Brett Young: Bartending Helped Me Make It

Country artists seem to have a long, interesting list of before-they-made-it jobs to talk about and Brett Young is no different. The California native was a bartender before hitting the big time.

Bartending turned out to be pretty useful to his music career, too. "It's just a great source of income and it frees you up to have your days to write songs," he says through his record label. [But] you're in these establishments [where] you're mostly successful on the weekends and you're always looking for things to plug into your off days during the week."

And sometimes Brett turned those days to his advantage. "[That's when] I'd be like, 'Hey, by the way, you should have a live music night,'" he continues. "Had I not been bar tending in those rooms I probably wouldn't have had the ability to identify a place that needed live music. So it wasn't just a fun way to spend a Tuesday [or] Wednesday night, but it was also a way to basically practice and get paid for it."

Things got better from there, of course. Brett has racked up two No. 1 songs since his 2016 debut. Check out his upcoming tour dates here.

Teddy McDonald is a fun-lovin' country music fan man living in Nashville, Tennessee.