Our Terms & Conditions | Our Privacy Policy
INDIO, CALIFORNIA – APRIL 13: (FOR EDITORIAL USE ONLY) Maren Morris performs with Zedd at the Outdoor Theatre during the 2025 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival at Empire Polo Club on April 13, 2025 in Indio, California. (Photo by Arturo Holmes/Getty Images for Coachella)
Getty Images for Coachella
Maren Morris’ superb new album, DREAMSICLE, is an infectious, engaging collection of songs largely rooted in pop. This has led to a whole hullabaloo about Morris leaving country behind, the same way it did when Neil Young began playing synths in the ‘80s, when Joni Mitchell embraced her love of jazz, hell, when Bob Dylan plugged in at the Newport Folk Fest 60 years ago and got called a “Judas.”
As a certain Mr. Shakespeare coined it, “Much ado about nothing.” Every great artist experiments musically, this should be considered the norm, not the deviation.
Of course, the gifted Grammy-winning Morris, who released her debut album at 15, should be expected to change things up after 20 years. Just ask Miles, Prince, Joni, Bowie, Tom Waits, Rod Stewart, Taylor, Willie, the list goes on.
Morris, now 35, is growing as an artist. And the boldness musically and lyrically of DREAMSICLE reflects an artist gaining confidence and finding new paths to sojourn as her voice grows stronger with age and experience.
I spoke with Morris about the new album, touring and much more.
Steve Baltin: You just played We Ho Pride. How’d that go?
Maren Morris: Oh, it was so fun. It was my first Pride to perform at. So, the fact that it was the West Hollywood one felt really official, but it was so fun. It was such a beautiful night out and the energy in the crowd was so just optimistic and it just gave me a jolt like, “Okay, we’re going to be all right.”
Baltin: I know Qveen Herby opened for you. I just had dinner with her and her husband last week, so they were telling me how much fun they had opening for you and how lovely it was.
Morris: Oh my gosh, I’ve been such a fan of her. I was listening to her album so much during COVID and back in the Karmin days too, but like the Qveen Herby era has been…I met her that night for the first time and she was so sweet. And you can just tell she’s a songwriter. I love picking people’s brains that come up with turns of phrases like she does, but then also in a live way, just so fun to watch side stage before our show.
Baltin: You say that about songwriters and in fact, we also just spoke to Julia Michaels in the last two weeks.
Morris: Oh, you’re naming all my favorite people. Yeah, she’s such a gem of a human. And I’m so happy that we’ve been able to collaborate so much over the last couple years. She’s just a real one.
Baltin: We had the best conversation about the song, “Go F**k Yourself,” and how much fun she had doing that. We were talking about how liberating that sentiment is. Are there songs on this record that had the same feeling for you? I love the honesty, for instance, of “Bed No Breakfast.”
Morris: Thanks. Yeah, there are a couple of moments like that on the album of not where I outright say like, “Oh f**k yourself,” but definitely “Too Good” is one of those that’s very brash and then “Lemonade,” like the intro of the album was also in that sort of acidic lane of like I’ve had enough. Yeah, a woman scorned who also writes songs is a thing to behold. A beautiful, scary thing to behold.
Baltin: Every great artist has gone from genre to genre. It’s the most natural thing in the world. So are there those artists that have really influenced you in the way that they have moved around musically?
Morris: Yeah, I think all of my favorite records, artists, they’re so different. Like if you listen to Sheryl Crow between Tuesday Night Music Club and The Globe Sessions there’s a big musical shift, but you can still obviously tell the heartbeat is Sheryl’s writing, her voice. Then Patty Griffin is another one that I have had a long-time obsession with. Flaming Red is one of my favorite albums, but it’s also the most sonically ambitious album I’ve ever heard. And I guess it would be considered a rock album, but it’s just Patty. So, it’s very singer/songwriter-y and folky in moments, but then she’s going balls to the wall on these drums to kick the album off. There are so many examples of people that genre blend, genre shift. I think that’s the name of the game is not copying and pasting your work over and over and over again, just to make a buck. I think it’s exciting when people do something that’s out of leftfield.
Baltin: I think as an artist that’s the only way to also keep yourself happy and interested. Otherwise, you’re going to lose your mind.
Morris: I’ve always have been influenced by a lot of different kinds of music. And I think that comes out in my own work. But depending on who I’m writing with or collaborating with, who’s producing, every day is different. So, sometimes for me, honing in on a lane has never been a thing. It’s also not something I should have to do. I love that with this record DREAMSICLE I can weave between lanes pretty seamlessly and it feels still at the end of the day like a cohesive project because it’s the same brain, the same voice, the same heart. Especially when I’m going to tour rehearsals next week was like, I really want to work up songs that I’m excited about, that I loved making in the studio that kept me going each day.
Baltin: What are your favorite women scorned songs?
Morris: The ones that like come to mind are definitely like, because I was just listening to it, “You’re So Vain,” Carly Simon. A recent one is Taylor Swift’s “The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived,” that’s a really good one. Then also not to circle back, but I just like love Julia Michaels EP so much. I think that she’s so good at having a unique take each time, there is a scorn to be had. Even with “Scissors,” the one that I’m on, I was like this is such a beautiful way of saying I don’t care about you enough to mourn this relationship if you decide to end it. I’m good either way. She just has such a unique way of spinning something like that
Baltin: Let’s come onto the tour for one second. What are the songs that you’re most excited to do live? What are the songs you are most excited to see how people responded to them?
Morris: Weirdly, it’s all the ballads. I think the one I’m really excited to work up with the band because it was such a spiritual experience writing it. And it’s literally about losing religion. But the song “Holy Smoke,” I’m really excited to work up with the band because there are so many layers musically that Jack Antonoff added. Lots of backing vocals that I layered, Laura Belts, my songwriter friend, layered and it just has this really communal sing-along element to it. So, I think in a live setting it’s one of those songs that I love on the album; it’s beautiful, we produced it beautifully. But you know when you’re writing something that is going to slap live.
Baltin: What were the songs that have surprised you most over the years, those ones in your catalog that have become live favorites?
Morris: There’s a song from my first record. It’s called “Once.” And it’s just a really vocally strenuous song live, it just takes you to another dimension. I’m the one singing it and I feel like I accessed some different astral plane when I’m singing that song. It’s just so guttural. But over the years, like the last eight, nine years it has been an audience favorite, even though it was never a single. It’s a really heavy song. But live it is just this transcendent experience, and you never know that thing until you go and do it in the show. So, it’s one of those songs I always have a tough time taking out of the set list because I just know it’s going to bring the house down each time.
Images are for reference only.Images and contents gathered automatic from google or 3rd party sources.All rights on the images and contents are with their legal original owners.
Aggregated From –
Comments are closed.