Brett Young Announces Sophomore ‘Ticket to L.A.’ Album

Brett Young’s long-awaited sophomore album, Ticket to L.A., will be released on Dec. 7.

“I’m so excited,” Young gushes to PopCulture.com. “I was warned about the sophomore slump with the second album. 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!’”

The song, “Here Tonight,” written by Young along with Kelley, Ben Caver and Justin Ebach, is Young’s current single.

“All three of us, we’re such big fans of Charles and Lady A,” adds Young. “So the first song we wrote with Charles Kelley ended up being my first single.”

All four of the singles from Young’s self-titled freshman album went to No. 1, including the multi-platinum “In Case You Didn’t Know,” and his recent “Mercy” hit. But while Young is grateful for the success, he says Ticket to L.A. is not at all like his debut project.

“I think we kind of got away with one with the first record,” concedes the 37-year-old.
“We put out a lot of mid-tempo and ballads, in terms of going to radio, and that wasn’t on purpose. We just wanted to pick what we felt like the right song was for that moment. And so we were adamant on coming with up-tempo for the second record, especially being at the end of the summer.”

The title track, which Young wrote with Zach Crowell and Jon Nite, is about a love story that plays out in an unlikely place.

“It’s about meeting a girl in an airport,” the California native explains. “Her flight’s delayed to Los Angeles, and you realize that even though you’re not on her flight, you decide not to tell her you’re not on her flight. You use the delay as an opportunity to kind of take her time ransom for a little while in the airport.”

Young, who will marry Taylor Mills later this year, promises more of himself interwoven through the songs in Ticket to L.A.

“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,” says Young, who co-wrote ten of the 13 tracks. “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.”

Brett Young will join Thomas Rhett this fall on Rhett’s Life Changes Tour, and will also headline his own CMT on Tour: Here Tonight. A list of all of Young’s upcoming shows, as well as pre-order for Ticket to L.A., can be found at BrettYoungMusic.com.

Photo Credit: Getty images/Jason Kempin