James Bruner Steps Outside His Usual Writing Space on “OMG”

James Bruner’s “OMG” started as a writing risk. He and Shane Weisman wrote it back in 2024, and Bruner describes it as the first song they took on together. That first session ended up setting the tone for more music between them, which gives the single a little extra context beyond the usual one-off release push.

The setup is simple: a guy sees a girl at a crosswalk and gets completely pulled in by that moment. That kind of idea can go flat fast if the writing leans too hard into polish, but Bruner seems more interested in keeping the feeling direct. The song sits in a pop-rock space, with the “la la la la” before the final chorus acting as one of the details he still remembers from the day they recorded it.

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The Song Started With a New Writing Partner

“OMG” matters in Bruner’s catalog because it began his working relationship with Weisman. He has said the two “put on the steam straight away” to write something in the pop-rock realm, and that early push seems to have carried into the rest of the record.

That first-session energy can be hard to fake. When two writers are still figuring out how they work together, the best material often comes from committing before the room gets too careful.

Bruner remembers the final chorus clearly. “Listening back to it now, I can still get that giddy feeling that I had the day we laid down the ‘la la la la’ before the final chorus,” he says. That is the coolest detail here. The hook stayed tied to the original excitement of making the song, and you can tell Bruner still sees that moment as part of the track’s identity.

The Pop-Rock Direction Fits James Bruner’s Larger References

Bruner is a Nashville-based rock artist originally from the Midwest, and his reference points include The Rolling Stones and Arctic Monkeys. That combination explains the balance he is aiming for: guitar-led writing with a modern indie-rock edge.

The romantic tension in “OMG” also sits close to the kind of pull I wrote about in my article on Arctic Monkeys’ “Do I Wanna Know?”, where attraction is less about a clean confession and more about the uneasy space around wanting someone. Bruner’s version is brighter and more immediate. The crosswalk idea gives the song a clear scene, while the chorus keeps the feeling easy to grab on the first listen.

Touring Has Given Bruner a Clear Sense of Scale

At 24, Bruner has already toured across the United States and the United Kingdom with Barns Courtney, The Struts, and William Fitzsimmons. That kind of experience matters for a song like “OMG” because it is built with live response in mind.

The song has the kind of direct hook that can work in a packed room, but the better angle is that Bruner arrived at it by trying something that made him uncomfortable. He is not treating risk as a slogan. He is pointing to a specific session, a specific collaborator, and a specific song that changed how he approached the record.

“OMG” is out now as of July 10, 2026.