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Having gone from playing in small Aussie pubs to some of America’s biggest stages, country music superstar Morgan Evans is getting ready to kick off his new Steel Town tour in Perth next month.
While international artists opting to skip the west coast when touring happens all too often, Evans told this masthead that was why he always had plans to bring his show to Perth.
“It’s really important to me to always play over there because I know I see a lot of the international tours that get announced … don’t make it over that way. And I know there’s so many country music fans over there,” Evans said.
“We played at the Astor Theatre a couple of times, and we played a big festival over there too … and they were as crazy as country music fans that I’ve played to anywhere in the world.
“So that means a lot to me, and I think it means a lot to people over there that we get on the plane, and we make the effort and come over.”
The Newcastle-born singer made the move to Nashville in 2015, and catapulted to fame two years later with his single Kiss Somebody. The tune became a three-time platinum number one hit in Australia and also topped the charts in America.
“I remember the first time I heard Kiss Somebody on the radio in the States. I had just played a show in regional Massachusetts, and I was hurrying to the Boston Airport to get a flight somewhere,” Evans said.
“I think I was in a rental car by myself, and my manager called me and was like, ‘Yo, it’s about to get played on Sirius XM’, and I just turned it up.
“I was just like, ‘Holy shit, this is real. It’s happening.’ It was crazy, kind of like watching my own life from above, kind of moment and still feels like that.
“When you hear your song on the radio, it’s a thing that doesn’t get old.”
Evans kept the success rolling with his hit Day Drunk from his debut album Things That We Drink To, which earned him a spot on Billboard’s country artists to watch list in 2018.
More than 10 years after his move abroad, Evans has more than 1 billion career streams and has just released his newest album Steel Town, described as a “cinematic love letter to his roots.”
“It’s pretty exciting. It’s been a long time since I’ve put a full record out, and so the last couple of weeks putting that out and seeing people’s reaction has been really [nice],” Evans said.
“I don’t know, I feel like I forgot that feeling, so it’s been really nice to feel it again.”
Evans said he made the majority of the album while he was on the road touring.
“I was very conscious of making this album something that I wanted to play live. And so now to be at that point where we’re kind of creeping up on this tour, it’s very exciting,” he said.
“There are 11 songs from three years, so they were all chosen for a very specific reason.”
Each with their own particular feel and autobiographical references, Evans said if people want to get a taste of the record, the tune Letting You Go is the journey of the album in one song.
Since returning to Australia, Evans said he has noticed an uptick in country music fans.
“I’ve been going [back and forth overseas] for a long time now, but I feel like every time I come back, I notice an uptick,” he said.
“I remember the first uptick, actually, I was here doing press in 2019 or 2020, and in between interviews, I went down to Bondi Beach and went for a swim. I was coming back across the road, and I remember this guy was cruising down riding a Harley, and he had Florida Georgia Line cranked way up.
“I was like, ‘Oh, the times they are changing here’,” he said with a laugh.
His advice for other country musicians looking to swap the Aussie beaches for Nashville cowboy hats and break into the US market, was to just give it a shot.
“There’s no sort of way that happens, other than just land and have a red-hot go,” he said.
But he acknowledges that the music industry is ever-changing.
“It just changes so much though. I feel like every six months the music business changes now, and so that’s kind of fascinating. But I do think knowing why you do it is important.”
He also encouraged people not to feel the pressure to constantly release music.
“I think I heard someone else say this the other day, but I just thought it was the greatest advice, in this era, and it’s that … you don’t have to put out the first thing that you do,” he said.
“Life is long and the internet is forever. So take time to find your people, write your songs and make something that you love so much that you don’t even care if somebody doesn’t like it.
“And then when you have that thing, share it with the world.”
Morgan Evans will play at the Ice Cream Factory on May 21.
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