NOLAN C. GROSS

[2/28/2003]

Creative Engineer: Musician, Designer, Actor, Director, Videographer, Stylist

about:

Nolan Gross was born on February 28th, 2003 in Corona, California. He has always been a performer, putting on fake rock concerts from a very early age. At age 6, Nolan started asking about being on T.V. and saying it would be fun to act. He started acting classes and really flourished. During the summer of 2012, Nolan traveled between Iceland and New York playing the role of Young Ham in the Darren Aronofsky film "Noah.” This set the pathway for Nolan to pursue acting from a young age. He then landed roles in Terminator, CSI, American Horror Story, Drink & many more films and T.V, shows, plus a ton of commercials (some aired at the Superbowl). Find his acting discography here. Nolan has also enjoyed modeling from a young age and has worked for many notable brands. He still is pursuing acting and modeling and is inspired to find new ways to blend the world of film with music. He has enjoyed playing the roles of others, but it made him think about who he really is in this world. He has always felt a call to go behind the camera and started capturing his own story. Since then, he has pursued many different mediums and creative endeavors. One of his first projects behind the camera creative direction projects was for Nike, in which he created a commercial for their in-house team about what the youth is really looking for in their brand. He has a knack for capturing raw emotions through visuals.

photos by @kamdenkodimer

MUSIC:

Nolan is a natural when it comes to creating. He puts his touch on every aspect of his creation process. He compresses his feelings and thoughts into many different outlets that allow for expression. This range has allowed him to experience many different mediums in the creative worlds. He creates art for himself and trusts his creative intuition, which makes him stand out. He does it all to tell a bigger story. His mission is vast, but also very simple...to INSPIRE.

Nolan created his first musical album at the age of 16 and started to learn how to write songs and produce. He called this body of work, "The Path To Forever." A “30-minute album with seven music videos to accompany the feelings expressed through the songs.” Traveling from Orange County to Redding, CA to make this album, he found himself secluded from the life he was living and felt a new mode turn on. There were no distractions, just inspiration. He spent day after day in the studio with just him and a producer. He would fly home on the plane ride with a whole new batch of songs to reflect and listen to. He was figuring out ways he could tell his story through the outlet called music. He knew he wanted to blend his love for acting, music, fashion, editing, performing and passion into a world of his own. He created “The Path To Forever”  in a span of four months and on his 17th birthday, he released the album. This was a big step for his journey, it was a new pathway that was opened. He had no expectations for anything, he just knew that when the album was released into the world, it had the opportunity to impact others. He had an album listening and watch party to play the songs and videos he had made. That day was truly the start of a new pathway for Nolan.

LOOK UP!

Right after the album came out, the world started to shut down and that’s when we moved to Santa Cruz, CA. We took a step back and asked ourselves, “Why not make another album, but with an expanded, solid crew around and make this next one even more dialed in?” We began making my second album right when we moved up to a retreat center called Rainbow Ridge. Producers Steve Wilmot and David Tosti came up to create some music with my homie Ethan and I. We made two songs in two days and it felt so natural working all together. This eventually led to us creating a whole album of songs.I learned a lot about what it meant to “LOOK UP!” which has been a potent message I’ve resonated with and have come back to whenever I have felt out of balance. There is a trampoline buried into the ground amongst the Redwood trees at Rainbow Ridge. When you lay down and look up, all you see is a tree vortex around you. Looking up and seeing the light glimmering through the branches, it feels like it has its own temperature than other parts of the property. I found so much peace within those moments of presence with nature. That’s where I learned to “LOOK UP!” and that’s what inspired a lot of my lyrics, feelings, and emotions that I share on the album we created in the woods. The songs stemmed from a bliss state and with ease, so we wanted to see if we could dig deeper all together. At the end of that weekend, we talked about creating more together and all agreed to a full album. Alternating from creating a few times in Santa Cruz and other times at Steve’s studio, it was a dream to get back in the process of making music and evolving. I started to gain depth from those sessions, and it felt like I was learning how to dig deeper into parts of my soul that wanted to be expressed. The way I approached production shifted drastically as well. Watching a more advanced producer (a high level wizard on the computer & analog instruments) gave me a deeper connection to creating music. We’ve gone through a lot of stages of making this project and it’s almost done. It’s been almost 3 years since we started making it, but the timing feels divine and I’m excited to let it out into the world. It’s been an amazing journey crafting and creating something new. The time spent on my second album will be felt in all different textural ways that will articulate the story of the past few chapters of my life.

RAINBOW RIDGE

Two weeks after the album dropped, our world went into some of the weirdest times our matrix has seen in a long time,"2020."Which led us to live in Santa Cruz, CA. We were forced too, basically by nature and how the world works. We were given the opportunity to live in community and host people at our oasis. We spent 80 days renovating the whole property. It was Heaven on Earth. Living in the forest, being secluded from the world, finding myself, creating my second album. The world started to shut down and shift and a lot was changing. My family, some friends, and I decided to move to the woods and rebuild a retreat center. The first time we ever visited the property, I saw the house and just heard a presence say, “Home.” At that time I didn’t know it would be our home for 2020, but I will never forget the overwhelming feeling that something in the air felt right. Turns out about a week later we got news that we would be moving there. No plans for how long, but we knew it was a place to ground while the world was shifting. We were helping build an oasis surrounded by nature. The first 80 days felt like we were building a better reality, watching the land change with the way we were living in connection with the earth. We put up a few vintage airstreams and container homes. There was a yurt that was already set up, so my friend and I called dibs. We named it “The Spaceship.” Honestly our goal was to create a dream space. We were living in a circle, which was a first and was what changed the way I lived my life. We were floating in the trees, had a beautiful skylight, perfect frequency to create…it was a vortex of energy. This place that became our home so quickly became something that we opened up to many more.

Every week having a different group of people show up at our little property in the middle of the woods to sit in ceremony together changed the way I was experiencing life. I started to interact with so many different walks of life in such an open hearted space, it was truly beautiful. We got to come together and dissolve the outdated and disconnecting ways of thinking and seeing each other. By the end of the weekend it felt like the people showing up at our door, some being strangers, were a part of our family now. Just because we were open to each other. Showing each other the highest versions of ourselves. The Ridge was a time in my life that I would say shifted my life forever and there aren’t many moments that I could say have had as much impact as this place did. It was a little piece of Heaven on Earth and we got to share that. We allowed others to expand their consciousness with sacred medicine and sit in ceremony spaces together, while letting each other be seen, felt, heard, listened to, safe, and loved. We gave people the space to be led in meditation, breathwork sessions, yoga, sauna and ice bath, massage, and a place to let go of the world that was trying to induce fear and stopping souls from doing what they came here to do.  This place will hold so many dear memories in my heart that I can’t even wrap up into words what it meant to me. Seeing the lives of others change so quickly because of a new awakened Spirit inside is something spectacular to witness. The last few days we had at the ridge felt different, they felt precious. I got back into The Spaceship and the essence of the room took me right back. As I cried on the floor of this circle in the middle of the woods, the moonlight greeted me, a disheveled version of the greatest room I had ever lived in and I was reliving all the times I could remember experiencing on the land around. Truly some of the best moments of my life. It was pretty hard to let go of this place that held such beautiful memories in my story. Those memories I had in the yurt, the garden, walking in the woods, sharing space, smok’n joints, laughing, crying, understanding, grieving, releasing, healing, sitting still, holding ceremony, being present, meeting my best friends, and experiencing life to its fullest…are all the pieces in this amazing puzzle of life.

Thank you to all my friends, family & strangers that have become a part of this journey. The support never goes unnoticed. The support in so many aspects of my life. For showing up to our shows, buying the clothes I create, all the text messages, comments, reshares, it helps fuel the vision. Grateful you get to witness my evolution as a soul on this Earth in the year 2023. & Thank You to Aya Safieddine for the immense support and love on helping this website come to fruition and the hours of endless work and dedication to help me find the perfect pocket. So proud of us. LOVE!

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