Passenger

Michael David Rosenberg (born 17 May 1984), better known by his stage name Passenger, is an English indie folk singer-songwriter.

Rosenberg was born on 17 May 1984 in Brighton to Quaker parents, English mother Jane and American Jewish father, Gerard Rosenberg, originally from Vineland, New Jersey.

He learned classical guitar at a young age, and began writing songs at 14 or 15.

He left school at 16 to pursue a music career, and spent the next few years as a busker in England and Australia.

Rosenberg did his first performance when he was 16.

His father, a film production worker, introduced him to Jamie Catto, a former member of the band Faithless, in 2001; it led to Rosenberg getting a two-song spot at the Free Burma Campaign benefit concert at the Royal Court in London in 2002.

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 & Garfunkel to DJ Shadow), and started writing songs at Phillips' in-house studio in Hove.

From 2003 to 2009, Rosenberg fronted a band by the same name; he opted to keep the Passenger moniker for his solo work after the band dissolved.

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.

Rosenberg founded the band Passenger with Andrew Phillips in 2003 in Brighton and Hove.

The name of the band was stylised as /Passenger. (with a slash at the beginning and a dot at the end).

The five-piece band's only album, Wicked Man's Rest, was released in 2007, on Chalkmark.

Rosenberg wrote the majority of the album's tracks, with the exception of "Four Horses", which was written by Phillips.

The band broke up in 2009.

After the break-up of Passenger, Rosenberg kept the band's name as his personal stage name, and took to busking for a solo music career.

In October 2009 he moved to Australia, where he supported acts such as Lior and Sydneysiders Elana Stone and Brian Campeau.

He then played at One Movement, a major music industry-focused festival in Perth.

This earned him a following in Australia and he was selling out 500-seater venues across Australia.

His debut solo album, Wide Eyes Blind Love, was released in 2009.

It was produced and mixed by former bandmate Andrew Phillips, who also provided backing vocals, guitar and other instruments, and featured vocals by Isobel Anderson.

Rosenberg also played various shows in the United Kingdom during this time, including a support slot for Turin Brakes' tenth anniversary show at Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in London.

Rosenberg produced a fans-only limited release Divers and Submarines, again supported by former bandmate Andrew Phillips and vocalist Isobel Anderson.

His third studio album, Flight of the Crow, was recorded in Australia and saw him joined in the studio by various Australian artistss including Lior, Kate Miller-Heidke, Boy & Bear, Josh Pyke and Katie Noonan.

Rosenberg is best known for the 2012 song "Let Her Go", which topped the charts in 16 countries and accumulated more than 3.5 billion views on YouTube.

Because Rosenberg was based in Australia at the time of release (and the clip itself was filmed at the Factory Theatre in Marrickville), it is the most-viewed Australian YouTube video of all time.

Rosenberg's fourth album, All the Little Lights, was released in the summer of 2012 in North America on Nettwerk Records.

Recorded at Linear Recording in Sydney, Rosenberg worked with a core Australian band that included Boy & Bear drummer Tim Hart, jazz bassist Cameron Undy, and keyboards player Stu Hunter, from Katie Noonan and The Captains.

During the summer and autumn of 2012, Rosenberg toured the UK, opening for Jools Holland and Ed Sheeran, the latter of whom he had known since Sheeran was about 15 while living in Cambridge.

He joined Australian acts the John Butler Trio, and Josh Pyke with a co-headlined UK tour.

He also opened for Ed Sheeran's 2012 North American tour and also in Paris.

He also opened for Ed Sheeran on four of his five sell-out dates in Ireland in January 2013 and in Australia and New Zealand in early 2013, and supported Sheeran in his Brighton dates and in Reading.

Rosenberg performed "All the Little Lights" at the Children in Need Rocks concert at the Hammersmith Apollo in London, broadcast on BBC One on 14 November 2013.

In 2014, the song was nominated for the Brit Award for British Single of the Year, and he received the British Academy's Ivor Novello Award for Most Performed Work.

A prolific singer-songwriter, Rosenberg has released 14 studio albums to date: One with the band Passenger, and 13 as a solo artist.

The most recent of these, Birds That Flew and Ships That Sailed, was released in April of 2022.

On 24 March 2014, Rosenberg unveiled "Whispers", the title track of his new album, as part of his set at the Teenage Cancer Trust charity concert at the Royal Albert Hall in London where he also performed alongside Ed Sheeran.

On 26 March 2014 Rosenberg announced details of his fifth studio album.

He released Whispers on 9 June 2014.

Talking to Digital Spy about the album, he said: "This is easily the most 'up' album I've ever made, it's quite cinematic. There are lots of big stories and big ideas. There are also some sombre moments about loneliness and death but hey, it wouldn't be a Passenger album without those".