travel to the nextbeer soaked venue.

'Traveling with musicians you pick up a think or two' says Dean. At age 6 he was keen to learn the drums, After only 5 lessons, he had it. Then at 13. Dean learnt to play the guitar, and that's also when he began to write songs. Dean and his brother, who played piano, were recruited into their parents' band 'Itchy Feet'. Dean remembers, 'That was the start, I just got better and better.'

At only 16 years of age, Dean left his family home to follow his musical dream. 'I left home young because I just felt that chapter was over and I wanted to see others things. I wanted to go broke, I wanted to sleep under bridges...' During this time Dean traveled and worked on farms to get by which lead to a back injury working in a warehouse. This forced him in to playing music full time to pay the rent.

2014 is the year for Dean he says 'Everything has just fallen into place.'

On October 20th Dean Ray was announced the runner up of the X-Factor 2014 series. With 13 songs in the top 200 on the ARIA Chart as well as already reaching #1 twice as well as his debut Album reaching #2 and #1 on the Sanity Music Charts, it's only the beginning....