Interview: Maren Morris on 'Hero', touring with Niall Horan, and more.

While on tour with Niall Horan, Maren Morris kicked off their dates together in Auckland, New Zealand - during which Coup De Main met Morris to discuss her 'Hero' album, and progress on her next record.

I think the best relationship you can have, fan to artist or artist to fan, is just to be honest and not try to put on this facade that you're perfect or such a badass. Just be yourself and people see through that layer really quick if you are being disingenuous.

COUP DE MAIN: This is your first time in New Zealand right? How are you finding it? We saw you went to Waiheke.
MAREN MORRIS: Yeah, the day before yesterday we went out there and went to a vineyard and yesterday we went to Piha. It was cool. It is so stunning, it's one of those places that has always been on my travel bucket-list that I never thought music would be taking me to.
CDM: Very far away!
MAREN: Yeah it is very far and I am glad that we came in a couple of days early to get over a little bit of the jet lag and get to explore, because there are so many times where you don't get to get out and see outside of the venue when you travel abroad, and so we definitely made the most of it.

CDM: It's cool to see that you co-produced and co-wrote every single song on your 'Hero' album. Is it important to you to have that creative control in all of your music?
MAREN: On the front end for this first record, and the next one I am making, it's important to me, but I also love the creative license of letting someone else be in their own realm and make amazing sounds. I just like to oversee the process because I can be pretty particular about my own voice and how it's recorded, and just the layers of instrumentation, I am just a nerd when it comes to that stuff.
CDM: There is nothing wrong with knowing what you want.
MAREN: Yeah! At some point, I'll do an album where I'm not a producer on it and I'll just trust someone to use their vision with my songs, but for right now, I really love being in the driver's seat on that.
CDM: It must've been cool to do 'The Middle' with Zedd because he got to do that for you.
MAREN; Yeah! It was already rolling, before I ever came into the picture.
CDM: It's such an interesting backstory with all the other artists who demoed the song.
MAREN: Yeah it's crazy. I feel so fortunate that I got to be on the song and really blend my taste with his, and it's been a whirlwind these last four months. It's been crazy to see how quickly it has risen and it has opened me up to the world in a way that I hadn't been before, so it's been really amazing.

CDM: How does your songwriting process work?
MAREN: I never really write songs by myself anymore. I used to when I was a teenager, but I love collaborating, and in Nashville that is such a big facet of how the music industry works and how music is written. It's like, you write with several people, and you do it five days a week. And that was my job at one point before I became an artist. I just have my core group of friends that I love writing with and I have been writing a ton in the last year for my upcoming record that I have started recording, and it is different everyday. Like sometimes it'll be a title that I have in my phone that I'm really inspired by, or I'll be inspired by a sound a guitar makes. I feel like every day is different and it depends on who you are writing with and the mood you're in that day, but I love that. The songwriting aspect is probably my favourite thing about music and I would choose to be a writer over touring for the rest of my life, like I can always go back and write songs, so it's a big passion of mine.

CDM: In 'Second Wind' you sing, "Why do we build up all these idols / Just to watch 'em fall?" Do you it's dangerous that celebrity culture puts musicians on pedestals?
MAREN: It is sort of like you take it with a grain of salt, and there are so many times that you feel like, 'This is what I signed up for,' so I can't complain, but I definitely think that we idolise these human beings that are just that - human beings. They are flawed and they are going to make mistakes and they are going to say things or do things that you are not always going to agree with, and we are always changing and evolving. I think the best relationship you can have, fan to artist or artist to fan, is just to be honest and not try to put on this facade that you're perfect or such a badass. Just be yourself and people see through that layer really quick if you are being disingenuous. It's amazing that social media allows you to talk to your fans directly, but there is also a Catch-22 with it where you are almost too exposed sometimes, so you have to find that balance and I am constantly working at that.

CDM: Similarly, 'Company You Keep' has a similar theme of self-worth. Does society place too much importance in sharing social media snapshots? Is it more important to just live in the moment?
MAREN: Yeah, I mean, even here visiting New Zealand and seeing all these beautiful places in the last 48 hours, it's so easy to get your phone out. You're like, 'Oh! I'm going to remember this forever.' But I have to tell myself, 'Put it away, your brain will remember the way that this looked.' It is hard for me, even, and I am sort of a Luddite when it comes to technology sometimes, and so is my husband. Like he hates if I'm on my phone all the time, so we have to get out of that routine that we've been lazy and sort of unglue yourself from your screen and live your life.
CDM: It's more important to live your life.
MAREN: Yeah, I agree.

CDM: What are your favourite lyrics on your 'Hero' album?
MAREN: I love in the song, 'I Wish I Was', "You can't make a heart say something that it don't believe." And there are so many really heartbreaking lyrics that I love performing, and I love the colour that is in '80s Mercedes', like that was just such a fun song to write because I got to write down all these neon sort of 80s movie references like 'Pretty In Pink'. That's a good question, I mean, I feel like I love all the lyrics and I wouldn't have kept them if I hated them, so there is a special nugget in each song.

CDM: It's really sad, but I like the imagery in 'Space' of, "Everyone watched as you took the stars right out of my sky / The light out of my eyes."
MAREN: Thanks! It is really sad. You like the deep cuts.

CDM: You've written quite a few songs that were featured on the TV show, 'Nashville'. Did you write the songs specifically for the show or were they just songs you didn't want to keep for yourself?
MAREN: A lot of those got recorded by the show cast-members when I wasn't even signed yet, so I was just really a songwriter trying to write for other people and TV shows and movies, so that was like before my artist career ever started. I didn't write them specifically for the show 'Nashville', but they kind of just got picked up and pitched to them and fit the scene, so that was like my first time ever hearing my songs in a TV show or in film.

CDM: Does the show give a dramatised, but accurate, portrayal of what it's like to be a musician in Nashville?
MAREN: In a way, it is a little dramatic, just because, you know-- But I think it has shed a lot of light on the songwriting world in Nashville and gave people a better look at how the industry works behind the curtain. But I will say, as a songwriter, if you get a cut with an artist, you don't immediately get a cheque in the mail for $300,000, that doesn't really happen and it takes over a year for your money to come in and it's never that big of a cheque. But I think it's a great show because it makes it so accessible for fans to see how the songs are written, because a lot of people assume that artists write their own songs all the time but it's actually a slew of really talented songwriters that are behind the scenes that make those.

CDM: How do you decide when a song is going to be for yourself, or for another musician? Are you only writing for yourself now?
MAREN: Yeah! I mean, even when I was just a songwriter I don't feel like I had super massive success with other people cutting my songs because I think they were just so distinctly me and I couldn't shake that.
CDM: You redid a Kelly Clarkson song for your album right?
MAREN: Yeah. She recorded that song I wrote years ago and it ended up being a bonus track on her album 'Piece By Piece', so by the time my record was being made I was just like, 'God, I just really love 'Second Wind',' because it is such a personal song to me. And so I recorded a version of it and it is so fun to play live because it so emotional, and powerful, and very anthemic. I feel like now I mostly write for myself. I don't even bother thinking like, 'Oh, could Carrie Underwood record this?' or whatever. I just look at what I'm feeling today, and not every song I write down is going to be amazing, and I'll keep for myself a lot of them, or I'm like, 'Hey, if anyone wants to record this I am totally cool because it didn't fit my vibe for right now.'

CDM: How is work on your next album going?
MAREN: It's good! We were in the studio for a week like two weeks ago in Nashville and started all the bones of the instrumentation, and then Busbee my co-producer is kind of working on layering them more now, and I'll go back in the next month or so and do all my vocals and start to really sit in with the mixes and figure out what we need to do with them. That's my favourite part, the post-production.

CDM: Do you think it will come out this year or are you aiming for next year?
MAREN: I am aiming for early next year, but I am hoping to get a first single out by the fall.

CDM: If M.A.R.E.N. were an acronym, what would each letter stand for?
MAREN: I need to reach back into my Honours English! Motivated, Atypical, Revolutionary, Existential, and Nice. I need to look at a thesaurus.

CDM: What else do you have planned for 2018?
MAREN: So I'm out with Niall for the next four months, and trying to plan some overseas stuff for the fall, and just finishing my record which will be a big thing. A lot of music and just getting ready for this next huge chapter. I feel like I have fit every single thing I possibly could into the last two years of my life.
CDM: You came to New Zealand, you ticked that off the bucket-list!
MAREN: Yeah! And did the Zedd song! So much has happened, I don't know if I could fit one more experience into this album cycle, so it's time to get into the next one.