Brett Young Soulfully Serenades Intimate SoCal Crowd With Heartfelt Anthems

Photo: Adrianna Casiano

Brett Young delivered passionate renditions of his melt-your-heart hits when he returned to his native Southern California for his exclusive iHeartCountry Album Release Party on Thursday evening (August 10). The performance for an intimate L.A. crowd comes nearly one week after the award-winning country star debuted his fourth full-length studio album, Across The Sheets.

Young, a professional when it comes to matters of the heart, performed a few of his biggest career-spanning anthems during the show as he celebrated the release of Across The Sheets, beginning with a heartfelt hit that he included on the track list of his self-titled debut album in 2017, “In Case You Didn’t Know.”

“I really dug deep while writing this record,” Young previously said of his latest body of work. “Across The Sheets is by far the most adventurous I’ve ever gotten thematically and lyrically. I went into this with the goal of putting out 'a little bit of something for everyone' and to pull back the curtain and continue to be vulnerable so people could see and know more of my life through my music. I hope more than anything that is what comes across. We've been playing the new songs on out on the road and to see how fans have already connected with them is truly special.”

The California-born country star told iHeartRadio’s Brooke Taylor, who hosted the event and special Q&A questions, that when he sits down to make a record, he and his team ensure that the project will have a mixture of songs for the heartbroken, for listeners who are falling in love for the first time, for those who have been in love for a long time and everyone in between. Young’s newly-released 8-track album was named for a lyric that appears twice, which the singer-songwriter admits he “didn’t realize” he’d done. Still, it made for a “romantic” title that serves as a tribute to “the person you wanna wake up next to.”

Young sweetly featured his wife, Taylor Mills Young, and the couple’s two young daughters in his latest music video, “Dance With You,” one of the fan-favorite tracks on Across The Sheets. It was “so special” to film the first music video as a family of four, Young shared with Taylor as he reflected on filming with daughters Presley Elizabeth, nearly 4, and Rowan Marie, 2. “Dance With You” includes footage from Young’s wedding day in the background as his wife and daughters dance (with “no choreography” planned,” he noted).

The exclusive iHeartCountry Album Release Party marked a special moment for Young and his bandmates, also former Southern California residents. Young reflected on growing up in Orange County in the 90s, flipping through radio stations and landing on the “crackly” country station that barely came through. But he heard enough to get hooked on the storytelling that often takes the spotlight in the genre, and that longtime appreciation for country music’s heartfelt lyrics inspired the lone cover track on Across The Sheets: “Don’t Take The Girl,” released by Tim McGraw in 1994. Decades later, Young would hear his own single on the radio for the first time (“Sleep Without You,” which he heard after performing at Stagecoach Music Festival for the first time, he remembered).

Young treated the intimate L.A. crowd to career-spanning fan-favorites and new ones from Across The Sheets. The setlist included “In Case You Didn’t Know,” “Let Go Too Soon,” “Don’t Take The Girl,” “Lady,” “Dance With You,” “Sleep Without You,” “Not Yet,” “Like I Loved You,” “You Ain’t Here to Kiss Me,” “Mercy,” “Back To Jesus” and “You Didn’t.” Young is currently touring with Sam Hunt on the “Hard To Forget” artist’s headlining tour (just “two girl dads hanging out on the road together,” Young said of performing with Hunt), and next month, he’s kicking off his own headlining trek with Jake Scott and Griffen Palmer.

Find Young’s full Across The Sheets album on iHeartRadio here, and see his “Dance With You Tour” dates below.