George Birge kicked off 2024 with the No. 1 song in country music this week. “Mind on You” marks the singer/songwriter’s debut No. 1 on the Mediabase country chart. Birge, who penned the song with Colt Ford, Jaron Boyer, and Michael Tyler, also celebrates a decade of living in Nashville this year.
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The solo artist and father of two has proven Music City’s ten-year town adage true with his long journey to the top of the charts. Here are five things to know about the hit solo artist.
[George Birge Shows in 2024 – Get Tickets]
1. He wrote his first song as a teenager
“Songwriting was the reason that I fell in love with music,” Birge tells American Songwriter. The Texas native remembers listening to music in his father’s truck as a kid and says he fell in love with the storytelling aspect of country music.
“It was something I was always trying to do from a young age,” he says of songwriting. “I probably started in sixth grade in the form of poetry because I didn’t know how to play an instrument yet. By freshman year of high school, I learned how to play guitar and started a band and [was] writing songs. I do remember the first full song that I ever wrote. It was horrible, and I’m really glad it was at a time before social media so the world doesn’t have to hear it. It was a song called ‘Security.’ I’ve probably written 10,000 songs since then, but to this day, I still remember the first song I ever wrote.”
2. Clay Walker had a major impact on his career
Birge tells us it took him six years to find his footing as a songwriter and as an artist in Nashville. Some of this confidence came from working with one of his musical heroes, Clay Walker.
“I got back to a little bit of what I was doing in Texas and I think a big start of that was when I started writing with Clay Walker,” Birge says. “He was a huge influence on me growing up and he tapped me on the shoulder to help him write his new album. It awoke this passion in me and also reminded me of why I fell in love with country music and making music in the first place.
“We wrote a couple songs for him that ended up being his last two singles at country radio and had put him back on the map with his first couple of top 40s in almost 10 years,” he continues. “For me to be a little bit a part of that success but also have the nostalgia for the music that I fell in love with in the first place and also tap into that … I think that gave me the confidence to go do that for myself afterward.”
[RELATED: George Birge Pitched “Mind on You” to Jason Aldean and Then Took It Back]
3. He went viral with help from TikTok and Walker
Walker not only reinvigorated Birge’s passion for country music, but he also urged the budding singer/songwriter to join TikTok. It was through that urging that Birge ultimately found his fan base and realized people were connecting with his music and the song “Beer Beer, Truck Truck.”
“There was an eight-month window when I was done with the artist thing where I was like, ‘I’m just gonna be a songwriter. I can’t figure out the artist thing. I don’t have confidence in who I am or what I’m doing,’” Birge recalls. “He was the one that was like, ‘Dude, you have to give this a run and you have to put your songs on TikTok,’ which is the last thing you would expect a ’90s country superstar to tell you but he was right.
“I ended up getting on it and it was a great testing ground for getting to try new music with zero risk. You can put stuff out there and see if people connect with it or not. I got really lucky to find a fan base and a group of listeners that were connecting with the music I was making and that made me want to double down on it seeing that there were people out there that felt the same way.”
4. His former band and songwriting experience helped his solo career
Before he was No. 1 on the country charts as a solo artist, Birge was in the Austin-based band Waterloo Revival. The group signed a record deal and moved to Nashville and cut their teeth in Music City before ultimately going their separate ways. It was these early band experiences that shaped Birge as a solo artist.
“I wouldn’t trade my days with Waterloo Revival for anything,” he says. “I learned so much. It was my first time playing the Grand Ole Opry, my first amphitheater show, all of these big accolades, and I learned so much with those guys. But it was always a trial by jury there. It was always, here’s what I want to say, or here’s what I want to sound like. But also there’s other guys in the band. There’s A&R, there’s record labels and everybody has an influence on that direction. In that way of making art, it always ends up in a compromise which is sometimes good and sometimes not. Sometimes you get a watered-down version of that art or sometimes it’s not the direction that it originally started.
“I wasn’t feeling like I was getting to directionally make exactly the music I wanted to make or say exactly what I wanted to say for better or worse. That led me into the songwriting as an outside songwriter lane, more of an outlet for getting to write stuff that I was passionate about, and if other people liked it, they were welcome to record it. So I had a little bit of success doing that and people recorded my songs as outside cuts and then I started getting invited to rooms with artists. That again, you have to try to put yourself in somebody else’s shoes. … Once you start feeling a little bit more versatile in how you tell stories, I think that gives you the confidence to be like, ‘Well, nobody’s going to tell my own story better than me.’”
5. On manifestation and the importance of speaking in “when’s”
Birge says “you’re always a song away” from changing your life. Despite this optimism, even he has had his doubts about a music career. He credits his wife for her unwavering belief in his dreams and says she’s someone who kept him motivated in his days of struggle.
“If I didn’t have my wife saying that she believed in me and that she wasn’t gonna quit on me–that was everything for me,” he says. “Also, in this town, you’re always a song away. It’s always one song that is waiting for you to change your life. I’d made it this far. I was here, I was in Nashville. I was playing music for a living. I’ve got a band that’s counting on me. I’ve got friends and family that are supporting me. Every day I felt like I was getting closer to writing that song. I felt like I was getting better in the writing room every day. I felt like I was being more honest in the writing room every day and I felt like I was getting better product every day. I knew it was just a matter of time. If I focused in on it that, things were gonna start clicking.
“There’s definitely some irrational confidence in there of forcing yourself to believe something’s gonna happen even when it’s a one in a million chance of it actually happening. Then you try to talk it into existence too. We always said, ‘We speak in when’s and not if’s’ So, when we get our first number one or when we get on a tour bus for the first time or when we play our first arena. I think when you speak it into existence it becomes more of a path instead of a dream or a goal.”
(Photo by Richard Rodriguez/Getty Images)
