After fronting several bands in the 2000s, pop songwriter Ross Golan found mainstream success in the following decade writing major hits for acts like Selena Gomez, Maroon 5, Flo Rida, Justin Bieber, and Keith Urban. He also wrote and starred in the award-winning musical The Wrong Man and hosted a podcast on songwriting. A native of Evanston, Illinois, Golan headed west to study music at the University of Southern California. He landed his first record deal in 2003 when EMI picked up his rap project, Reagan Baby, which he'd recorded with his band Molehead. After that band fizzled out, Golan formed his next project, the more pop-oriented guitar band Glacier Hiking, who issued a 2009 EP on Lionsgate before breaking up the following year. Over the next few years, Golan shifted his focus to writing for other artists and began to rack up some significant credits in the pop world. By 2013, he'd landed tracks with high-profile acts like Justin Bieber, Maroon 5, Cee Lo Green, Demi Lovato, and Lady Antebellum, establishing himself as a go-to industry songsmith. In 2014, he debuted a musical called The Wrong Man, about a man in Reno, Nevada, accused of a crime he didn't commit. Golan's one-man version of the show ran in L.A. and earned him three Ovation Awards. A full-scale off-Broadway version of the show later premiered in New York, and Golan released his own concept of the songs from The Wrong Man in 2019. Throughout this time, he continued adding songwriting credits to his resumé, penning songs for Charli XCX, 5 Seconds of Summer, Flo Rida, Prince Royce, and many others while also hosting And the Writer Is…, a popular podcast about songwriting. ~ Timothy Monger