Brett Young has become one of country music’s defining voices — a storyteller with a soulful edge and an artist whose songs capture love, heartbreak, and the moments in between. Since his breakout in 2017 with his self-titled debut, the California native has struck a rare balance between polished modern country and timeless emotional depth, earning multi-platinum hits like ‘In Case You Didn’t Know,' ‘Mercy' and ‘Here Tonight.' With his smooth vocals, Cali/pop-soul influences and honest lyricism, Young has built a global fanbase that connects deeply with his openhearted approach to songwriting.
Now on his Back to Basics tour, Brett Young is embracing a new era — one that strips away spectacle in favour of connection. The tour highlights his romantic ballads, the uptempo bangers and his evolving sound, blending nostalgia with a renewed sense of freedom and authenticity. As he takes his music across the UK, including a stop in Birmingham, fans are treated to a night that celebrates everything that makes Young special: raw emotion, masterful storytelling, and the kind of sincerity that continues to set him apart in today’s country scene. We caught up with him to talk all about it.
Thank you for your time on a show day Brett, we very much appreciate it.
You're welcome, thank you for taking the time to come in, that zoom is getting old, right? This is a much better way to do it!
I'd like to officially welcome you to Europe and the UK – the home of the Ryder Cup winners 2025!
Yeah – you gonna rub that one in? (laughing)
Did the American fightback on the Sunday soften the blow a little bit?
Yeah, I guess overall that softened the blow but since I was there on the Friday it was a little bit like a twist of the knife that I didn't get to see the Americans performing at that level! I don't think any comeback was going to be enough after those first two days – it was quite the beating!
The Dodgers win in the World Series must have made up for that a little bit?
My Dodgers have kept me pretty happy since about 2020. Three in the last six years, right? We're talking dynasty at this point I think.
How did the World Series games fit in with your tour schedule? Did you get to see much of it?
I found a way to watch Saturday's game on my phone. I was laying in bed, I felt good, I was excited about it and then I woke up at 7.30am in the morning having missed the tying home run and the winning home run and those defensive plays too! (laughing) My phone was dead on my chest so I plugged it in and found out we'd won and went back to bed!
Watching the highlights didn't quite feel the same but we won so it wasn't all bad!
You must have needed your beauty sleep!?
Every trip I've made to Europe has been so different! Last time I was here I hacked into something which meant I didn't really ever adjust to the time differences but I think I've adjusted this time which is going to make going back home more difficult! (laughing)
It's lovely to have you here right now but it strikes me that this has been a terrible time for you to tour – You've missed Halloween back home, you've missed your wedding anniversary….
…. and my eldest daughter's sixth birthday by a day too! Hopefully, one of these days, if they don't already, they'll understand that the job is necessary to provide the roof over their heads and the food on the table. I was able to take Presley, the day before her birthday, for pedicures and ice cream with Daddy. She got to get out of school early to do it too!
My wife and I are going to celebrate our anniversary too. I get to play in a golf tournament in the Bahamas the week after I get home and she's very happy to make our anniversary the Bahamas! (laughing) So really it was just Halloween that I missed. My daughter went as Tinkerbell and I dressed up as Peter Pan on stage in Belfast to match her so they seem like they are all happy with me right now! (laughing)
(Brett recently sang at a Savannah Bananas Banana Ball show in San Diego) As well as MLB are you a Banana Ball fan now after singing at their recent game in San Diego? I can't buy a ticket for any of their games because they won't sell to fans outside of Canada and the USA!
That's interesting! The purist in me, the baseball purist in me, doesn't like the idea of changing the sport but the kid in me, that grew up with the Harlem Globetrotters, which I think are the Savannah Bananas of Basketball really, likes it. I don't think they are taking away from the sport of baseball at all – it's within the family of baseball but it's also completely its own thing.
At 44 years old being able to get back out there on the mound and do what I used to do for so long was really cool so I'm a big fan.
New album ‘2.0' has been out for a little while now. Have you been pleased with the reaction to it? The fact that there are so many new songs in your live set suggests to me that you might be feeling pretty good about it!
Yeah, I am. I've been wanting to make an album like this right from the start. It's always got to be the same rule – you write about what you know and as you get older you experience more. It's an interesting place to be, as a writer, settling into the life that you always dreamed of having because then you have to test yourself as a writer and be able to go back and still write heartbreak songs or songs from other experiences and places in your life.
I enjoyed the challenge and am very proud of the results. I also got to resurrect songs that were written 10 years ago for this record. ‘Drink With You' and ‘You Still Got It' were songs I wrote when I first got to Nashville and I've been waiting for the right record to put them on and we finally made it this time around!
For the lack of a better phrase, I think this album is all over the place, intentionally, which makes it necessary to have multiple songs in the new set list. Each one reflects a different kind of vibe from the new record. We've been able to spice up the set with the new songs and they've been going over really well.
I interviewed Hannah McFarland here in Birmingham on the Riley Green tour and she told me how terrified she was with the responsibility of re-writing the second verse of ‘In Case You Didn't Know.' Did you have any reservations giving that responsibility over to someone else?
It's a way more comfortable ask to ask a female artist to re-write the verse from a woman's perspective than it would be to ask the four knuckleheads who originally wrote it to go back in and pretend like we know what woman are thinking! (laughing) It worked out perfectly – I had been a fan of Hannahs for a really long time – it wasn't just her voice that we liked, it was the songs that she had written too. She's kind of a bleeding heart, like me, and the way that she connects music and lyrics to deep and powerful emotions made her the perfect person to come in and work with us on it.
Is there a song on the album that has surprised you in terms of the way that it is resonating with fans – either live or streaming?
I have Presley's song, ‘Lady,' that we put out in COVID which did exceptionally well and on this record I finally got to put out Rowan's song, ‘Full House,' and I wondered whether it might be a bit of overkill to put ‘Who I Do It For' on the record too even though it is coming at my family life from a slightly different angle. I didn't expect it to connect with so many hard working men out there but it has! I thought I was putting that song on the record just for me but it feels like it is connecting with a lot of guys out there now too.
Is there a song that people like me aren't talking to you enough about? A deep cut that you are really proud of? ‘That Ain't Yours' is one song that springs to mind when I think about the album in that way.
That's certainly one. Nowadays it seems like the dynamics in a marriage between a man and a woman has changed so much and that song is quite old fashioned in terms of the ideas that it puts forward. I like the idea of going into a marriage with nothing like a pre-nup or anything – we share everything so I think it's a very sweet and beautiful song even if it doesn't connect with everybody who is falling in love these days.
The other one I think is ‘You Don't Know What You Are Missing.' For somebody who is 22 years old and hasn't really lived a lot of life it might be hard for them to access the feelings in that song or they might have had their heart broken four times already and they might be tired of hearing that from other people. You get tired of hearing that there is somebody out there waiting for you when you have a broken heart so I don't know everybody is ready to hear that song but I hope then they come to it in time.
What led you to sing with George Birge on that song?
I love George! There are a lot of guys at his level in Nashville right now and I don't know of one that works as hard as he does. We got connected through friends. I had written that song with Riley Green and Riley had done so many features at that point that I didn't think it was right to ask him to do another one. I was considering just recording it by myself but it was really written to be a feature with another younger guy. George did a great job with it and I hope those people who are tired of hearing that message right now will one day hear it and go, ‘Ah, I know what he was singing about in that song now!'
I love the fact that you kept the album to a tight 11 songs rather than release one of these sprawling 25-30 track content portal albums. Was that always you're vision when you putting this album together?
Putting 20 songs out is never going to be my thing. You are doing that just because you can. There's no formula to it – I could put out 30 tomorrow but I want each and every song I release to get its due time and attention. I'm still old school about the art of crafting a record and having a little bit of a journey and different vibes on there too. I don't think there's anything wrong with the way other artists are doing it but my songs are like my children to me – each one is special – but to put out an album of 20 songs you are to be going into that knowing that 8 of them are just going to get lost along the wayside. It breaks my heart to think that.
On the flip side of that, deluxe albums are really popular right now. Are there any plans for a ‘2.5' in the works at all?
(laughing) Deluxe albums are a little different because they let the original tracks live for a little while in their own space. It's almost like a second record at that point and I can wrap my head around that idea – I don't always understand the difference between a deluxe and just putting out another album, though, sometimes, and so, with that it mind, it's probably not for me.
I do wonder whether deluxe albums are often simply label mechanics – the labels like to resell an existing album again whilst I suspect the artist would prefer to put out a new album?
If they can call it the same record then the artist doesn't come to the end or get out of their deal as fast, either, do they? But that's going into the business side of things! (laughing)
Let's talk Sam Fischer, your support artist for this part of the tour. He's not a country artist, which must have felt like a bit of risk. You've got a long history with him, is that why you chose him for the tour?
You're not going to hear a better live singer than Sam. He's incredible. One thing we had to think about is that it's just him and a guitar player out on that arena stage and so not many people can fill that space for that many minutes with just a voice and a guitar but he's crushing it, filling up the room with his voice. It's been a blast having him out here with us and he gets to come back onto the stage multiple times in my set, which is so cool too. He falls right into the set really well so it's a no brainer for me.
I saw you here at this venue support Lady A on their tour back before the pandemic when you did a similar thing for them. That's a bit of a full circle moment for you.
I came over as a trio, with a piano player and guitarist, for those shows, so it was similar but a little different to Sam. This will be the second room that we've headlined that we played as support on that Lady A tour! It's pretty special to me, that full circle feeling.
Let's talk Christmas Brett. You released your EP of Christmas songs back in 2021. Do you have any plans for any more festive music at all?
Not this year but you haven't seen the last of me for Christmas, I can tell you that! The tricky part of that is that you have to record your Christmas album in the summer and, for Country artists, that's festival season so you have to be very organised and intentional to make an album in the summer. It's not impossible but we didn't plan ahead for this year.
I will say that we have barely scratched the surface on my favourite Christmas songs so there will be another one, if not more than that, just not this year.
Are you getting a good break with the family this Christmas?
I am. We've just decided, because we've been travelling a lot and I've been gone too, that we are going to do Christmas at home this year. Extended family is all welcome for Christmas but if they want to see us they are going to need to come to our house this year. We're starting a new tradition this year where the girls get to come downstairs to their own tree and their own presents in their own house – no shipping presents, no hotels. Traditions aren't made in hotels – it's got to start now if we want to start building them for our own little family.
Check out our review of Brett's show in Birmingham that night right here and check out the video of Brett and Sam Fischer singing ‘Mercy' together further up the page.
