A cursory glance at Maren Morris on Spotify will reveal welcome additions to her discography. As recently as last summer, the country-pop star dropped an EP, Intermission, which served as an interlude between her last album, Humble Quest, and her next release. “This feels like the calm before the storm right now,” Morris says, ahead of a private performance for the Auberge Concert Series presented by Mercedes-Benz at the Commodore Perry Estate in Austin, Texas. “I’m just enjoying this beautiful place, then I’ll have a chill holiday and get ready for next year.”
This brief reprieve comes after a jam-packed year for Morris. Not only did she tour with Maroon 5 and P!nk, but she also hosted her own RSVP Redux Tour. She created award-nominated music for The Wild Robot and co-authored a New York Times bestselling children’s book Addie Ant Goes on an Adventure. In her personal life, she reached a settlement in her divorce from country singer Ryan Hurd, and later in the summer came out as bisexual on Instagram.
In late October, Morris debuted a new single, “People Still Show Up,” produced by Jack Antonoff. With a funky beat and ’70s-inspired artwork, it marks a departure from her former sound, and indicates a new musical era ahead. “I’m definitely ready for my next act,” Morris says.
Below, the 34-year-old discusses her new music, being bi, and her Golden Globe nomination.
How does your music right now represent where you’re at in life?
I just finished my [next] album. That’s a good Christmas present to me. It represents a lot of influences, a lot of leaps of faith—just true artistic freedom, which is what I’ve always wanted, and I’ve had, but not in this way, where it’s dovetailing with my personal life freedom.
I’ve always felt like I could express myself in a liberating way through my songs. I’ve done every genre already. I’ve done the Highwomen [a country supergroup with Brandi Carlisle, Natalie Hemby, and Amanda Shires]. I had “The Middle” with Zedd. I’ve done this movie, The Wild Robot. I’ve gotten to wear many hats in my career, but with my own personal project upcoming, there are no training wheels. I’m being my truest, most secure self. I think the album reflects [my experience of] becoming a mom in the last few years, changing the way I do business post-pandemic, and then also understanding why I needed to let go of some comforts to grow into the person that I needed to be.
Maren Morris at the Commodore Perry Estate in Austin, Texas.
What was the inspiration behind your recent EP, Intermission?
Well, the song “Cut” ended up [informing] the project coming out this year. I was on tour. I wrote “Cut” with Julia Michaels. The final lyrics are, “Every good show needs an intermission,” because in the song, we’re talking about going through it—just the responsibility of keeping your shit together at all costs, and then having that freedom at the end of the day to slam a door and scream or whatever you’ve got to do. I loved the word “intermission.” Naming an EP that felt so appropriate. This isn’t the end; this is half of something. That’s kind of where that came [from], but [it was] also a break in the act of my life.
Is “People Still Show Up” the lead single or a tease to the next era?
It’s definitely a tease to it, because it feels like a harkening back to my roots—growing up in Texas, where there were just so many influences. I was so heavily influenced by The Chicks and Bonnie Raitt and a lot of Motown and soul in general. I feel like there are always colors of that in my work, but I also think that I was really intentional about the songs I chose for this next chapter—addressing my life the last two years, but also lightening up. “People Still Show Up” felt like that. It was like, girl, you have friends, you’re good.
You just received Golden Globe and Critics Choice nominations for your song in The Wild Robot. What did that mean to you?
There’s this whole awards season that I’ve never been a part of. I’ve only done music awards, so this is very new for me. I feel like just every day my breath is taken away with being a part of this film, because animated films take so long to make that when they’re in theaters, you’re like, “Oh, wow, this finally came to fruition!”
The score that Kris Bowers wrote is so timeless and one of those iconic, memorable pieces of music that we will be studying for decades to come. This is just one of those [projects] that is just embedded in you forever. I can’t speak for [my son] Hayes, he’s 4 years old, but I feel like it could be one of those for him. I get to share it with him, a song that I wrote, inspired by him. My gift truly already happened. It was seeing the movie in theaters with my son, and him knowing that was my voice. That’s why I signed onto the project. I guess I’ve got to get a dress.
How did this weekend with Mercedes and Auberge come about?
I’ve done events in the past with Mercedes, and I have a song called “80s Mercedes.” They offered to do the concert in Austin, and this is one of my favorite cities. I’m from Texas. I grew up coming here for South by Southwest. I wish I spent more time here, just because it’s exploded in the last decade. It just has that sort of familial vibe, and it’s a progressive dot in the middle of a sea of red. This is just such a nice little way to wrap up my year, and the fact that I can get my son, [Hayes], out here with me this weekend and just be on this beautiful property. You don’t often get a backdrop that’s this pretty when you’re playing these gigs!
The menu at the Auberge Concert Series featuring Maren Morris.
A sign outside the Commodore Perry Estate.
You sang “For Good” from Wicked with Kristin Chenoweth at a recent show. Are you a big fan of the musical? And have you seen the movie?
I’ve seen it three times. I just saw it last weekend for the third time in 4DX. I’m so excited for Ariana [Grande] and Cynthia [Erivo]. I saw it for the first time in Dallas with the touring company when I was 14 or 15. I’ve just been obsessed ever since. When I did my show in Nashville at the end of 2022, it was my last show of the tour. I invited several special guests; Kristen was one of them. That was the one I was just the most gagged over. I barely got through the soundcheck, because she is so lovely, and it’s her. She is singing. [When we performed], the second the chords kicked in, the whole crowd lost it.
What prompted the decision to write a children’s book?
I have always loved children’s books, even before I had my son. There’s so much in them that sparks imagination. My best friend Karina is a former English teacher. She sent me a whole list of her characters and their names. She already did so much legwork creating these characters. Then we just spent two days at her house writing it. We had our little note cards. We were Googling what are the typical amount of pages in a children’s book. We had all our note cards numbered. We didn’t know what we were doing, but somehow it worked out. Then we met Kelly Anne Dalton, our illustrator. It was just fate. With this new book, Beatrix Butterfly Wings It for Once, we nerded out on so many references, because there’s a jazz club scene at the very end of the book. We were just creating fake artists for posters for the jazz club: Dilly Holiday, Elvis Parsley. We’re so lucky that [Addie Ant] was a New York Times bestseller, and then we got to do a second book. I’m so excited to get my hard copy of it so I can read it to Hayes!
You’ve been pretty outspoken about your beliefs. How did you build that confidence?
Any time you’re challenging your own comforts or biases, just taking a look under the hood, it’s scary, because you feel like your entire worldview is going to be shaken to its core. There’s definitely a stress of that. What’s kept me going is the community of people that I’ve found through that work. I certainly just want to set an example for my son who is innately going to grow up more privileged than I did, because I didn’t grow up with money. I had a support system at home. They really believed in my music, my talent, and took care of us. But there’s just so much I had to build for myself while also learning of the privilege I have as a white woman in a space of country music, where only a few of us women are let in at a time, and even fewer for women of color. Once you wake up to that fact, you can’t shut your eyes again.
What keeps me going is the crowd at my shows. It’s a diverse crowd, and it always has been. I love that, especially coming from this genesis base of country music. The more I spoke out about what I believed in, and what I didn’t believe in, the more safe and diverse it got. You will lose people. That’s just the risk of identifying with something, or not identifying something. You just have to be willing to lose people along the way that maybe weren’t always going to stick around, but you retain a trust with your audience that has stuck with it through the long haul and has learned about themselves in the process. The proof is in the pudding, because you can look at followers or stats or data, but I just look at the crowd, and I feel like my work has culminated into that.
Morris performs to a small, intimate crowd
This summer, you posted on Instagram that you identify as bisexual. What was that moment like for you?
From where I’m standing, I know it means so much when people feel closer to me, or feel like they have a spot, whether in their hometown, or at the show or at school. These things reverberate beyond just an Instagram caption. It was never something that I wanted to put in a press release, because it didn’t feel like a big deal. I don’t mean to be reductive. But I remember I was on tour, and I was doing these tour photo dumps every day. I was just like, “It’s Pride Month. I’m just going to say it.”
I’ve always known it about myself, but I am also extremely open. The two biggest relationships I’ve been in have been with cis men, straight men. I’ve never been in a serious relationship with a woman, yet or ever. But I wanted to accept that publicly about myself. The support that came thereafter was just so sweet. It didn’t feel like a hugely crushing weight lifted. It was just like, oh my gosh, one more door unlocked. There are many latches…the further you get into life, you just realize, why is that still locked?
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.