If you want to make music — all day every day, and then every day after that — you need to move to Nashville.
That’s what Morgan Evans had heard. So even though he was having plenty of success as a singer-songwriter/TV personality in Australia, he knew where he really needed to be. “Nashville is just the best place in the world to make music. It’s where you can get up and make music every day. If you want to be inspired and be the best, you have to be in Nashville,” Evans told me when he was in Chicago recently.
That was his thinking when he finally made the move, but once he got there, it didn’t feel like home at first.
“When you first move there, Nashville can be a lonely, lonely place. When you’re looking from the outside in,” he admitted. “But once you find your people, it’s the best place to be. ”
He found his people, alright. When he met Kelsea Ballerini for the first time in 2016, he told me, “I knew straight away that I wanted to marry her. She’s the best chick ever.” And he did. The two country stars tied the knot in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico in December 2017.
Their married life now, as two touring singer-songwriters, is full of the kind of newlywed bliss you’d expect. But with a little more music. “Last night, when I was on the bus, she sent me two demos she’d written yesterday. It was so cool. We’ve never written together, but we do sing together around the house,” he said. “She says, ‘I’m too nervous, I can’t.’ But we’ll get there eventually.”
And Evans admits that not every day in the music business is all hit songs and gold records. But no matter what happens, Evans and Ballerini have each other, and they have each other’s backs.
“There are some days when she’ll get great news and I’ll get bad news. Or vice versa. But we’re in it together. She’s just the sweetest. She’s so supportive, she gives me honest feedback, and she has an opinion that I value,” he said.
Evans is currently having more good days than bad, while his single “Kiss Somebody” continues to climb the charts. He wrote the song with Josh Osborne and Chris DeStefano, and told me about that writing session.
“The day we wrote it, Josh came into Chris’ house with the title. I had my Maton guitar, and I started playing the chords. And I told them a story about my friend who was still brokenhearted over a girl a year after they broke up. I’d told him, ‘Dude, you’ve got to kiss somebody.’ It’s a way you can get over someone.”
After they finished the song, they headed to the Tin Roof in Nashville. And DeStefano told Evans, “I think we got one tonight.”
Evans agreed. “It was the first time I’d ever felt that way about a song,” he said.
Kiss Somebody by Morgan Evans on VEVO.
Alison Bonaguro
This Article Was Originally Posted at www.CMT.com
http://www.cmt.com/news/1790803/morgan-evans-songwriting-pros-and-cons/
