Brett Young has carved out a distinct space in modern country music with his signature “Caliville” sound—a blend of West Coast cool and Nashville soul anchored in emotional honesty and warm, melodic storytelling. A former college baseball pitcher whose athletic career ended after an elbow injury, Young turned to songwriting and relocated to Nashville in 2015. His 2017 self-titled debut introduced fans to heartfelt hits like ‘Sleep Without You' and the Diamond-certified ‘In Case You Didn’t Know,' launching a run of seven consecutive No. 1 singles and racking up more than 8.5 billion global streams. With follow-up albums like ‘Ticket to L.A.' and ‘Weekends Look a Little Different These Days' he’s become known for his introspective take on romance, relationships and real life.

Now, Young enters a new chapter with his fourth studio album, ‘2.0,' out today (June 20) via Nashville Harbor Records. Produced by Jimmy Robbins and Dann Huff, the project builds on the emotional depth and sonic polish fans have come to expect, while introducing fresh layers of maturity and personal growth. Highlights include the Lady A duet ‘Who I Do It For,' a reimagined version of ‘In Case You Didn’t Know' with Hannah McFarland, and the poignant, piano-driven ‘Full House.' Whether he's exploring the nuances of fatherhood or the complexity of love, Young's latest work feels like a meaningful update—offering songs that are at once intimate and widely relatable, reaffirming his place as one of country’s most compelling voices. We were thrilled to catch up with him to talk all about it.

Of course, my pleasure, thanks for having me.

Yeah, I'm so excited. A lot of people don't realise how long we have these songs for before we get to release them and get them out into the world! There's been quite a bit of build up and anticipation so I'm looking forward to it finally being out there.

Thank you very much! That was the goal. I hate the idea of just putting a song on a record just to complete or flesh out a record. I've always said that I don't want any ‘skippers' on any of my albums. That's a huge compliment and I really appreciate it.

Yeah. I don't see anything wrong with that approach and I can see why some artists put out so many songs but it is always a goal of mine to give people a little bit of something they want so I want broken hearted people to have a break up song and I want people that have just fallen in love to have a love song and now that I'm in this stage of my life I want parents to have the song about family too.

There needs to be a little bit of everything but for the same reason that I waited ten years to put ‘Drink With You' on a record, I also don't want songs about the same theme to compete with each other to where one over shadows another. I want every song to have a chance to hold its own place on the record which means you shouldn't have too much of any one thing on the record either.

I have between 300 and 400 unreleased songs that are in contention for every project I release but I want the right song on the right project, right? I never want to hear ‘it's great, but it's a bunch of the same thing.'

The obvious grab would be that we have ‘In Case You Didn't Know 2.0' on this record and that was where the idea stemmed from. I'm also at a very different place in my life now than where I was when we made the first record. Where I'm coming from now is new and different so even though there are songs almost ten years old on this project it all feels new and fresh and it is all heavily focused on health and bettering myself for my family and making sure that I am around for them for as long as possible – so that is definitely a new and better version of me as well, which is reflected in the title of the album.

These songs have all been, legitimately, written with guys that I met as writers that have all become friends. My songwriting community went from zero to very big and I've narrowed it down to a group of people that I know what to expect from them when I go into a room with them.

The co-writers on this record are my songwriting community, my go-to guys. We know each other's people, we know each other as people and writers. I love my team and I love how well represented they are on this record as well.

That's a good question. You know, the easiest was probably ‘Full House,' the song for my second daughter, Rowan. My first daughter had ‘Lady,' the song we put out during the COVID pandemic which ended up being a big radio single for me. ‘Full House' is Rowan's song – it was easy because a) there was no fluff, we got to write about someone I know and love and so b) the topic was already there.

We wanted two kids going into our marriage and when we brought Rowan home from the hospital our family felt complete. Realising that this child completes your family makes the idea for the song really easy. You're not guessing or reaching for lyrics or ideas at that point.

The song that was probably most difficult was the song where me and Riley Green got together with some friends to write ‘You Don't Know What You're Missing.' That one was difficult because when you are writing about a married dude with kids, living his best life, having a conversation with his single friend who is out there partying you wanna get it right.

You don't want to write the single guy as a terrible guy doing something wrong because he's not – he's just a single guy who doesn't know what he doesn't know – and you also don't want to write the dad as this super boring dude who has just resigned himself to this life of no fun ever again, right? You are writing two different perspectives and you have to get both right – I've never done that before so that was difficult. We put a lot of pressure on ourselves to get that song right.

I get really lucky there because I knew I wanted someone else on that song to do it with me. It was clear that I was writing from my perspective but I'm not the only one experiencing that idea of having to leave every weekend to go and do shows. It happened to be that I was flying home from a golf tournament with Charles Kelley the day I got the demo through. I shared it with him and as he was listening to it the light bulb in my head went off when I realised that if I got Lady A on it, I'd get three more artists and not one! (laughing)

Charles took his headphones off and said that he loved it and asked if he could send it to the band. It's kinda full circle because Lady A were my first full tour back in 2017 – I had just gotten back together with my girlfriend who would go on to become my wife – we were dating again and she was out on tour with me. We'd walk off the tour bus and Dave Haywood would be out in an inflatable pool in the arena parking lot playing with his children! (laughing) We got our first taste of it before we had our own kids via them. They crushed that song.

Yeah – that's a hard one. If I have to pick a favourite it would be Rowan's song, ‘Full House' because it means the most. Career wise and what could potentially go to radio next after ‘Drink With You' there's a song called ‘You Still Got It' on the record that I think everybody who has gone through a break up would relate to. It's about not being able to move on and it will strike a chord with a lot of people.

I mean, ‘Say Less' we knew would be 100% in our live show before we'd even got the finished master of it just because of the energy and vibe of it. We've been playing that song live for about a year now and it was why we released it as an early gratification track because we knew people would resonate with it.

I have a song on the record called ‘Tastes Like You' which I didn't think would be a radio single but I did know it would go into the live set because of its energy. There's other songs, like ‘Full House' that I knew when I wrote it could be paired back to back with ‘Lady' because of the nature of its subject matter and I could talk about my family at that point so there definitely is a correlation between writing a song and where it would fit in your live show.

That's incredible. We got really good advice from Lady A when we came over that first time. They told us that if you come over once you have to keep coming back and if you do that they will be the best fans that you ever have. We trusted that and we came back and played very small rooms, we lost money and yet we kept coming back and each time got a little bigger – we saw the truth of what Lady A told us in action!

The fan base in Europe is incredible and we're so appreciative of their support and loyalty. We always have so much fun playing in the UK and Europe. I wish we could stay longer but it gets harder and harder to leave my family – I'm gonna have to start bringing them with me!

It was in January of 2024 when I began to realise that I had stopped focusing on myself after having kids. I'd been in full dad-mode and with that came full dad-bod! (laughing) I wasn't taking care of myself and the first thing I realised was that if you are wanting to get yourself in shape and are still drinking alcohol then it probably isn't going to happen. So January of last year I cut that out and then I got curious about how I could extend my life expectancy and be around for my family for as long as possible.

Lifting weights is at the top of that list and then what you eat is also at the top of that too. Getting your cardio in – it just turns out you have to take care of yourself. I love it when somebody asks me if there are any secrets – there are no secrets and there are no short cuts – you can't cheat and get there quicker. It's taken a year and a half of me consistently focusing on myself, my health and my wellness which I'm doing for my family – there's no shortcuts, you just have to put the work in I'm afraid.

You know, they know and they think it's cool but it's all they've known. It's not like for the first 15 years of their lives I was an accountant and then switched to be a singer! (laughing) They know that it's cool but it is all they've ever known so it's not unusual to them.

They are little musicians themselves – they love music and are, unfortunately, cursed with having musical brains similar to me. They enjoy being around music more than thinking that it's cool that daddy is a famous musician, right?