Omer Netzer was selling CDs and vinyl at 10 years old. His parents owned a music store in Nahariya, in northern Israel, and the shelves held everything from blues and rock and roll to jazz and country.

“When you grow up with something, you don’t really appreciate it much,” Netzer says. “Looking back, I’m realizing how magical it was.”

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The store taught him about people as much as music, because the regulars weren’t always who you’d expect. Some were lawyers, some were regular folks who wandered in off the street, and all of them loved records.

“It doesn’t matter what you have in life,” he says. “Music was always around people. I understand what music can do to people.”

He got his first drum kit at 6 and his first guitar at 12. “That’s when I was like, okay, I need to be in the front.”

Eric Clapton shaped his playing. “I have that feeling in my fingers,” he says. “It’s nothing that you can learn.” Then there was Woodstock. At 13 or 14, Netzer watched Joe Cocker flail through his set and saw himself. “That was just me,” he says. “That was my life, always exploring music.”

At first he didn’t think music could be a career path. Netzer wanted to help people, so he went to study equine therapy, but somewhere in the middle of it, he started writing and recording, and decided to put his songs out. One became a radio hit in Israel, then a second, then a third. He started touring, and his second album took him to European festivals, including Sziget in Budapest. Then he opened for Bon Jovi in Israel and got invited to play in Memphis.

It was actually Bon Jovi’s management that pointed him toward Nashville. Their advice was to build a community and write better songs, and Nashville was the place to do it. For a few years, Netzer flew back and forth to write, but three years ago, he moved for good. According to his team, his music has since racked up more than 10 million streams and 17 million YouTube views.

“I just want to get better in everything that I’m doing,” he says. “Music, writing, playing, everything. I can’t sit still.”

No Plan B

Netzer believes real success in music takes two things. “You have to be crazy, and have a hunger to eat the whole world every day,” he says. “I think I have both.”

Two weeks after he landed in Nashville, not knowing if he could even stay, the Country Radio Seminar came to town. He didn’t know anyone, but he walked in like he belonged, and found an empty chair, and started talking to people. 

“I was like, okay, you have one shot, and you’re gonna make it,” he says. “There’s no plan B. All I have is the music. I’m here in this world to create, to write songs, to play, and to tell people that it doesn’t matter where you’re coming from. Music is the bridge. It’s a universal language.”

His lyrics run deep, and so does he. “I’m asking myself really deep questions every day,” he says. He once played a show at Zanies, the Nashville comedy club, and warned them upfront. “I told them, I don’t know how to be funny. I can either be sad or sexy. You can choose.”

Both sides are on the record, along with his mistakes. “I want to show people that you can make mistakes, and it’s fine,” he says. “We’re not perfect. You still need to embrace it and love yourself. That is my journey.”

The Sacred and The Profane

Let It Sing: Side A debuts October 2, with focus track “Unholy” arriving alongside it. Produced by David “Messy” Mescon, who co-wrote Megan Moroney’s No. 1 hit “6 Months Later,” the five-track EP was recorded at FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama. It pushes Netzer’s country roots into Southern soul, blues-soaked Americana, roots-rock, and alt-country, tracing the aftermath of heartbreak from grief and escapism to temptation, accountability, and a shot at redemption. At its center are two songs that tell a greater story.

“Praise the Lord (For a Woman)” is about the search for love, and the sweet, sinful detours a man takes before he finds the one. “I’m looking for the right partner,” Netzer says, half-blushing, “but I still need to meet plenty of potential partners that might not be right to realize what I need and what I want.”

“Unholy,” the EP’s focus track, is a musical exploration of what happens after you find the one. “You can pray together,” he says, “but you can also go live on the edge.” He’s quick to add a disclaimer. “Life is about balance. Don’t live on those edges. It’s not good for your health.”

The videos follow the same narrative arc. The “Praise the Lord” clip premiered September 2, and “Unholy” consummates the story on October 8. Netzer took his aesthetic cues from Ryan Coogler’s Sinners, and the two videos drip with symbolism, from cherry-red curtains and speakeasy debauchery to luscious costumes and esoteric imagery. Voodoo magic works as a metaphor for control, binding it all into one continuous tale about the heights, the depths, and the intense penetration of an all-consuming love that reaches beyond the veil.

“When was the last time you saw two music videos that are all in one?” he says. “I just wanted to create something extraordinary.”

No Boxes

Onstage, Netzer says he transforms into another person. “It’s a whole different me,” he says. “Some kind of animal spirit. I just feel the music, I see colors.” The new music brought him back to his electric guitar roots, and when he played CMA Fest in June, he said he was the only one who brought horns. You can catch a glimpse of that transformation in his FAME Sessions, full-band performances filmed at the legendary Muscle Shoals studio, starting with “Praise the Lord – LIVE from FAME Recording Studios.”

He may have found a home in Nashville, but the blues is in his blood, and he’d prefer to braid genres than be easily defined as one thing. “I grew up on Clapton and B.B. King, those swampy blues and jazzy, New Orleans vibes,” he says. “I’m bringing everything.” Two days before our call, he wrote a song with a heavy classical passage in the middle.

“I know that people need boxes,” he says. “But have you tried to put Jimi Hendrix in a box?”

If you’ve got Ray LaMontagne, Maggie Rose, The War and Treaty, Charley Crockett, or Chris Stapleton in rotation, Netzer belongs right next to them.

Like a vinyl record, the story continues on the flip side. Three more singles will lead up to Side B on February 26, 2027, and Netzer is already filming new material for it. As for touring, he’s promising surprises and announcements soon.

“I have more stories to tell,” he says with a sultry smile. 

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