It’s been said that the only constant in life is change. Some view change as a terrifying thing, others realize that without change, there is no progress. To seasoned singer/songwriter Rosi Golan, change presents an opportunity for growth; she has forged full steam ahead into the great wide open, embracing change in more ways than one. “I was feeling a bit stagnant and needed a creative change of pace and change of place,” she recalls. “I went to Europe and lived in Paris for a while—French was my first language, and I had a lot of family living there. Being anywhere different is so inspiring, even something small like being on a train or taking a walk,” she continues. “When you completely change your scenery by going to another country, your perspective changes, and it puts you in a completely different frame of mind.”
In her new locale, Golan wrote off and on for periods of time, and became infatuated with several of her new compositions. “It was like I was collecting very specific songs during that time,” she recalls of the foundational tunes for her album set for release on July 14th, Collecting Bullets—ones that sounded vastly different than her pervious work. “I grew up listening to pop music; I can clearly remember my favorite song when I was like two years old was ‘Smooth Operator’ by Sade,” she says with a laugh. “I didn’t grow up with folk or country, but I became a fan over time, and my style morphed into the folk pop/acoustic categories. I always wanted to do something more electronic, more pop, and less folky,” she adds. “It was the right time.”
Golan partnered with a small cast of characters for the album’s creation, another change from her previous processes, and co-wrote songs with producer Kevin Seaton, along with fellow artist and friend Madi Diaz. “I love her music,” says Golan. “We’d been talking about writing together for a long time and it finally happened. It was awesome. We all had a great chemistry. Kevin totally understood the direction I wanted to take my music. He has a knack for making electronic music with an organic feel, and that’s what I love about it,” she says of Seaton’s influence. “He cares that there’s an actual song there, instead of just creating parts.”
When you’re on a roll, keep it going right? For the last decade, Golan has traveled to Nashville to write music, and a few months ago, the Los Angeles-based Golan has officially declared herself a Nashville resident, at least part-time anyway. “I’m going to be kind of a brat about it and try to avoid the winter and the summer here,” she laughs of her new hometown. “I lived in New York for 15 years, and I had really hot summers and insanely cold winters, and I really didn’t want to do that anymore. I’m Israeli and we have crazy hot summers, intense humidity, and the ozone layer is really thin over the Middle East, but from all my years living in the States, I think I’ve become a wuss,” she laughs. “The real reason I can’t hang out in Nashville in the summer is because I have big curly hair which gets really frizzy here, it can’t handle the heat,” she admits with a laugh. “I just had to come clean.”
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