Originally from Montreal, Canada, Michael Rosen is a multi-talented guy as a drummer, harmonica player, and producer who I started working with in 2015. Michael started playing music, as most of us do, when he was younger when he joined his next door neighbor’s band as the drummer. He went on to work with artists like Rosemary Clooney and Stephanie Mills before moving to California.
We met after I saw an ad Michael placed on Craigslist where he was looking for gigs as a chromatic harmonica player. I got excited to meet with him because that fit the type of musical style I was doing in my sets. He became the first musician I worked with after I moved to California and our first appearance was doing the music for an event at an Ojai church.
Over the next two years we would work together occasionally when I had the budget to include him in my solo gigs. Then in 2020 I reached out to him to join me taking step towards a duo and trio to build out a band, which led to us doing over 200 more sets together. We even played each week at the Wednesday Night party I created at my apartment building during the pandemic where we would perform for folks standing in the street. We consistently jammed together at parks or to rehearse and get better at our setlist.
I appreciate that Michael's efforst as he has to drive fairly far to gig with me from Hollywood up the coast. He's is a jack of all trades being a member of the Angela O’Neil and The Outrageous8, a photographer that has been in publications like People Magazine, and he owns a recording studio called Media-Shmedia producing records for local artists.
He’s a true blue musician and he said “his love of music and being a musician guided [him] to record and produce”. That’s the type of passion I like to be surrounded by and I am thankful to him for what he has added to the Soul Stingers style.
“Michael brings the grease” I like to say.
Stream "Northern Lights" here