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[0:09] Robert Bannon: Well, welcome to the round table, everybody. My name is Robert Bannon. You're listening to us on iHeart, Spotify, Broadway World, the Broadway Podcast Network. We're here to talk about artists and talking about art. If you've listened to, I don't know, welcome to our house. That's my jam. Or maybe you've heard, yeah, it's been a bumpy, wrote Lady A's song, That's My Jam. Follow your compass wherever it goes. So many hit songs, millions. I really love that song. It makes me smile, Ross. I love that compass record. If you love this music, if you love Bieber, if you love Selena, if you love Celine, well, our next guest has something in common with all of them. He wrote some of their songs. And now he's here to talk to us about an incredible piece of his history and a new documentary that you're gonna have to check out because he got some foundations we're gonna talk about. Welcome to the show, Ross.

[0:55] Ross Golan: Hello, everybody. Hello, hello, hello, hello. I love those songs. You know, it's amazing. You know, uh you write a song in a room with uh with friends or by yourself, whatever the scenario is, and you send it out in the world, and most of the time uh there aren't people on the other side listening to it, and it's just it live we sell air for a living. So these the song goes out and it goes on the ether, and that's it. Well, every once in a while, a song connects and you find yourself in stadiums and you're seeing people sing along something about this song, the next wa, something about it just has to speak to these people. And you're not really, you just have to keep you keep taking shots because every once in a while you you'd nail it. And so uh I'm happy that you're familiar with a couple of the songs that that squeaked through.

[1:54] Robert Bannon: A couple, a couple. We not only am I we're gonna get to I'm I'm off topic, but not only do I know a couple of the songs, not because of you, because of me, because I'm a fan, not only do I know a couple of your songs, I love your show. The wrong I saw Josh Henry do the show. I saw the night Carol, so I was online with my little ticket, and then an SUV pulled up at the wrong man, which was so incredible. MTC, it was beautiful theater, beautiful show, and Carol King got out in front of me, and it was me with my ticket, and then Carol King was behind me talking about the vibe and how exciting this show is gonna be. Ross, it was a moment, it was a whole moment.

[2:32] Ross Golan: I love that. Yeah, we are we are working, we're still working on the raw man. I've got a uh I've now written four musicals, and one's opening in January in San Diego, and we're working on the raw man, worked on this show called Inside Voices that we're trying to move with Michael Mare's director. You know, these these shows all live, and and similarly uh to every other part of our process, you you you have to go in and just believe that it's worth the time, and uh the theater's the last place on earth where a collection of random humans go and keep their phones down, so uh it's it's uh it's a wonderful place to to be. And uh the more I can be a part of it, uh the better. I will I'm I I love the theater so much. I love the raw man. Uh I love Carol, and what an experience. I'm so happy you got to see it. Loved it, loved it, loved it, loved it.

[3:31] Robert Bannon: So we're here. Um, you you're a songwriter, a producer. You have number one billboard hits for like a lot from room five to Bieber and to Keith Urban. You have been a songwriter of the year, you've fought for Music Modernization Act, you fought for songwriting Grammy Award to be given. You've been fighting for artists and rights, but you come from somewhere. That all has to come from a beginning. So when did music first come to you? When did you first realize you had a gift to do something with it?

[3:57] Ross Golan: Yeah, you know, I my mom was like me used to play piano four or five years old, and and uh I'm still a terrible piano player, but that makes you a really good songwriter most of the time because you're not overplaying. Uh and I I just picked up kind of every instrument that I could. And one of the best things of um, you know, keeping on the the theater tip or or being in jazz band or doing choir is that you're constantly forced to learn different genres versus if you're just a fan, in most cases, you listen to your genre and you stay in that world. But if you're uh uh a theater kid, uh an acapella kid, you're you're suddenly doing, you know, you're doing fiddler and you learn plasmer music, or you do bye bye birdie and you learn um you learn Rockabilly, or you do Hamilton and you learn backpack hip hop and you learn, you know, you you keep diving into these worlds and you immerse yourself for months in some of the best compositional work you can have in a genre.

So you know, I I think that that really helped me uh pursue a career where I could write in so many different genres and put on the uh an authentic happy face in each room, regardless of who, which artist, what era, you know, what country I'm working in. Uh I I I love the different forms of music.

[5:32] Robert Bannon: So does that mean that you when you you must have sang a little something, something because I know you have some a cappella background here because you're one of the notable alumni, one of the superstars. A lot of people, there's people on Broadway, there's recording artists, there's a lot of people who have come from this world. And we're talking about a documentary that's that was a big hit over at Tribeca. It was called it's called Just Sing, and it's something that won awards and has done the film festival, and it's all about the SoCal Vocals, which is University of Southern California's vocal group. They call themselves Pitch Perfect, made a cappella cool. And these are the people that kind of this this genre is kind of based on. What what how did you get in the group? When how old were you?

[6:13] Ross Golan: Yeah, so uh I went to USC and I graduated uh a little bit early in 2001. So that dates me. But when I was I I had been in a in bands, I had played with some really significant artists at this point. I was I was graduating early, but I'm from the Midwest. My sister was in a in a group at Skidmore College in New York. My best friend was the you know in Straight No Chaser, Indiana. I grew up listening to a cappella when your older sibling is in a cappella. So I had all the best of college a cappella CDs. And then I go to a school in the West Coast where a cappella was barely a thing. Soca vocals were generally new. And my senior year, I just went and I went into audition and they were like, what are you doing here?

I mean, I was in the band. Uh, you know, I'd already played with bands like The Strokes or or Eve Six or whoever down the down the line that I had I had come in contact with. And I think a lot of people in the group are like, why are you auditioning? I was like, because I love it. I can sight read. I just give me a shot. Just put me in, coach. And uh I went, I joined this group that was relatively new, ended up singing the solo when uh my year when it got to Vesa College, Jacopella. And um, you know, the other rival groups of my year, Sarah Borelist's group at UCLA, John Legends group in at Penn. I come across a lot of these professional musicians in my life since who are fellow acapella, we'll say acapella dorks, who love this, this, you know, you you have to be able to walk into a room and have jazz hands.

Like you gotta, you can't take yourself all that serious. And and you know, you're you're imitating the greatest songs in the world. And I I loved it so much. And and then to see, you know, Soka Vocals go from this like, you know, this quality group to being one of the best uh in collegiate leap of all times, you know, well, how you know I'm just I'm I'm lucky to be a part of it.

[8:32] Ross Golan: So these guys are really the these are the best singers. People from all over the world, they they go to the University of Southern California for the opportunity to audition to be in this group, to then have the group audition to get into ICCA's, which is the big competition that they show in Fitz Perfect, to then have it become the the winningest group in collegiate history. I mean, Soka Vocals for Life. For just Singfilm.com is if you want to see there'll be screenings the end of this month, April 23rd, and they'll there's different screenings around the entire country. You can see the story and follow the journey of competition. It's very competitive. You know, uh the groups that do it, whatever happened to John Legend and Sarah Borelis.

I never you never heard of them ever again. You see this all the time, by the way. And you know, you uh uh Scott Hoing is a lead singer of Pentatonics and Ben Bramman does the arrangements. They were, you know, Soka vocals. We've had Broadway stars, we've had, you know, uh really the gamut of of alumni who've done incredible things. But even just being in sessions with the biggest artists in the world, and you sit there and you're thinking of you know, background vocals and how harmonies can work to support these incredible worldwide singers, whether I've worked with, you know, the Adinas or Bublys or Celine Dion's, or you're or you're talking about, you know, the younger world of of like the the Ariana Grande's of the world, you know, you're or even when you're mentioning the flow rider song.

I those I'm singing so many harmonies in these and and I'm I'm living in the world with these artists, and even in the in the studio with them, the the fearlessness it takes to just sing at people you don't know and then ask what they think. You get that from being a uh an acapella dork.

[10:27] Ross Golan: Absolutely. Absolutely. I I saw uh pentatonics. Um, Scott was here. We went to see their show at the little, they are in incredible to do what they do in an arena with just their voices. And then you talk about Booblay and his background singers and his singers and what they do.

[10:42] Robert Bannon: Your song for Mike, by the way, uh, today is "Yesterday's Tomorrow," which he does in concert a lot. It's such a trippy, it's like it's too much math for me today, yesterday. But I got it, Ross. I gotta take it. I remember walking up to I was in Vancouver, and I was walking to the studio, and I was like, This feels like the kind of lyric that Mike would like. And you know, I haven't talked to Mike in a day, uh, maybe it was two days, but uh we still work together a lot, and he's genuinely one of the nicest, one of the smartest artists uh I've ever worked with. And he's the kind of guy you can be both clever with lyrically and melodically, and he'll go with you. I love it. So, what has when you were in the group, what what do you take from the group?

And when people are gonna see in this documentary and people want to go to college and acapella's a rage and people want to sing, and I'd be fired in a minute because I don't have perfect pitch. What what do you take with you today? What was the foundation or the skills you learned while being a part of it that makes you a professional musician?

[11:45] Ross Golan: Well, think of it, even um in any sport, in any group where you walk into a room of people who are very skilled, you know, you're competing for the opportunity to be a soloist amongst soloists. And when it's not your turn and you don't win that solo, you can't just sing your heart out in every song. You have to listen to everybody, you have to take a back seat, and you have to be someone of service to the person who is communicating the main lyric. Your job is not to be seen all the time. Your job is to support the person who is singing. That may be you, and even when you're singing, to be, if you have the solo, to be aware of the community it takes for you to be heard. All of those things are super valuable when you're talking about any professional artist who's on tour, any professional singer on stage in a musical who's who has a uh not just a cast, but an entire crew working every single night to make sure that you can shine.

It is a group effort, whether you're the soloist or not, it is absolutely group effort. And you learn that very quickly in a room full of people where you can't hide behind a guitar, can't hide behind a piano. It's just you and your naked voice with a bunch of other people and their naked voices.

[13:22] Robert Bannon: So then at that point when you were in college and you were part of the group, did you were you already thinking songwriter? Or were you looking for it? Like, when did you say, like, I'm a songwriter? That's my job now. What happened?

[13:31] Ross Golan: Yeah, that's always the question I ask people too. Um, you know, when when they're songwriters is when did you know? And and the thing is that I was I started writing songs in high school because I didn't have a ton of friends. Like I was so I lost myself in the idea that that writing songs was how I was going to communicate, how I really feel. I mean, a lot of people don't take the time to edit how they feel. And when I could actually edit through and write a song, it felt like something. So I joined the group knowing that that's um that what I love is writing something for people to sing. It happens that I sing it sometimes. But you know, now I'm the co-chair of the songwriter composer wing of the Grammys.

It's you know, to see that what what you whether you're starting from writing in your bedroom all the way through the journey of uh being an artist, going through being in an a cappella group to being an artist and writing musicals and writing you know songs, hits, all these things. It it you know, fighting for songwriters, all these things, it's it comes down to the same thing, which is this is a communal effort, and and nothing is so obvious of a communal effort than an acapella group. I I love it. I I think it is um it's it's exciting. So when people check this out, if you're a young singer, songwriter, if you're in an a cappella group or you have your guitar and you're sitting on the bed trying to write the next hit, or you're a hip hop artist with your notebook full of lyrics. What what should people take away from the the lessons in this the in this documentary and and what the group has taught you?

[15:19] Ross Golan: Just sing. It's the title of the movie, but that's it, man. You'd never you you can't just do it about we all aspire to do things, even if you're the most successful songwriter in the world, you're still aspiring for something. You're still it's there's no such when I was about that age, I I remember my mom telling some people that I was uh a struggling songwriter. I was like, no, I'm just a songwriter. All songwriters are struggling. I don't care who you are. If you're writing lyrics in your bedroom, you're struggling just like I am. I'm in a studio right now. This just happens to be where I looks like in the back. But I'm in a studio. I gotta go in there. I gotta write a song. I gotta write a song from scratch.

And somebody's gonna hear it or they won't, but I still have to go and take a swing. And that's the thing. You're you're struggling as a songwriter, no matter where you're at on the on the hierarchy. So if you're watching that documentary and you have lyrics in front of you, join the club. Join and you're a part of the exclusive club that makes music. Uh, if five people hear it or five million people hear it, it's a club that makes music. The music I I can only imagine when you see it go to a concert and they sing your song, or when people are singing it, or you videoing it, covering it on YouTube, TikTok, it must be incredible that these songs move people and they come from your studio and your head with your with your collaborators and yourself, and then it makes such a difference in somebody's life. Your songs are songs that babies are born, weddings, dances are danced to, you know, you know, special events, art parties are celebrated to. It has to be incredible.

[17:03] Ross Golan: Yeah, I've said this story, but you know, I've seen songs go from you know, a voice memo to watching a flyover in the middle of the Rose Bowl, and then having a hundred and ten thousand people singing every lyric of your song, and and in a matter of about a year and a half, going from nobody knows this song, nobody's heard this melody, to full body chills, and and looking at my friends, you know, oh I'm just in awe of what a song can do, you know, it's an honor and it's a privilege to provide some part of some people's soundtrack you know whether they played it at their wedding whether it's been played at a funeral whether it's been part of somebody's life it's truly an honor and and I don't think uh I don't take it for granted most of the professional writers I know don't take it for granted it's it's something that we we just strive for over and over again is to is how can we at the smallest entertain a uh you know a fan of an artist to to making people you know cry or smile or dance too.

I mean what what an honor to be a part of that process. I love it. I'm obsessed with what you all do. So if next time you hear you know Ari on on the radio or Justin on the radio or you're in this you're at Ralph's he's in LA so I'll say Ralph's you're at Ralph's and you hear "Good to Be Alive" right about now who that that you gotta remember that raw if I was in this listen you can't I can't be your friend because if I was in the Ralphs and I heard good you know Andy Grammer singing that song I would blow up your spot so fast. I'd be like you got that song he's right here I should I should keep you around and and you're you're welcome to I'm I would love to go through Ralph's with you.

[19:02] Ross Golan: But here's the here's the here's the thing about someone like Andy Grammer. You know it's like you go in you write that song we wrote a song called "Fresh Eyes" that was lovely that was a a big song and and and "Good to Be Alive" amongst a few others and the reality is like when my you know when my first when my wife was pregnant with with our our son Andy and his wife Asia hosted our you know our baby shower because you become so close with these artists when you can really dive in and you really can you what when so many of these artists uh become part of your family and you you can't pull these you can't pull a lot of these things apart so you know I hear that song and I think about ah that's a great example that song all those background vocals were done by Andy's wife Andy's father and a bunch of SoCal Vocals.

Wow see because I was looking for who could sing this I emailed the SoCal Vocals they say who wants to come on this song they all come to the studio a bunch of them sang on it and then every time it was in a commercial every time it was somewhere those guys got a nice little check I mean that was how how awesome is that that's that is and that's what the power of this community and this group is going to do.

[20:24] Robert Bannon: So you have to definitely check out the documentary go follow we're gonna put all your info so that people can follow you on the journey for your musicals for your songs the songs you're listening to I I love your music I love your catalog of music I'll go listen to Albi by Celine who sold out her whole run in Paris listen to those incredible incredible and guess who she calls come on now people that's what it's about you could what the heck is that what the heck is that that could be you I'll meet you at Ralph's this summer I'll be ready all right I'm there check check it out everybody just sing is coming out about click the link below so you could be a part of it and and check it out. If you love music, it's a documentary you gotta check out. And Ross, thank you so much for spending some time with us.

[21:06] Ross Golan: Of course.

[21:07] Robert Bannon: All right. Take care, guys.