Country music breakout star, Morgan Wade quickly contracted the musical bug in first grade, when she got her tiny hands on an old-fashion VHS tape of Elvis Presley’s “Jailhouse Rock.” The hitmaker told Rolling Stone that the Rock ’n’ Roll legend opened her eyes to the world of music. Therefore, when she was old enough to pursue her own artistry and form her own band – she did.
Morgan was a 19-year-old college student in Roanoke, Virginia, when she decided to seek out musicians for her garage-like band. At the time, the music hopeful utilized the minimal resources she had at her fingertips, including Craigslist.
The “Take Me Away” artist revealed that she started answering Craigslist ads and met with a “super nice” police officer, but he wanted to sing. Therefore, her search continued.
After weeding out potential options, she narrowed it down and took a chance on five individuals who expressed their interest. Wade declared that it was the random men from the internet that first heard her sing live.
“The first time I sang in front of people, I just went down into this basement with five random men that I found on Craigslist to start a band,” she said while recalling the unusual situation. “I just remember there was a guy sitting out front with sunglasses on at eight o’clock at night, smoking weed. That was really normal. And I just went on in the house, and they were like, ’Yeah, down in the basement.’ So I went down there, and there were five guys down there. But, here we are,” she laughed.
While honing in on her craft and working alongside the strangers who quickly became close bandmates, Wade was convinced to get her first tattoo.
“I was sitting in my apartment. One of my friends from college, she was there. She was just like, ’I think you would like tattoos,’” said the breakout artist to the outlet about the transformative year. “I don’t know why she said that to me, and I was like, ’I think you’re right.’ Literally drove to the tattoo parlor to get a tattoo. I had like 90 dollars in my bank account.”
Wade continued to share that her mother’s voice was stuck inside her head, when she was getting inked. So, she asked for her sibling’s initials to be engraved on her arm to be safe and to prepare for any negative repercussions from her worried mother or if she wanted to pursue a career in the medical field.
Following stories from her glory days in college and how she got “pretty addicted” to tattoos, she walked the publication through the writing process of her chart-topping track “Wilder Days” from her well-rounded debut record, “Reckless.”
“You said you hate the smell of cigarette smoke | You only used to smoke when you dank | When you lived in Chicago | Unsure where the wind blows| I wish I’d known you in your wilder days| And now here we go| You got me falling in love again| You gotta secret, I wanna keep it| I wish I’d Known you in your wilder days,” sings the rising star in the catchy chorus.
“I do hate the smell of cigarette the smoke. The person who I wrote it about also mentioned that one day. I remember somebody walked by, and then that line came out,” she said in full disclosure. “I think I get a lot of my lyrics from something I experience, or what people around my experience. I’m big on if I think of something or hear somebody say something, I’ll jot it down in my phone, or if it’s really good, I’ll just remember it,” she concluded.
CMT’s Next Women of Country vocalist recently included the heart-wrenching ballad that was penned alongside Sadler Vaden onto her 16-piece project, “Reckless (Deluxe Edition).” In January, the Nashville newcomer included six bonus tracks onto the beloved collection that garnered a positive fan reaction and catapulted her to stardom.
Wade also gives a friendly nod to Elvis Presley on the deluxe album, as it includes a cover of his 1968 classic, “Suspicious Minds.” She previously told the Tennessean that she prefers to release original content, unless she is paying homage to the man who inspired her to dabble in music.
“I’m not a big cover song person — except for Elvis,” Wade professed. “I always wanted to do an Elvis cover, but I never had the band that was the right fit to deliver it the way I wanted to deliver it. So now that I do, I figured “Suspicious Minds” would be easy to rock out to, and was an Elvis song that not everyone has covered.”
Wade’s dynamic collection has proved that she is a country music mainstay. Come March 15, the singer-songwriter is heading overseas to perform at Rough Trade in London. Later this year, she is also expected to hit the road with Luke Combs, Chris Stapleton, and Ryan Hurd.