John Morgan may be a fresh face to some, but he's no stranger to country music’s biggest stages. Since arriving in Nashville in 2019, the North Carolina native has penned hits for stars like Thomas Rhett, Dustin Lynch, and Jon Pardi, with his biggest breakthrough coming when Jason Aldean recorded 16 of his songs—including the chart-topping duet ‘If I Didn’t Love You' with Carrie Underwood—and signed him to Night Train Records. Rooted in bluegrass and inspired by the likes of Keith Whitley, Ronnie Milsap, and John Mayer, Morgan has built a reputation as a gifted storyteller with a voice that’s as rich as it is relatable.
Now, with the release of his debut album ‘Carolina Blue,' Morgan steps confidently into the spotlight. (Our review here) The 12-track project follows his 2023 ‘Remember Us?' EP and is a striking showcase of his ability to blend heartfelt songwriting with sonic versatility. From ’80s-style guitar-driven anthems to raw acoustic moments, ‘Carolina Blue' reflects both his journey as a songwriter and his evolution as an artist. It’s a debut that doesn’t just introduce John Morgan—it establishes him as a powerful new voice in modern country and we were thrilled to grab 20 minutes with him to talk all about it.
Thank you for speaking to us today John, we appreciate just what a busy guy you must be right now in the run up to the album release.
Likewise, man, no worries!
Congratulations on ‘Carolina Blue' I've been really blown away by how accomplished an album it is. Before we delve into it – let's go back a little bit first. How did your upbringing in North Carolina influence and drive your love of Country music and songwriting?
I think it had a huge influence on my writing. I grew up playing Bluegrass and doing that whole circuit and was listening to Country music at the same time. It definitely challenged and influenced me in wanting to write my own songs and have a voice as an artist too.
Can you remember what age you were when you decided you wanted to do this for a living?
The artist dream has always been there. I do remember that feeling with regards to me being a songwriter – I was probably just out of high school when I seriously started writing songs and doing co-writes with other people. Even before I moved to Nashville I knew it was what I wanted to do as a career.
You represented North Carolina on the American Song Contest back in 2022. What did you learn about yourself doing that show?
(chuckling) I learned that TV is not for me all the time! It's a whole different world! It was a cool experience for me, at that time in my life. I didn't have a lot of what you might call ‘camera time' under my belt at that point in my career and being under that microscope was a good challenge for me. It was fun – the show obviously didn't do what they hoped it would but I got to meet a lot of people that I probably wouldn't have met otherwise.
You're really well known for writing with Jason Aldean and having cuts with other artists like Jon Pardi. How did your relationship with Jason Aldean come about to where you go from nothing to having a Grammy nominated song?
It was one of those Nashville moments I guess! (laughing) I don't know much about other scenes, like L.A. or or places but I know enough to know that this sort of thing just doesn't happen in other places. I was making trips down to Nashville from North Carolina pretty early on in 2019 and I ended up going out to eat one night. We got an Uber to go eat downtown and the guy that picked us up was a super nice guy who told us how he had written a couple of different songs for artists, which we kinda took with a grain of salt, right?
Long story short – about a year after that Uber ride I had moved to town and was working part time in Lucky Brand Jeans! This guy comes in one day and I was, like, this dude looks familiar to me and we got talking and that was the Uber driver from the year earlier! I was writing with whoever I could at that time and working with another publishing company, really just on tracks and production stuff, right? That guy ended up connecting me with some of Jason Aldean's band mates and we started writing together and that's how it kinda unfolded in terms of me becoming part of that camp really!
Now that you are an artist in your own right – do you know which songs you want to keep for yourself and which songs you offer out or is that still a bit of a moveable feast right now?
It's kinda funny because I've always had a ‘pitch first' mindset up to now – as a songwriter you need cuts and not much else when that is your job. It might change but I think I pretty much know right away if a song is for me or not as an artist. Some of the songs on the album I lived with for a while and they grew on me – ‘Crickets,' for example, was one of those that really grew on me. I lean more towards letting a song go if somebody else falls in love with it before I have a chance to do something with it – I just want to write the best song that I can and then we'll take it from there to see where it ends up! (laughing)
You get a phone call from someone in Nashville today who hasn't cut one of your songs yet – who would you love that call to be from?
I've been trying to get a Cody Johnson cut for a while now so I guess he would be the one – he would be pretty cool!
Let's dive into ‘Carolina Blue' – it doesn't feel like a debut album to me, it feels more complete and accomplished that I would suspect from a debut album. Is that because you had a big pool of songs to choose from and had got so many writes and cuts under your belt?
Yeah, it was initially kinda hard trying to figure out which songs to put on this project. I wanted to give people a lot of different tastes of what I can do. I wanted to reflect what I grew up on, the styles that shaped me and what I'm also digging on right now. I tried to pick the best songs that did that but also that fitted together as a whole piece too.
I kinda had a list planned out and then sent that list over to Aldean for him to look through and offer his advice and he could tell that I was on the fence with one or two of the songs and he said something really cool to me that helped me decide on what tracks to include. He said that he wanted to remind me that right now, in my career, I need hits. I didn't need this elaborate, artistic storyline or concept for the album, he was, like, ‘You need hits right now.' It made me realise I was thinking too hard about the album and it helped solidify my thoughts on which songs to include.
And hits you now have! Congratulations on ‘Friends Like These' – it's nearly there in terms of being number one. (Editors note – it is number one now this week!) Did you have an inkling when you released it that it would go that far and have you been looking at the charts each week or have you been playing it cool?
(laughing) I don't know if ‘playing it cool' is the exact term for this but I have been trying to not to pay too much attention to it in case it stalled or didn't quite make it! I definitely didn't think ‘Friends……' would go as far as it has when we released it then we did the collaboration with Jason on it and I felt a lot better about it once he hopped on it.
I knew the song would go over well in our live shows and that it was something of a serious song put over in a cool, relatable and more light-hearted way, which I hoped would resonate with people. I always knew the song was cool but never knew that it was cool enough to go to number one on Country radio! It's pretty wild, man.
I love the way that ‘Carolina Blue' opens with a bang on ‘Way Out Would.' I can hear a little Eric Church vibe on that track – has he been an influence on you over the years?
I'd say, yeah, for sure man. He's another native Carolina guy like me. I love his debut album – every song on that ‘Carolina' record has a great hook and he wasn't trying to do anything too ‘out there' or left field on that album. It was him , pretty raw and I wanted to keep that same vibe on my album.
At the end of the day I can nit-pick something to death, man! I had the privilege of co-producing this record and so there was a lot of being in the weeds on stuff sometimes. I wanted to bring everything back to reality and realise that this album is a time-stamp of where I am in my career right now and sometimes you just have to let it be.
You mentioned ‘Crickets' earlier. That's one of my favourite songs on the album and another favourite, in the same vein as that, is ‘I Know Better.' There's an 80s vibe to both of those songs.
I love the 80s! I'm a big hair metal guy too! I love the sound and the sonics of that decade and I wanted to tip the hat to those influences. Def Leppard would be one of my top three all time favourite bands, man. ‘I Know Better' is another fun banger, it's a great live song and with my love of 80s guitar tones it was an easy one for me to include on the album.
The final track, ‘How to Get Her,' is one of my favourites on the album too – I can't wait to hear that one live.
That's a song that really showcases my roots in the Bluegrass world. It was fun getting back to being a player on that song and focus on that again. You get a little sloppy live in terms of being comfortable with your set and not really doing much else so learning new material was really good for me in the headspace of being creative and being a player again.
I can hear a little John Osborne influence on ‘How to Get Her.' He's my favourite guitar player in Country music.
My co-poducer, Brent Anderson, and I played all the guitars on that and it was so fun to do. We loved doing the solos – there was a fun trade off because Brent is one of the top guitar players in Nashville – but he's a very unselfish producer, which was one of the things that sold me on working with him. He wanted to me to be involved – he told me that it was my project and that he'd had a debut project several years ago that he didn't play a single thing on and he wanted it to be different for me. He gave me time to brush up on a few things and the grace to have multiple takes in order for me to get things right but we got there! (laughing)
I hate to ask this question to people with singles at number one but having a hit puts some pressure on the follow up. Have you begun to think about the next single yet? I think ‘One More Sunset' would make a great radio song.
I do too, man. I've had a lot of time with some of these songs – some of them are five or six years old and some of them, I wrote last year. The one common denominator I've tried to stay true to was making sure that every song could be a radio single. That's my mindset on this project so it will be cool to let my team tell me what they think the follow up song could be – I definitely have a top 2 or 3 choices too and hopefully between us all and the fans, in terms of what raises its hand once the album comes out, we'll get there pretty soon. I don't hate it, man, it kinda gives the consumer a little bit of control and that is important to listen to as well.
‘How to Get Her' is a strong song, ‘Kid Myself' is one I really dig, that's a great possibility too. I just want to have the next hit now that I know what that feels like! (laughing)
John Mogan's fabulous debut album ‘Carolina Blue' is out TODAY in all the usual places.
