“Music and War, that’s basically been my life.”

 

With piercing blue eyes, arms covered with artful tattoos, and a gentle smile, Omer Netzer is anything but a typical country artist hailing from small-town USA. If music is storytelling, he has quite the story to tell. Nashville’s latest Country/Southern Rocker has easily lived five different lives. He served as a combat medic in his home country of Israel, dominated the Israeli charts as a popstar opening for mega artists like Bon Jovi, became a trained equine therapist, as well as a detective, and returned to serve in the military a second time after the October 7th terrorist attack. He is now living the American dream as one of the fastest rising country artists in music city.

 

Netzer grew up in Nahariya, Israel, a coastal town less than two miles from the Lebanon border. With green rolling farmland, it is a backdrop familiar to those found in the lyrics of country songs. From an early age, music was a mainstay, with his parents owning the town’s music shop, a 45-year-old institution. An old soul at heart, some of Netzer’s earliest memories include jamming with other musicians, often two or three times his age, and diving into artists like Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, and Willie Nelson, which were unique for a kid living in Israel. Add B.B. King, The Allman Brothers Band, Hank Williams, and Elvis, to the list and it is easy to see how Netzer found his way to writing country and blues music. 

 

Music served as the heartbeat to an idyllic upbringing, and also a salvation to a child growing up in a war-torn country. “There were beautiful times where the sun was shining, and the kids were all playing outside, but there were also times that I couldn't go outside,” Netzer shares. “I was in the bomb shelter playing my guitar. And that's one of the first times that music saved my life.”

 

At age 18, he enlisted in the Israeli military as a combat medic, making the hasty jump to adulthood. While in the military, music was always a thread, with a guitar readily available to play or a way to blow off steam after long days, he saw it as more of a hobby than a career path. After his service ended, life changed course yet again, and Netzer went on to become a licensed equine therapist. 

 

It was there that he was able to pursue his own healing journey through horses to process his time in the military, and lyrics and emotions began to pour out. “My heart had changed, and I wanted to change something in other people’s hearts. I started writing songs and called one of the musicians from my dad’s store who was a producer saying, ‘Hey, let’s record something together, maybe it will work.’” The two ended up recording an album, Goodbye Song, that spurred three hits on Israeli radio and garnered Netzer the title of Israel’s Top Musical Artist. 

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He went on to perform all over Europe, including the Sziget festival in Hungary in 2018 with artists such as Kendrick Lamar, Lana Del Ray, Mumford & Sons, and Lewis Capaldi. In 2019, his music got into the hands of Bon Jovi’s team, who asked him to open for the multi-platinum selling band in Tel Aviv. Netzer then made his way to the States for the first time, representing Israel in the International Blues Fest in Memphis, TN. On that trip, he arrived in Nashville and received some life-changing advice from Bon Jovi’s manager, who urged him to start writing songs in Music City and build a community.