While attending college for his Coaching degree, Brooks began to express interest in travelling to America and playing shows there. An American professor at Bath, Eric Anderson, helped him arrange for an extended trip to California. In September 2006, Brooks travelled to America for the first time to tour small venues around California and Nevada and make contacts with people in the music Business. Securing his own gigs, Brooks performed at small clubs and coffeehouses in San Diego, San Francisco, Las Vegas and Los Angeles. This self-managed tour lasted for around a month before Brooks travelled back to the UK to return to school. It was also during this month that he would meet his next manager, Ginger McCartney, the mother of Jesse McCartney, a previous child actor who was given a record contract.