The American
Morgan Wade on the fast track from Virginia to Nashville
You’ve probably heard of Morgan Wade if you’re a fan of Country or Americana music, but even if you’re not there’s a good chance you’ve seen her name recently.
Morgan’s media profile has been helped by her intense good looks and her multiple tattoos, and she’s become famous outside the music world for her friendship with Real Housewives of Beverly Hills’ Kyle Richards. The singer reached out to the reality star after Kyle posted an Instagram Story of her listening to one of Morgan’s songs. The unlikely friendship bloomed, but then rumors that their connection goes beyond friendship swept the internet. Morgan, though, has nixed the tittle-tattle - “We’re friends,” she says, “the Internet’s a dumb place”. The pair spoofed the social media furor in a steamy video for recent single ‘Fall In Love With Me’. Or were they outing themselves? (Even The American isn’t immune!)
When we caught up with Morgan between summer tour dates in the UK and a Fall trip to Europe we moved on to more important things – the music. Morgan has become well known for her difficult-to-pigeonhole work. Featuring personal lyrics – she’s said she writes songs to save her own life, not to have hit records – it’s an extraordinary blend of raw, gritty Country music and modern production styles. It has led to a high profile for her first album Reckless, and its lead single ‘Wilder Days’ released in 2021, and her new album Psychopath (released August 25 on Sony Music Nashville) is one of the most highly anticipated for years.
The rootsiness of Morgan’s work can be traced back to her childhood in tiny Floyd, VA, and a family who played music, so we started there.
You grew up in Virginia, right?
Yeah, I mean, you can hear me talk, right?
I lived in Virginia for a little while, but in Fauquier County outside DC. Is Virginia ‘the South’ to you – do you think of yourself as a southerner?
A lot of people consider Virginia kind of the ‘cut off’ – it’s The South past Virginia. But you have Northern Virginia, with the District of Colombia right there, so obviously, to me, that's not the South. But when you get to where I'm at, Southwest Virginia, we're near the North Carolina and Tennessee line, so that's definitely the South!
You’ve said that your first band was “five random men that you found on Craigslist”. How did that come about?
I was a freshman in college and I wanted to start playing some music, so I needed to form a band. Growing up where I did, if anybody needed to find something, they’d get on Craigslist. So I just got on there and started looking for a band, which now I know was not safe – I would kill my sisters if they ever tried to do something like that! Fortunately, it turned out but I just took a couple of my friends from college and went over to this house. We walked inside, down in the basement, and started playing music with these random men – who all turn out to be great guys! The things that you do! I just look back and think, you were so lucky that this isn't like a crime junkies podcast and you're not talking to my mom right now!
You’ve always written very personal songs. What’s your process? How did you write your first songs, and how has it developed?
Growing up where I did, it wasn't like anybody was writing and that's just what I did. I was a kid in my room writing songs.
A lot of Country music now is written in groups, for other singers. Do you co-write?
It never occurred to me to write with anybody else. Even now the majority of stuff I do write myself. Now that Psychopath’s finished I've already written 12 new songs, every single one of those myself. The first people I ever co-wrote with were Paul Ebersold and Sadler Vaden, my producers on Reckless. But for Psychopath, it was really nice because people know who I am now,. So I co-wrote ‘Phantom Feelings’ with Julia Michaels – I'm a huge fan. I asked my publisher and said I'd like to write with Julia, he was like, okay, standby, then 15 minutes later she's in! [Psychopath also features co-writes with Natalie Hemby, Liz Rose, Lori McKenna, Ashley Monroe and Angaleena Presley.]
What do you call the music – if you call it anything?
That's a real good question, because I don't know, you know? Especially when you listen to this new record, it's like, you have a song on there that have a Country vibe, like ‘Psychopath’, then you get a singer-songwriter feel with ‘27 Club’. Then you got kind of a grunge song, like ‘Meet Somebody’, and a reggae kinda feel with ‘Fall In Love With Me’. So, I have absolutely no idea! At first, for a long time, I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, you gotta pick a lane’, but now it's a nice feeling that no one knows what box to put me in.
‘Domino’ has a big pop song production. And on ‘Want’ you sound mature and sultry, and the song’s sexy and compelling.
I wrote ‘Want’ with Ashley Monroe. Before I knew her personally, she had the song ‘Hands on You’, that was such a sexy song. When I asked her to write with me, asked her if we could get together and write something risque like she did there, she was 100% all about it. I love that song – we played it live at the Ryman and Ashley sang on it with me and I was really grateful that she sang on the record because she's got this angelic hummingbird voice.
All the songs are very different. I'm not saying you sound like the Beatles, but they could do any style and you still knew it was them, because they had such strong personalities, which linked it all together. In your case, it's also your distinctive voice, which a lot of people don't have, or work hard to make one. But yours sounds natural.
I can’t change it, I mean I don't want to, but even if I did…
You have said that you write to save your own life. And in a lot of comments on social media, YouTube etc. people have been saying that your songs have helped their mental health as well. Is that particularly an issue in the South?
When I wrote ‘The Night’, I'm talking about that being an issue in the South, because that's where I grew up, but now that I’ve traveled all over the US and around the world I realize it's not just the South. No matter where I'm at in the whole world, when I sing that line “Is it a rule down in the South that you can't talk about your mental health” they scream that one the loudest. With older generations, like my grandfather, they weren't trying to go find a doctor to talk about depression, that wasn't a thing. They were poor, they were working, they were just trying to eat. Slowly things are starting to change, but I don't look at those strong men in my life and think that they don't care about their mental health, it’s just they never had that opportunity to go to therapy or have someone to talk to. They didn't have a school counselor or anything like that. So when I sing about it being in the South, I think it's actually universal.
When you play concerts, do you meet the fans afterwards and do you talk about this sort of thing?
Oh, yeah. Last night, I was walking to my bus and a girl took a photo, and she told me she’d lost her mom to suicide when she was 12, and thanked me for writing the songs and talking about these things. In those moments, you don't really know what to say, because words aren't enough to express the gratitude I feel for them having the courage to talk to me and tell me that. These aren't easy subjects. So not everybody's going to enjoy my music because they think it’s so sad. But for people that do understand that, and get it, it affects them on a deeper level. That's who I write for.
Is it healthier that people like yourself are writing songs that raise the topic?
You have to start talking about it. As one person starts to do it, another person does, and then it's a trickle effect. That's how change happens.
Is it like the Blues in the 1920s and ‘30s, there were sad songs but they made people feel better?
Exactly.
Those comments are not all about mental health issues. One says that “if Dolly and Joan Jett had a baby, I would imagine it was like this”.
I've also heard the "Kurt Cobain and Dolly Parton had a baby" one – anything about Dolly Parton, I’m gonna take that!
Talking about older music, who are your influences? I think some people might be surprised that Alanis Morissette makes an appearance on Psychopath [there's a song called 'Alanis'].
There are so many artists that people have written songs about, you know, Springsteen and Merle Haggard, Dolly and Loretta, and Johnny and June, but no-one had written anything about Alanis! She was really important, especially for a female like me, the stuff she was saying when Jagged Little Pill came out. She's stood the test of time as well, people know that record and it was so different and influential, especially for females in music. I owe a lot to her for being outspoken and saying the things that she said and just honestly not caring. She did what she wanted to do, so that was a tribute to her. We wrote the song before I knew I was gonna do the CMT awards to sing with her. [Morgan sang ‘You Oughta Know’ with Alanis Morissette, Lainey Wilson, Ingrid Andress and Madeline Edwards at the awards.]
What was the reception like when you played in the UK and in Europe?
It's so good every time we come there. They listen like a sober crowd and react like a drunk crowd! Just so respectful. I'm not from there, obviously, so to be so far from home and have these beautiful people singing every word to every song! And it's not just ‘Wilder Days’, it's all of them on the record. To have fans that are at the venue at 11am and they’re there all day, and coming to multiple shows. It's so awesome.
Do you get many American fans over here?
I have met a few, and I've had a few people come to my shows over there that flew over specifically, just to see me there. There was quite a few at the Royal Albert Hall. Just because, I mean, it's the Royal Albert Hall! And that's hands down the most beautiful venue I’ve ever been in, in my entire life!
Have you managed to see anything outside of the tour bus and the venue?
A little bit. I love to shop, I'm not gonna lie. I love to walk around the streets and shop and hang out. Unfortunately, while I've been there, I've been so incredibly busy, which I guess is a good thing. But I haven't got to do any touristy things, really. I honestly like getting up early and having a cup of coffee at a local cafe. And there is great shopping!
One final question – what's the best thing about being Morgan Wade?
Sometimes I still wake up in the mornings and I'm like, 'Wow, I don’t have to go clock in somewhere'. I always thought that I would be a doctor, that was the original plan. Now I wake up and I'm in a different city, and I'm getting to go do what I want to do every single day.