Morgan Wade Interview - Obsessed Album, Wilder Days, Songs

It was three years ago that country singer/songwriter Morgan Wade had a career breakthrough, when she her single “Wilder Days” became a hit, and her debut album, Reckless, was critically acclaimed and a best seller. She was nominated for New Female Artist of the Year at the ACM Awards, and she was nominated for Emerging Act of the Year at the Americana Music Honors & Awards.

Wade’s breakthrough was truly justified, because Reckless was one of the best debut albums by an artist in years. Wade showed that she’s an authentic, expressive country singer, who writes original, passionate songs that are full of personality and based on her life experiences. Besides her hit “Wilder Days,” Reckless contained many strong songs including “Take Me Away,” “Other Side” and “Northern Air,” and the deluxe edition of Reckless featured her song “The Night,” which has become a fan favorite.

	SPECIAL FEATURE: STREAMING AUDIO
	Here’s an excerpt of our interview with Morgan, who talks about the making of her new album, Obsessed.

Then last year (2023), two years after the release of Reckless, Wade returned with her second album, Psychopath. This album also received good reviews and included such key songs as the title cut “Psychopath,” “Losers Look Like Me,” “Fall in Love with Me” and “Alanis” (her tribute to Alanis Morissette).

Now in 2024, Wade has make a quick turnaround, releasing her third album, Obsessed, just 12 months after putting out Psychopath. In the past year, Wade has felt a burst of creativity, and she quickly wrote and recorded these songs. The result is an excellent new album that equals her best work. The songs on the album flow nicely, from beginning to end.

Wade wrote most of these songs while she was on the road touring, and she was so excited about these new songs that she wanted to record them right away. She found smaller studios across the country to record these songs, because she wanted to record them right away. She worked closely in the studio with her guitarist & producer, Clint Wells.

Here’s the video of Morgan Wade’s song, “Halloween.”

Overall, Obsessed is a bit more acoustic and stripped down. Some of the best songs on the album are beautiful, heartfelt ballads such as “Halloween,” “2 AM in London” and “Moth to a Flame.” Other key songs are the uptempo country-rocker “Total Control,” the smart midtempo songs “Reality” and “Time to Love, Time to Kill,” and “Crossing State Lines” which musically pays tribute to Stevie Nicks & Fleetwood Mac. Another highlight is “Walked on Water,” where Wader sings a duet with hit artist, Kesha.

Currently, Wade is looking forward to promoting her new album, and playing these new songs live. She recently completed a major arena tour opening for Alanis Morissette and Joan Jett, and she’ll be headlining her Obsessed Tour this summer and fall.

We are pleased to do this new Q&A interview with Morgan Wade. She discusses her debut album Reckless and how she wrote her hit, “Wilder Days.” She also talks about the making of her new album, Obsessed, and her songs “Halloween,” “2 AM in London,” “Total Control” and others.

DK: I read that you’re from Virginia. How did you get started with singing and writing songs?

Morgan Wade: Honestly, the songwriting came first for me. I’ve been doing that as long as I can remember. I remember being 7 years old, writing songs and poems and stories. I had no idea where that came from because no one in my family wrote songs. It was just something I started doing. I took guitar lessons for a year when I was 12 years old…I wanted to learn chords to write songs. I would come home from school and I’d be in a room by myself writing songs, and I loved doing it.

In my freshman year of college, I started going to these open mics, and I ended up getting on Craigslist, accepting an ad for an audition for a band that needed a singer. Then I started doing the weekend warrior stuff and I was having fun. I dreamt of being where I’m at now, but I didn’t think it would happen. I’m still amazed to think that I’ve come this far.

Here’s the audio of Morgan Wade’s song, “Total Control.”

DK: I like your album, Reckless, which was a big breakthrough for you. Did you originally release this album as an indie artist, or did you release it after you signed your label deal?

Wade: I was an indie artist—I put that out with (indie label) Thirty Tigers Records. It was out about two weeks (laughs) and then I had all the major labels calling. At first I was like, “Nah I’m not interested, I love Thirty Tigers.” But David Macias (the head of Thirty Tigers), he’s such a great dude that he was literally like, “You need to take these meetings. I will always be here, and you can always come back to Thirty Tigers. But you should take these meetings and see if that’s something you want to do.” And I ended up really connecting with everybody at Sony, and I’ve been very happy with them since.

DK: You had a hit with your song, “Wilder Days.” How did you write that song and how did it become a hit?

Wade: That was the first song that I pitched when I met Sadler Vaden, who produced Reckless (Vaden is a writer/producer who plays with Jason Isbell’s band). I had pitched him that song, and then we worked on it and got it polished up. I’d started playing “Wilder Days” in my shows, and it was the song that people liked the most. That was the song—if any song of mine could make it to radio, that was the one. And it’s still the last song we play every night in our shows that people love. So that’s been a fun one.

DK: On your Reckless album, I also like your songs “The Other Side” and “Take Me Away.” Can you talk about writing those songs?

Wade: I wrote those two songs by myself. Those kind of songs just come to me…it takes about 20 minutes, I write it, and then I’m done for the day. I don’t play “The Other Side” as much live, but with “Take Me Away,” people scream that one right back and sing along to it. “Take Me Away” was one I could tell that people were going to like. “Take Me Away,” “Wilder Days” and “The Night” are the top 3 for everybody.

DK: A year ago, you released your album, Psychopath. What was it like to write and record this album?

Here’s the audio of Morgan Wade’s song, “2 AM in London.”

Wade: If your debut record doesn’t do well, then you can have another debut record because nobody knows (laughs). But Reckless did very well, so I put a lot of pressure on myself for Psychopath and it did well too, but I think I was pretty nervous for that record and felt a little more pressure. The pressure was not really from anybody else, but within myself.

It was cool because I did a lot of co-writes on that record. I wrote with the Love Junkies, I wrote with (top songwriters) Natalie Hemby, Ashley Monroe and Butch Walker. And of course I wrote with Sadler (Vaden). I also wrote with Julia Michaels out in L.A. and I’m a huge fan of hers. So that was a different experience for me, coming from where I grew up and how I started writing…I didn’t write with other people. So to be able to go and write with them was a cool experience for me.

DK: Your album Psychopath has the song “Alanis,” and you were on tour opening shows for Alanis Morissette. What inspired you to write this song, and did it lead to Alanis liking your song and inviting you to tour with her?

Wade: Yes. I wrote “Alanis” with Sadler Vaden and Natalie Hemby, and Sadler had that idea. He was like, “You know, Alanis is amazing,” which we knew. “There’s been tribute songs about all these other artists, but Alanis doesn’t have one yet.” And especially for a female artist like me, I’m under that country genre but I’ve got the rock elements, and I’m a little bit of an outsider. I owe a lot to her. She was saying stuff and coming out and writing all this stuff that people weren’t talking about. She was just saying how she felt, and she changed music and of course, a lot of women. So we wrote that song and I did the CMT Awards and I sang “You Oughta Know” with her. Of course, I didn’t tell her then that I wrote a song about her; that would be kind of stalker-ish (laughs).

But randomly one day, she tagged me in a post, and I guess someone had sent her my song “Alanis,” and she was like, “I feel so honored and heard and seen.” It was really great to be able to see that. Then the offer came in to do the run of shows with her and Joan Jett, and tomorrow is actually our last show with them. And I can say I’m bummed that it’s the end of this tour, because I got to know Alanis and Joan and the crew, and it’s been such a great experience touring with them. It’s a lot of women, too (laughs). I’ve never met so many women on a crew.

Here’s the audio of Morgan Wade’s song, “Walked on Water,”
featuring Kesha.

DK: You’re about to release your new album, Obsessed. Can you talk about the making of this album? Some of the songs seem more stripped-down and acoustic.

Wade: Yeah we’re more polished than the last record. Each song sounds kind of different, and has its own vibe. And some of the songs on Obsessed are older songs that I wrote, like “Juliet,” “Reality” and “Crossing State Lines.” Those are older songs that didn’t make the last record. These songs are great…they needed space.

[For the new songs] it was just me and my guitar, sitting and writing, and I felt very inspired. It was like going back to what I’ve always done [writing songs by myself], like when I was that 12-year-old girl sitting in a room writing songs with her guitar. I started doing that again, and I was on the road with my guitar player, Clint (Wells), and I was like, “Hey, can we go to these studios? I just wanna make some demos.” And that’s how it started. We were just going into a studio and making some demos, and he said, “Hey I think we’ve got a record. This might be more than just demos.”

We recorded a lot of these these songs in random, small studios across America while we were on tour. And it was a really cool experience. You could pay a lot of money and sit in these huge studios, do all this production and spend all this money. We didn’t do that. We found hole-in-the-wall studios and met some cool people and it was chill and fun, and I fell in love with it again.

DK: Two of my favorite songs on your new album are the ballads “Halloween” and “2 AM in London.” Can you talk about writing these songs?

Wade: Those are very stripped-down. “Halloween” is so great—it has the strings on it and the production was really great. We released that as a single. It’s just me and my guitar sitting down and writing these songs. And when I wrote “2 AM in London” I was in London and it was 2 AM. Obviously that song speaks for itself. But thank you, those are my two favorite songs as well.

Here’s the video of Morgan Wade’s hit, “Wilder Days.”

DK: On your song “Walked on Water,” you sing it with Kesha. How did you connect with her on this song?

Wade: I’ve been a big fan of Kesha since I was like 16. I love Kesha, so when I came out to Nashville and started writing, I said, ”Hey, I want to do a song with Kesha. It took awhile, but I was able to make that connection with her. And with “Walked on Water” I thought…I could picture somebody singing this song with me. So I pitched it to Kesha and we met in Malibu. We sat on the beach and chatted. Then that night we went in the studio and she sang on it, and the rest is history. She’s become a great friend.

DK: On your new album, besides the songs we’ve discussed, what are your favorite songs?

Wade: “Total Control” is fun—we’ve been opening the shows with that one. It was more of a rocker and we redid it. I like “Crossing State Lines—I had done an acoustic version a year ago. So we did another version of that song which is trippy and fun to rock out with the band. And “Reality” was an old song that was pre-Reckless days. It’s cool to bring those back to life.

I’m proud of this record…I’m excited. You know, a lot of my fans enjoy the stripped-down versions of these songs. So I found a way to keep it interesting and not boring, but yet also acoustic.

DK: Besides your shows with Alanis Morisette, I read that you’ll also be headlining some shows.

Wade: Yes I’ve got a few headline shows mixed in. At the end of September I head back out and I’ll be touring until Thanksgiving. I said that would be it for this year, but then I added a few shows for December. It’s hard for me to sit still (laughs).