Brett Young to Receive Prestigious Songwriting Award

Brett Young has been named the recipient of a prestigious songwriting award, in advance of the upcoming CMA Awards. The “Here Tonight” singer will receive the ASCAP Country Songwriter-Artist of the Year honor, in a special ceremony held on Monday, Nov. 12 in Nashville.

“I have been with ASCAP from the very beginning, and they have always made me feel like a part of the family,” Young said in a statement. “I also want to give a huge thank you to everyone in the songwriting community and in country music who welcomed me right away. I moved to Nashville to be a songwriter and it was a happy accident that I also became an artist. I’ve gotten better because I am lucky enough to get into rooms with incredible writers, and I do not take that for granted.”

Young is readying the release of his sophomore Ticket to L.A. album, which will be available on Dec. 7. The California native co-wrote ten of the 13 tracks on his upcoming set of tunes.

“A lot of it reflects where I’m at in my life and how different that is from where I was when I wrote the first record,” Young told PopCulture.com. “So there’s a lot more pep and energy and it’s a lot happier. There’s a little bit of something for everybody, so there’s some sad songs, but strangely even some of those kind have that quality where the lyric is sad and the songs feels happy.”

Young wrote all but one song on his self-titled freshman debut, co-writing all four of his No. 1 singles from the record, including his current “Mercy.” But for the second set of tunes, Young reached out to more of his songwriter friends, especially while on the road with Lady Antebellum on their You Look Good World Tour, to make sure he had the best project possible.

“I was warned about the sophomore slump with the second album,” Young told PopCulture.com. “So much that I got paranoid and I brought tons of writers while I was out with Lady Antebellum. Like, every weekend I had writers out. And it turns out, the first time that I brought writers out, Charles Kelley spotted us in the cafeteria, in catering, and said, ‘Are you guys out here writing?’ He goes, ‘Well I want to write!’”

Young will soon head out on his own CMT on Tour: Here Tonight trek, and will then join Kelsea Ballerini on her Miss Me More Tour in 2019. Dates can be found at BrettYoungMusic.com.

Young is nominated for one CMA Award, for New Artist of the Year. The CMA Awards will air live from Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena on Wednesday, Nov. 14 at 8 p.m. ET on ABC.

Photo Credit: Getty images/Slaven Vlasic