BRELAND Reflects On ‘Crazy Journey That I’m On’

Since releasing those collaborations in 2021, BRELAND has continued to collaborate with artists spanning genres and ranging from established mainstays to rising singer-songwriters. The list includes collaborations with The War and Treaty, Chris Young, Julia Cole, Scoot Teasley and others, and he's written/co-written songs for NE-YO, Keith Urban and Michael McDonald, and Vince Gill, to name a few. BRELAND also became the first artist to perform at a non-game event at Nashville’s GEODIS Park when he opened for Shania Twain in 2023 (a “full-circle” moment after a planned opportunity to sing at the opening soccer game didn’t work out), took the stage at Madison Square Garden in New York City, grown his annual BRELAND & Friends show, made his debut at Red Rocks Park and Amphitheatre, and many other bucket list moments.

“I feel pretty good [about how far I’ve come],” BRELAND said, reflecting on what he’s accomplished and changes in the music business. “And it's been good to be able to get some music out as well as my own single, ‘In My Truck.’ But when I think back to 2020 and 2021, I'm like, ‘man, it was such a different world. It was such a different industry.’ We didn't have any AI [Artificial Intelligence] in music,” he pointed out. “This was before FGL [Florida Georgia Line] even broke up and now they're back. There's been a lot that has happened within the genre. There's been a lot that's happened in the world going from COVID, and not sure how things were going to look when we came out of that, to it kind of feeling a little bit like a distant memory dealing with a bunch of other issues.” One development he's noticed: BRELAND said he's observed a growing number of Black country artists coming up in the genre (about 30 to 40 young artists coming to mind, he said while speaking with iHeartCountry) compared with the number he observed in 2020 (a time that included Blanco Brown, Mickey Guyton, Darius Rucker and others). Now, BRELAND believes it’s “really important” to support up-and-coming artists, including Teasley, in hopes they can also “pay it forward and help support” others.

“I would say for me personally, it's like I've grown up a lot over the last five years,” BRELAND said. His breakout single, “‘My Truck,’ came out when I was 24. I'm 31. So, there's a lot of life that's happened for me with family personally and creatively getting to travel around the world and have all these amazing experiences. I'm very, very grateful to be on this crazy journey that I'm on.

“They say when you do what you love, you never work a day in your life. And I feel like these last five years, I really haven't had to work at all, but I obviously have been working, I have been on the grind. It's just something that I'm very grateful to be able to do.”

Billy Greenwood