Brett Young Quotes

I came out to L.A. to be a songwriter and not an artist, and I'm so excited because I always secretly wanted to be an artist.

There was a period when I wrote in Nashville for Maverick and then Warner/Chappell, and it was interesting.

I thought, when I came to Nashville, I was going to hook up with some of the top country writers in town and write some country tunes.

I wanted to become a better songwriter, so it seemed like a no-brainer to move to Nashville, where some of the best writers in the world live.

I've been writing songs all along, and since moving to Nashville in the late-'80s, I'd begun writing something like 15-20 songs a year, instead of the typical three or four in previous years.

I'm a songwriter and I'd love to make that a part of my career.

Most of my friends in Nashville - almost all of them - seem to have had hits in the '70s, either as artists or songwriters or producers.

I took temp jobs, recorded a demo in the evenings and eventually shopped a record deal. All I knew was that I wanted to write songs; thankfully, I also got to sing them.

I had no idea when I moved to Nashville people just were songwriters. I had no idea. So I guess I was selling myself as a singer when I first moved here. But then right after I first moved, I started writing a lot.

I moved to Nashville at 17 to make music, and since then I've put everything I have into doing it right.

All I knew when I moved to Nashville was that I wanted to make music in whatever shape and form I could.

I've just signed a contract to make records in Nashville. It won't amount to much at first, but after a year or so, I will really be in the money.

I've watched songwriters, writers, producers, even artists that I've written hits for come and go. But to the world, it looked like Justin Bieber was my first success.

When I started out, I was what they called corny. After a week in Nashville they were calling me hillbilly.

I started producing for Pump - I produced his first songs. 'Lil Pump,' 'Elementary,' 'Johnny Dang' - all that I produced.

I never really wanted to be an artist. I just really wanted to write songs. But, of course, I can't get placement unless I demo the songs.

I mean there are tons of reasons. Well first of all. I write my own record. I don't take other people's materials. And I have a job which is being Willa Ford on top of getting back in the studio and writing and recording.

Some artists will tell you that's all they want to do is write their own music, and that's great, but George Strait, Kenny Chesney, Tim McGraw, Garth Brooks, they didn't write everything they recorded, and they've had major, major careers. I think it's all about the best song.

I want to figure out what kind of artist I want to be, because with the 'American Idol' process, it just works really fast. The night of the finale, they said, 'OK, here are all the label people that you're gonna work with, this is the album you're gonna make and blah, blah, blah.' So it was a pretty fast process, but it's been cool.

I didn't want to be a solo Westlife - covers and ballads - and the reason I signed with Capitol Records was because they wanted me to write songs myself. It was pretty scary, but they put me in a studio in Nashville with some new songwriters, and the results were pretty good.

I have been with the record company and Tommy was there doing records with other people.

I'm not a hustler. I don't pitch songs. I don't ask people to write with me. It's not what I do.

If I'm not putting out music, I'mma be producing for everybody. I got an artist named Mike Slice. He's nice, and he's real good. I'm doing a bunch of production for all the artists in the industry because I'm as much as a producer as I am an artist.

A lot of people who were writing when I came through originally as a singer-songwriter have disappeared.

My plan was always to leave school and live in a flat with some friends, have a 9 to 5 job, and try to get as many gigs as I could. I wanted to keep writing and then eventually, in my twenties, head to a record label and hope they'd sit down and listen to my book of songs, sign me as a songwriter and maybe an artist in development.