Brett Young's country chart climb to make a stop here

Country artist Brett Young didn’t try to ignore the prospect of facing a sophomore slump. In fact, well before his 2017 self-titled debut had ended its run, having given him four No. 1 singles along the way, Young was already facing the follow-up challenge head on.

“I was so scared of that sophomore slump that everybody talks about. I was scared of it like the moment we put (the debut) album out because I knew we had a great record,” Young said in a late-March phone interview. “It was such a great feeling to know that record was solid all the way through. And the second I realized that, I went how do I follow this up?”

His answer was to get to work, bringing out a variety of Nashville-based songwriters for sessions as he was on tour in summer and fall 2017 opening for Lady Antebellum.

“I wrote almost all of my second record (the newly released “Ticket To L.A.”) during that Lady Antebellum tour because I was so scared to not have the songs for album two,” he said, noting he ended up with a pool of about 500 songs.

With “Ticket To L.A.” out, Young is opening for Kelsea Ballerini on a spring run of arena shows.

They'll be at James Brown Arena at 7 p.m. Saturday, April 27; also on the bill is Brandon Ratcliff. Tickets are $25-$39.50 at augustaentertainmentcomplex.com, (877) 428-4849, or the box office.

Young’s also just seen “Here Tonight,” the first single from “Ticket To L.A.,” take over the top slot on “Billboard” magazine’s Country Airplay chart to become his fifth chart-topping single.

It’s all been a meteoric rise for Young, who quite literally could be part of the club of 10-year overnight sensations.

The music career started when during college his hopes for a career as a baseball pitcher ended with an elbow injury. With new-found free time on his hands, Young started going to concerts, including three shows by the Dave Matthews Band at California’s Concord Pavilion.

“On the drive back to Fresno, I popped in the Gavin DeGraw CD, the first one, ‘Chariot,’ ” Young recalled. “And I went, OK, I’ve been loving music pretty hard this weekend, and now this record is making me love songwriting. I think I need to write songs.

“Four months later, I got into a second bedroom home studio with a friend from high school’s husband and we recorded my first six songs I ever wrote,” he said. “I sang the vocals in a coat closet with a blanket over my head on a rented microphone. And I was hooked.”

Young spent a decade playing covers in Los Angeles area bars and restaurants, writing songs in his free time and releasing a pair of EPs and three albums he released independently, hoping to get a record deal. But his break didn’t come.

“I made a living playing music for 10 years in L.A., but I never got one meeting with a label or anything of that nature,” Young said.

Realizing that the songs he had been writing fit the country genre, Young moved to Nashville, where he quickly made contacts and within nine months got a deal with Big Machine Records.

In short order, he was in a studio making the debut album with noted producer Dann Huff, then watching as an advance single, “Sleep Without You,” topped the “Mediabase” Country singles chart (and went to No. 2 at Country Airplay). Then “In Case You Didn’t Know” did one better by topping Country Airplay and reaching the top 20 on “Billboard’s” all genre Hot 100 chart. Two more No. 1 singles, “Like I Loved You” and “Mercy,” kept Young on the radio through last summer, by which time “Ticket To L.A.” was being readied for release.

The debut album was filled with agreeable acoustic-centric mid-tempo tunes and ballads, many of which were inspired by Young’s breakup with long-time girlfriend, Taylor Mills. But by the time Young was set to make “Ticket To L.A.,’ they had reunited, and in November, they got married.

Naturally, Young was in a very different headspace when he made the second album, and the result is an album that retains the pop-tinged, acoustic-centric sound of the debut, but is considerably more upbeat, mixing more measured songs like “Change Your Name,” “Catch” and “Let It Be Mine.”

The brighter and more energetic feel of the new songs is also helping Young’s live show.

“The show itself has a lot more energy,” Young said. “The first record was kind of sleepy, and that was intentional because that’s my heart. I like to write ballads. But I think now with the second record having a little more fire to it, the goal is to make the show have a little bit more energy and tempo, and I think we’ve been doing that.”