Passenger Biography

Passenger (Michael David Rosenberg) is an English singer, songwriter and musician who sings music of the genres Folk rock and Indie folk. He was a member of a band which he had co-founded by the name /Passenger. as the main vocalist and songwriter. After their breakup in 2009, he adopted the name as his stage name pursuing a solo career since then. 

Rosenberg learnt how to play the guitar at the young age of 14- 15 years when he also began writing songs. He has previously worked as a chef and spent his spare time on writing music and practicing guitar. At the age of 16, he dropped out of high school to pursue a career in music and spend his time as a busker in England and Australia.

His father introduced him to ex-Faithless member Jamie Catto in 2001, leading to a two-song spot at the Free Burma Campaign benefit gig at the Royal Court in London in 2002. On that night he met his future writing partner Andrew Phillips and established contact with the IE Music label.

Back in Brighton, Phillips and Rosenberg pooled their musical influences (from Simon And Garfunkel to DJ Shadow), and started to write songs at Phillips’ in-house studio in Hove. In 2003, they formed the Mike Rosenberg Band engaging Marcus O’Dair (bass), Alon Cohen (drums) and Richard Brinklow (keyboards) through connections within the Brighton music scene.

Passenger Age

The songwriter was born on 17 May 1984 17th May 1984 in Brighton, East Sussex, United Kingdom. He is 34 years old as of 2018.

Passenger Family

Rosenberg was born to an American Jewish father, Gerard Rosenberg from Vineland, New Jersey and an English mother Jane. His parents were Quakers. Quakers (or Friends) are members of a historically Christian group of religious movements all generally united in a belief in the ability of each human being to experientially access “the light within”, or “that of God in every one”. The movements are formally known as the Religious Society of Friends or Friends Church.

Passenger’s Photo

Passenger Band

In 2003, Rosenberg founded the band ‘Passenger’ with Andrew Phillips and Hove. The name of the band was stylized as /Passenger. (with a slash at the beginning and a dot at the end).

The band consisted of him (Michael Rosenberg), Marcus O’Dair (bass), Alon Cohen (drums) and Richard Brinklow (keyboards). In 2007 they released their debut and only album ‘ Wicked Man’s Rest’. The band broke up in 2009.

Rosenberg took to busking for a solo music career adopting the stage name ‘Passenger’. He first took his act in October 2009 to Australia, where he supported acts such as Lior and Sydneysiders Elana Stone and Brian Campeau, and then played One Movement, a major music industry-focus festival in Perth.

In 2009, he released his debut solo album, ‘Wide Eyes Blind Love’. His follow up album, ‘Flight of the Crow’ was released  in 2010.

Passenger Tour

• All the Little Lights Tour (2012–13)
• Whispers Tour (2014)
• Whispers II North American Tour (2015)
• Whispers ll Australia Tour (2015–16)
• Young as the Morning Old as the Sea Tour (2016–17)

He is currently on tour on the dates outlined below:

To get tickets to the live concerts, click here.

Passenger Albums

Studio Albums

• 2007: Wicked Man’s Rest- with the band
• 2009: Wide Eyes Blind Love
• 2010: Divers & Submarines
• 2010: Flight of the Crow
• 2012: All the Little Lights
• 2014: Whispers
• 2015: Whispers II
• 2016: Young as the Morning Old as the Sea
• 2017: The Boy Who Cried Wolf
• 2018: Runaway

Passenger Songs

• Let Her Go
• Heart’s On Fire
• The Wrong Direction
• Young as the Morning, Old as the Sea
• Life’s for the Living
• Anywhere
• Holes
• Beautiful Birds
• Somebody’s Love
• When We Were Young
• Walk You Home
• Scare Away the Dark
• Golden Leaves
• Keep On Walking
• All the Little Lights
• Hell or High Water
• Why Can’t I Change
• Runaway
• Heart to Love
• Survivors
• The Boy Who Cried Wolf
• A Kindly Reminder
• Travelling Alone
• David
• Fear of Fear
• Somebody’s Love
• Anywhere

Passenger Height

He stands at 5 Feet 10 Inch.

Passenger Let Her Go

Album: All the Little Lights
Released: 2012
Nominations: Brit Award for British Single among others
Genres: Singer-Songwriter, Neo-Folk, Pop

To Be Free

Passenger Net Worth

He has an estimated net worth of $14 million with an estimated income of $7 million per year.

Passenger Facebook

Passenger Twitter

Tweets by passengermusic

Passenger Instagram

https://www.instagram.com/p/BnoPXfqh4IY/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

Passenger Interview

Published: August 28, 2018
Source: https://americana-uk.com/

I’ve been lucky enough to hear the new record in advance and it’s absolutely beautiful, with echoes of Ryan Adams, the Jayhawks, Tom Petty. Can you tell me a bit about how the album developed?

Thank you firstly, that’s really sweet. I write a lot you know, this is my tenth record, and I had all these songs and I sort of started putting them all together. I was playing through all of them and I realised there was this group of about 9 or 10 that had this really cohesive feel with each other, and it was this American kind of theme. Like there’s 2 or 3 on the record that are directly about Detroit, Yellowstone National Park, a story about my grandparents and my dad who are American; but with all of them it felt like there was this running theme throughout, this kind of big road trippy epic American landscape kind of thing. So yeah it’s an interesting one, it kind of grew from there into this big… well you know, embrace it, embrace it musically, let’s have mandolin and banjo and lapsteel and all of these wonderful colours that I’ve maybe shied away from in the past.

I know your dad is American although you didn’t grow up there. Have you always felt a connection with the US?

Definitely. I mean I’ve been going to the States since I was 2 years old, my dad grew up in New Jersey and I’ve still got tonnes of family around that sort of East coast area so yeah it feels like a kind of second home to me. And obviously I’ve toured there a lot as well. So it’s a funny thing, I never thought I would make an American record but it’s happened so here we are.

You’ve said you feel the record has a really strong sense of americana and I think that’s true in both a geographical and musical sense. I think there’s definitely a link back to ‘Travelling Alone’ for instance from your ‘Whispers II’ record which I always thought was an absolute country classic. Have you been interested in the genre for a while?

Of course yeah, I’ve grown up on American songwriters my whole life – listening to Paul Simon and Bob Dylan and people like John Prine, you know, classic real songwriters, they’ve been the lion’s share of what I’ve really focused on as a writer, and as influences too. I mean Americana has always been an influence, I think I’ve just embraced it slightly more this time around.

In the States Billboard groups americana and folk together into one chart, separate from country, but they’re all genres that tell stories which I think fits your music so well.

Yeah that’s right, and I think folk is just the English version of that right? If you go back to early folk it’s all storytelling, that’s exactly what it is, some guy telling a story in a pub to 50 people with a guitar you know. I think all of this music springs from the same thing – it’s that need, probably quite an ancient fundamental human need, to tell stories and I think that’s probably why we still respond to it in such a soulful way.

Did you ever think about adding “A Kindly Reminder” as a bonus track on the new album?!

I didn’t (laughs) I didn’t think that would go down too well with the American demographic or some of them. You know it’s funny, I wrote that song just after Trump got into power. I’m not overly political in my music, there’s a couple of songs where I’ve touched on politics but I leave that to people who really know their stuff. I’m a normal guy, I didn’t spend my 10,000 hours in politics, so I don’t feel like I have a special opinion or anything particularly valid to say, but you know, someone like Donald Trump is so perplexingly terrifying that I just felt moved to express my opinions. And you know what, it was the first thing I’ve ever put out where I knew before putting it out that it was going to be a bit controversial and it’s going to ruffle some feathers, and it was quite a weird experience getting a lot of pushback online.

And did you?

Yeah of course, a lot of Americans, and not just Americans, a lot of people on YouTube were like “Right, cool, I’m not going to listen to Passenger anymore” and all of this kind of stuff. I don’t think a political opinion should necessarily turn you off someone’s music… but anyway it’s fine, all good, it all comes out in the wash!