Morgan Wade joins Southern Craft Radio with Joy Williams to share life stories and influences, from her grandpa’s love of bluegrass to her obsession with Elvis, to talk about her debut album ‘Reckless,’ and how she overcame hearing “no” more often than “yes” in the music business. Tune in and listen to the episode in-full this Sunday (August 29) at 12pm PT / 2pm CT / 3pm ET or anytime on-demand here.
Morgan Wade on her influences and her obsession with Elvis
Morgan Wade: I’m definitely a ’90s baby. And so, ’90s, early 2000s, Shania Twain, I called her ‘Nia Twain. That’s all I wanted to listen to as well. I was obsessed with her, and then especially it was the Tim and Faith era, and Garth Brooks, and all that coming about. But then, I discovered Elvis, and that changed everything for me. That’s all I would listen to. I was obsessed. And still pretty… We had a show in Memphis a couple weeks ago, and I went to Lansky Bros. They’re at the Peabody Hotel. I had to buy an Elvis leather jacket, and a bunch of stuff. I got a little carried away there, but super obsessed with Elvis.
Morgan Wade on being an old soul
Joy Williams: My question is, do you feel like you came into this world with an old soul, and do you think that’s something to be proud of, if so?
Morgan Wade: For sure. My grandmother was a hairdresser, and she had her salon in her house. And so, I would sit down there with these women in their 80s, and listen to their stories. And then, my grandmother would also go over to the nursing home and do hair, and I gravitated towards those, it was called the C Wing, which was the wing that was locked down. They couldn’t leave there, because they were flight risks. Those were my friends. I would literally-
Joy Williams: Those were your people.
Morgan Wade: My grandmother would take me there a couple days a week after school, and I just loved it, because the stories they would tell you. And they never would remember me, but they could remember these stories, and I would sit back there with them for hours. It was hard too, because there was a point where my mom really had to kind of sit me down, because all my friends were sadly dying off left and right, because I was becoming friends with… I learned about that pretty early on. It seemed like everyone that I was gravitating towards was, like Elvis, she had to break that to me that he was not alive, when I discovered him. It just seemed like everybody that I loved was in their final days. It might explain a little bit about me, I think.
Morgan Wade on hearing “yes” more and getting a French bulldog from new label, Sony
Joy Williams: I’m just curious, what the process of, I heard “no” a lot, and now I’m hearing “yes” more, I’m wondering what that’s like for you?
Morgan Wade: It’s a little strange for me, but I think it’s been good to hear all those nos. Obviously, I needed to hear that at those times, because it got me to where I’m at now, and I was definitely not ready back then. You wouldn’t hand your five-year-old your car keys, so I didn’t need that back then. But it’s funny, and I think everybody, we kind of sell ourselves short. There’s always that thing that we’re like, “Oh man, I’d really like to do that, but I don’t really want to tell somebody I want to do that, because they might shoot me down.” So now, it’s being over at Sony, they’re like, “What kind of ideas do you have?” And I’ll throw something out there, and they’ll be like, “That’s a great idea.” I’m waiting for them to like, “Are you crazy? That person will never want to work with you. Get out of here. Get out of here. Go clean the toilets or something.” That’s the mentality I walk in there with. So, to get some yeses, I’ve told them to buy me a French bulldog at my signing, and they bought me a French bulldog.
Joy Williams: Stop. They did?
Morgan Wade: That one really stunned me. That was the biggest like, “Oh, y’all are going to actually do that.”
Joy Williams: What did you name the bulldog?
Morgan Wade: Sony. I told them, I was like, “If you get me a French bulldog,” I said, “I will name him Sony.”
Morgan Wade on what she hopes fan take away from her debut album ‘Reckless’
I was really nervous to put this record out, because I didn’t know if it would be country enough for the people who like country, and would it be too country for the people that don’t like country? And so, I had all these things going through my mind. But now that it’s out, I’m super proud of this record. My main thing is, I’m so glad I put that out there, and I did it exactly how I wanted to. If anybody could take something away from what I’ve done, it’s just do what you want to do, and don’t worry about what everybody else is going to think. Because at the end of the day, Sadler, my producer and I, we talked about it, we were like, “All right, we’re not going to go in here and just try to make hits.” It’s like, we’re going to go in here and make stuff we believe in, and then at the end of the day, if we’re really happy with this, we’ve got something that we worked really hard on together. I think that’s what made this so great, is that we had such a good time doing this, and I can stand behind this. It’s not like I put something out there that I’m like, “Ugh, yeah, it’s doing really well, but I don’t believe in it.”
