Who Is Travis Garland?

(CANVAS STAFF REPORTS) - Wednesday's "American Idol" featured a relatively unknown artist who is asking fans to believe.

Perez Hilton discovery Travis Garland, a 20-year-old singer who just released his first single "Believe," is not a stranger to the music industry. Garland was in the short-lived boy band NLT (Not Like Them) but now is setting off as a solo artist.

According to Wikipedia , NLT's members included Garland and Kevin McHale, who now plays Artie on the FOX music comedy "Glee." The group signed to TUG Entertainment in 2006 and broke up in 2009.

Their debut single "That Girl" was released on March 13, 2007. Their song "Heartburn" was included in the soundtrack of 2007's "Bratz: The Movie" and Timbaland produced their second single "She Said, I Said (Time We Let Go)" in 2007.

WGHP-TV reported that Hilton was impressed by Garland's vocals and began endorsing him, telling American Idol's Ryan Seacrest that Garland "has a better voice than Justin Timberlake."

Travis Garland's official website states that he sang and acted in plays at church as a child before attending the School for the Performing Arts in junior high school. He won a nationwide acting competition at 15 and moved to Los Angeles where he auditioned during the day and wrote songs at night.

In an interview with Entertainment Weekly Hilton said he never heard of NLT. He said a bunch of people had heard Garland's cover of "Dead and Gone" posted on Garland's MySpace and sent it to Hilton.

"I heard it and I was instantly blown away, like, 'Wow, I like this better than Timberlake!'"

Hilton said Garland is "not some boy band reject. This is a real artist. He sings, he dances, he writes, he plays piano, he produces, he engineers. He does it all. And he's also really young and hot. I really think there's a void in the marketplace for him."

Garland's debut album will be released by Interscope Records later this year. According to his website, "to give him a unique urban pop sound" it is being released by producer Nate "Danja" Hills who has worked with Timberlake, Nelly Furtado and Britney Spears.

Garland is writing or co-writing most of the album's songs.

USA Today music writer Brian Mansfield, commentator for the newspaper's Idol Chatter , said his first impression of Garland was that he was good.

"Love the falsetto, love the industrial-sized percussion," he wrote. "Travis seems to have a very light, airy voice, and he constantly looks like he's about to do something – I don't know, a flip, maybe? – that he never quite delivers on. But, still, I kind of dig the song."