Having fronted multiple groups throughout the 2000s, pop songwriter Ross Golan achieved widespread commercial breakthrough during the subsequent decade by crafting major hits for performers including Selena Gomez, Maroon 5, Flo Rida, Justin Bieber, and Keith Urban. He further wrote and performed the lead in the award-winning musical The Wrong Man while launching a podcast focused on the craft of songwriting.
Born in Evanston, Illinois, Golan relocated westward to pursue music studies at the University of Southern California. His initial recording contract arrived in 2003 after EMI acquired the rap project Reagan Baby, which he had created alongside his band Molehead. Once that ensemble dissolved, he assembled the more pop-leaning guitar outfit Glacier Hiking, which delivered a 2009 EP via Lionsgate before disbanding the next year.
In the ensuing period Golan redirected his energies toward composing material for fellow artists, accumulating notable placements across the pop landscape. By 2013 he had secured cuts with prominent names such as Justin Bieber, Maroon 5, Cee Lo Green, Demi Lovato, and Lady Antebellum, solidifying his reputation as a sought-after industry tunesmith. In 2014 he introduced the musical The Wrong Man, centered on a man in Reno, Nevada, wrongfully charged with an offense. His solo iteration of the production played in L.A. and brought him three Ovation Awards. An expanded off-Broadway staging later opened in New York, after which Golan issued his own rendering of the songs from The Wrong Man in 2019. Across these years he sustained a steady flow of songwriting contributions, supplying tracks to Charli XCX, 5 Seconds of Summer, Flo Rida, Prince Royce, and additional acts while hosting the popular podcast And the Writer Is… devoted to songwriting.
