Morgan Wade Q&A with Jay
Photo Courtesy of Chris Estes
Watching an artists career really take off is an odd and wonderful thing. When they start gaining acclaim and recognition you feel as though you had a part in it. You celebrate their success. A part of you is going along for the ride. You were there before the acclaim, before the accolades, before the glamour. There is nothing wrong with this, as long as you keep your expectations at bay. After all, it’s their art and their career.
Let’s try to imagine that career for a moment. It most likely begins in earnest, writing songs purely for the love of doing so. Maybe you string some songs together and gather the courage to let those close to you hear them. Depending on the reaction you receive you may consider giving music a proper go. You start booking gigs in local bars and small rooms that are dimly lit and sparsely attended. This can be a largely thankless pursuit. For most, the dream dies here. Music may be a passion, but this is where you discover whether or not it’ll pay the bills. A small fraction of artists with the proper combination of luck, skill, and diligence may one day progress to playing dance halls, auditoriums, and theatres to hundreds of fans. This is success, no doubt. A fraction of a fraction of those artists may graduate to playing their music to thousands of people in amphitheaters or even arenas. Knowing where an artist will land on this totem pole can largely depend on factors that don’t necessarily include talent. But sometimes the talent does the talking. Sometimes the talent is undeniable.
I first heard Morgan Wade’s music in 2019 at the suggestion of a friend (Shout out Darren Combs). Though perhaps the songs she had available at the time (Morgan Wade and the Stepbrothers) sounded rough around the edges, she really flexed her southern rock muscle on that project and her talents as a writer and singer were plain to see. In 2020, she released a handful of songs via Ourvinyl Sessions. These songs, intimate and acoustic, were a stunning display of her singer/songwriter bona fides. This only added to the buzz surrounding the release of her first solo record, entitled “Reckless”. If you’d like my thoughts on this record, read my review. In short, it’s good. Really good. Though her career is young, she’s already demonstrated remarkable versatility. As many suspected, the strength of “Reckless” has quickly propelled Morgan Wade’s career to new heights, and she’s just getting started.
I was interested in speaking with Morgan at this point in her career simply because it’s a rare opportunity to ask someone questions as they begin to navigate success. Thankfully, she was kind enough humor me for a few minutes and answer some questions that I thought fans would appreciate. After reading this, I’d suggest buying a ticket to see her perform if she’s in your neck of the woods. Trust me folks, the view won’t be as good when she’s playing arenas.
So, for those reading this article that may not be familiar with your story just yet, can you just give us a quick rundown of where you were born and raised? When did music enter your life?
I was born in raised in a small town in Virginia. Super small town, One stop light. They’re pretty well known for bluegrass music up there, so my earliest memories of live music are Friday nights with my grandfather, up at the country store listening to bluegrass music. As time passed, obviously my musical tastes changed. But I still have a great appreciation for bluegrass, and that was my first introduction to music. As a young kid I was always writing songs and stuff for myself. It was just something I enjoyed doing. I was really good at English at school and writing stories and stuff like that. It was just never anything that I did publicly or shared. My freshman year of college, I went through a breakup and decided I was gonna form a band. I formed a band on craigslist and literally it just went from there. Craigslist can take all the credit for where I’m at right now haha!
That takes us all the way up to the Stepbrothers record. I want to talk about “Reckless” of course, but I am curious… Were the songs on the Stepbrothers record old songs that you’d written years before? Or were they written just leading up to that release?
Yeah, that was just where I was at, at the time. Those were the songs. I didn’t have a producer. That record was more or less, I didn’t have any material. I had nothing to book shows and stuff. It was such a different chapter in my life. I wasn’t sober when I wrote those songs. I know some people were pissed and I saw some comments about not being able to stream that record anymore and I get it. But people have to get over that, man! I mean I’m a different person now. I’ve changed a whole hell of a lot since then.
Yeah, you can never please everybody. I think people should’ve expected that. That is not unique. Those early, rough sounding records typically disappear when an artist finally finds their sound. Full disclosure, I do miss listening to the song “Crossing State Lines”, but you’ve mentioned re-recording that one. After hearing what y’all did with “Mend”, I’m stoked to hear what y’all do with that one next time around!
Yeah, and “Crossing State Lines” is one that I still play live as well haha. So, if you go to a live show, you won’t have to wait to hear it again!
I’ve heard you compare the way that you store melodies in your head to storing files that you can just pull from when you find a lyric to use with it. Do you do the same with lyrics as well? Do you even have to pull out a pen and paper to write music? Or is the entire songwriting process something that you’re able to do in your head?
Yeah, that’s just how I do it. I just store all of that in my brain. Lyrics and all. Every now and then I’ll write something down, but not usually. If it’s something that I know I’m going to use, then I’ll always remember it. If I forget something, then to me it just wasn’t worth using. It’s weird!
That is wild haha!.
That’s just how my brain is! I can’t remember anything else like that. But it works that way with my songwriting for some reason.
“Reckless” is so much brighter than your earlier work. It really reflects where you are in your life now.
Absolutely! I’d agree with that 100%.
When I heard the first few singles, I must admit, I was surprised. I don’t listen to much pop-leaning music. I had the opposite reaction to “Reckless”. I loved it. If anything, it made me further resent a lot of the radio friendly music that’s being made today. You proved with this record that you can make that type of music while still being true to yourself, and not compromising who you are, lyrically.
For sure! That was kind of the thing for me. I’m a songwriter, and I love to perform. I listen to all kinds of music. If I connect with a song, I don’t care who writes it, what genre of music it is, or any of that. If I connect with it, I just do. I think that’s something that others feel too. I’ve had a lot of people say “Hey, I don’t like country music, but I love your stuff. Your music was labeled as country, but to me this isn’t really country music.”. And then I’ll have someone else come to me and be like “This is kind of pop music and I don’t really like pop usually, but this sounds like something else.”. So, to me, I feel like we made a record that could go so many ways, and that’s what I wanted to do. I wanted all kinds of sounds on “Reckless”, but I didn’t sacrifice lyrically.
No, you didn’t!
I mean Tom Petty… He had some pop, man! That was pop-rock music! If you look back, a lot of these older bands were more pop than anything. People just don’t realize. Everybody’s definition on genres too, it’s different for everyone. What I might consider country, you may not. You just never know.
In other interviews you’ve spoken about the fact that some producers kind of wanted to put you in a box, so to speak, but Sadler Vaden understood what you wanted to do sonically. Did you ever actually attempt to record with anyone else before Sadler came into the picture? And if so, was it that obvious that they had certain expectations of you prior to recording, which would explain why you pivoted?
Yeah, there were some others. You know, even label-wise. There were a few different labels that I met with and they’re like “We love you… But we want to change everything.” Haha! Or “Let’s put you in this category and we want this and this and this…” and from my perspective I’m thinking “Well you like my music. What I just showed you is what got your attention. Why are you trying to mess with it?”. I had so many people that wanted me to be something else… Just let me be me, you know! Why do I have to copy someone else? Sadler wasn’t like that. Sadler was like “What kind of music do you want to make? Let’s go make something that sounds really great, that we’re happy with. Who cares what people call it?”
As far as the recording process on “Reckless” is concerned, how did it compare to the recording of the Stepbrothers record? The reason I ask is simply because your career has come so far, so quickly, that the contrast between those experiences must be striking.
There was a huge difference! That first record… I more so call it a demo. There was no producer, there was nothing. There was no one in there to help me. I had no freakin’ clue. It was just thrown together. I see people say things about Sadler and how he changed my sound, but on the new one, Sadler was there to guide me. It was great. If there was a sound I was looking for, he was there to help me find it and make it happen. To me that’s the biggest difference between the two experiences. Just having someone help take what I hear in my head and make it a reality. We both worked REALLY hard for the entire duration of writing these songs and figuring things out.
Well, it shows! It’s been awesome watching your career really start to take off since “Reckless” was released. Since I know that this is your first album cycle, I’m curious to know if that shit is absolutely exhausting? So many interviews and promoting the record, and doing things like CBS Saturday Session, all of it. Does any of that wear on you? Is the attention weird as hell?
You know, it’s caught up with me a little bit. I’m usually an early riser. I try to wake up before 6 AM. The other morning, I woke up and it was after 9 AM and I was like “What the hell?”. I was trying to think of why I was so tired, and my manager said “Morgan, you’ve been traveling and promoting this record!”. It’s more of a mental thing, I think. I mean I’m not doing anything like, physically. I’m just sitting, talking and doing this type of stuff. But I’m super grateful to be doing all of this! It would really suck to not be tired right now. It would be worse to put out a record and people not want to talk to me about haha. I mean it’s different and It’s crazy to me. Especially after the CBS session aired. I’m on a lot more peoples radar now. So, things have gotten kinda weird, but a good kind of weird! It’s gonna take a minute for me to adjust to it. My career is growing and the level that I’m at now is completely different than where I was.
Speaking of reaching a different level, I just saw your first music video for “Wilder Days”, and I have to ask, when you’re shooting your first music video is that shit just crazy awkward haha? I mean you have to act, like, walk around holding a strangers hand while you’re trying to lip sync as well? How does that process play out?
It’s exhausting man! I thought going in that it would be quick, easy and fun. Haha it’s a lot of work. I actually do sing along in the video. You can lip sync, but it looks more authentic when you sing along with it. Basically, you’re singing this song over and over and over and over again while you have to walk around and try to slow dance with a guy haha. Especially the first day on set was extremely awkward. Now I’ve got a couple more music videos under my belt. You just jump in there! I’ve gotten used to it. At first it kind of freaked me out a little bit, but now it’s no big deal! I’m more like “How many scenes before we can break for lunch?” haha.
Dude, what’s it like seeing a copy of “Reckless” on tiffany blue vinyl sell for $560 on eBay?
Hahahahaha! I think it was my tour manager that sent me a link to that and I was like “What the hell!?”. I’m not mad about it at all! If someone wants to spend their hard-earned money to buy that… It made me feel very appreciated obviously. But it’s still like “Really?!?” Haha, but it was cool. Whoever scalped that, good on them! They made a good profit!
Did you get one of the tiffany blue records?
Not yet. They saved me one though, so I’m supposed to get one. A guy came to the show the other night and said that he had two and offered me one! I appreciated that a lot but told him they had one for me. At this point I’d have them make me one haha! I gotta have that shit, man. That’s my debut record! I have to have the tiffany blue! I picked that color out and I think I did a really good job on that!
So, what’s next? How does the next year look for Morgan Wade?
We’ve got some other stuff in the works! Touring is the big thing right now. I really want to get out there and push this record. Especially after having a year off due to Covid and everything. I’m looking forward to getting back out there and playing as many states as I can. There’s a lot of places that I haven’t been, and places that I was supposed to play that ended up getting cancelled. It’s a big deal to me to get to play in Texas and out on the West coast. I want to tour Europe as well. Europe is a whole new ballgame. Things are going really going well over there. Japan, Germany, it’s crazy. I can’t wait to get out there!
Well Morgan, thank you for taking the time to speak with me and answer some silly questions! I’m happy for your success and look forward to catching a show down the line!
I appreciate you, man! Thank you!