Brighton Reinhardt Says New Love Songs for Girlfriend Cassie Randolph 'Just Wrote Themselves'

Christian Rios Brighton

The romantic reel of Cassie Randolph and musician Brighton Reinhardt's relationship over the last year-and-a-half can look a bit like an Instagram highlight reel.

But for Reinhardt, life hasn't always been so easy.

"I try to usually keep that off of socials, but I'm getting a little bit more open about it," Brighton, 24, tells PEOPLE in an interview where he opened up about his lifelong battle with a rare bone disease called congenital pseudarthrosis. "I've undergone about 20 surgeries now and I've broken my leg about nine times. Each time I broke it, they would have to take [the bone] out, do a bone graft and replace it with a new one. Usually, I'm out for about a year."

RELATED: Cassie Randolph Is Dating Musician Brighton Reinhardt: 'She's Really Happy,' Says Source

Luckily, growing up and settling into his life has helped the California native better handle his condition.

"I've mellowed out quite a bit since I was younger," the Wilhelmina model says. "I used to surf and be at the skate parks all the time. After my last surgery, which was about four years ago, that one pushed me back a bit and made me realize I don't have to be the crazy teenager I used to be."

Christian Rios Brighton

Instead, helped in part from the ongoing support of Randolph, Reinhardt has adopted several health practices that he says give him the best chance at staying as healthy as possible.

"I try to take my basic vitamins such as calcium and vitamin D just to stay healthy and I also try to stay active because weight is another thing that you have to watch," he says. "If I go past a certain weight, it's too much pressure on my leg. I just have to try to stay active, take my supplements and try to be healthy. That's really all I can do."

The restrictions that came as a result of his condition is one of the main reasons Reinhardt says he took to playing the guitar at an early age.

"I just fell in love with music," Reinhardt recalls. "It was one of those things that helped me deal with the pain, taught me a lot of patience and it just made time pass by faster."

Of course, time is something Reinhardt seems to be enjoying immensely right now alongside his girlfriend Randolph, 26, whom fans got to know while she competed on season 23 of The Bachelor. It was there that she met former fiancé Colton Underwood, whom she split from in 2020.

"We were such good friends from the beginning," says Reinhardt of his relationship with Randolph, which was documented in part last year in the music video for his single "Dreaming," a song dripping with a carefree California groove. "It's the first time I've ever been in a relationship like that, where I've been really good friends with somebody before moving on."

RELATED: Cassie Randolph Opens Up About What Makes Her Relationship with Brighton Reinhardt 'Really Strong'

Granted, taking the relationship from platonic to romantic did not come without a bit of hesitancy for the pair.

"We didn't want to lose each other as a friend," Reinhardt explains.

Nevertheless, they made that big step, and haven't looked back since. In fact, their relationship inspired much of Reinhardt's latest EP, an EP that went through a bit of a metamorphosis of sorts at the time of its creation, since Brighton's life was going through one too.

"I had gone through a pretty bad breakup, so most of the songs were sad breakup songs," he says. "And then I met my beautiful girlfriend, and I decided I didn't want to focus too much on the breakups through the project. I left two breakup songs in there and then the other songs are love songs. Those just wrote themselves."

Christian Rios Brighton

And they continue to do so, as Brighton says he is currently working on new music.

"I usually show Cassie a song every day," he tells PEOPLE. "I usually show her when I come back from the studio or I just text it to her. She says she loves them all."