Online star takes her act to the real world
When Em Rossi graduated from Petaluma High School in 2016, few of her classmates knew that she was an accomplished singer-songwriter who regularly played gigs in Los Angeles and whose self-produced YouTube videos had reached fans around the world.
“I was a total sports kid growing up,” says Rossi, 19. “Music was my side thing. I wanted it to be my own secret thing so I could go and become strong and confident — I didn’t want to be brought down by any negativity.”
Deferring admission to Boston’s Berklee College of Music, where musicians like John Mayer and Diana Krall studied, she moved to Los Angeles after finishing school and kicked off her career in earnest.
In the past year, she has become a breakout star on the music-sharing app Smule; her songs have appeared in the movies “The Late Bloomer” and “Countdown”; and the videos for her singles “Earthquake,” “Empty Space” and “Young Hearts” continue to rack up clicks (4 million and counting).
Now Rossi will return home to Petaluma, slated to perform a headlining show at the Mystic Theatre on Sunday, Oct. 1, a benefit for the San Francisco Walk to End Alzheimer’s — finally revealing her passion to her friends and family.
“The front row is going to be people who have known me since I was 8 years old,” she says. “It’s just nice to be able to come out and truly be myself and not be terrified.”
Rossi got her start singing Adele and Sara Bareilles songs (she still regularly updates her YouTube channel with covers of mainstream hits), before finding her own voice.
Drawing from her early classical and Broadway training,
“The going frontto be row peopleis who have known me since I was 8 years old. It’s just nice to be able to come out and truly be myself and not be terrified.” Em Rossi, singer-songwriter and Petaluma native
as well as support from her father — an amateur musician who passed away shortly after she recorded her first set of demos — she has developed an emotional, theatrical singing style that showcases her rich vocals.
She says she has no regrets about putting off a formal education at Berklee.
“I knew that I had a lot of momentum and if I went off and disappeared for four or five years, I wouldn’t be able to show up in L.A. and say, ‘Hi, remember me?’ ” Rossi says. “It has allowed me to hit the pavement and make things happen.”
She says the opportunities that have come her way since the move have made an immense difference.
“I’m going to be writing a lot and get back into the studio really soon to put my head down and make the next chapter of music,” she says. “I don’t feel like there are any parameters. I can really sit down and do what I love every single day.”