The singer recently released two pop-leaning songs with producers Greg Kurstin and Jack Antonoff.
Maren Morris is taking a cue from Taylor Swift. The "My Church" singer opens up about her friendship with Swift and how she's navigating her next steps outside the country music industry, revealing a sweet anecdote about her pal's stadium shows.
Morris first met Swift when the latter asked her to come perform "The Middle" during the Arlington, Texas, stop on the 2018 Reputation Tour. Then, amid Swift's record-breaking Eras Tour trek in 2023, the women joined forces once again in Chicago, Illinois, to perform the Fearless (Taylor's Version) vault track, "You All Over Me."
"She's just been, like, so supportive of me and my career over the years," Morris said on Tuesday's episode of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. "I also have, I mean we're the same age, but [been] looking up to her since I was a teenager and watching her navigate her country music to pop career so gracefully."
Swift, a former country music darling, famously went pop with the release of her 1989 album in 2014. Her re-rerecorded 1989 (Taylor's Version), released on Oct. 27, recently became the bestselling first-week release of her career.
Morris added that she is most moved by the way Swift interacts with her fans.
"The way she treats her fans is so kind and generous," Morris said. "She's setting a high bar."
While performing with Swift, Morris said she was hugely impressed by a tiny gesture with a significant impact.
"There was these signs on the inside of the barricades of her stadium shows and it says -- basically to the local security, like -- 'Fan-friendly show. Be kind,'" Morris shared. "So even to, like, the local security, her team saying, like, 'Don't mess with the fans. They're here to have fun.' And everyone's really respectful and I was like, 'Oh, I loved that.'"
Just last month, Morris stepped out to show her support at the Los Angeles premiere of the Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour concert doc along with fellow famous Swifties, including Adam Sandler, Flava Flav and Beyoncé.
Morris recently released a two-track EP, titled The Bridge, which includes her new songs, "The Tree" and "Get the Hell Out of Here." The former was produced by pop music luminary Greg Kurstin and the latter, by frequent Swift collaborator, Jack Antonoff.
The drop comes as Morris has announced her "hyperbolic" intention to distance herself from country music, with the songstress previously explaining that she had asked for her music to not be considered for potential nominations on the country music awards circuit. Morris has also officially transitioned to Columbia Records from the label's Nashville division.
"I wrote these two songs, 'The Tree' and 'Get the Hell Out of Here,' and I just felt like I was leaving some things in country music behind that didn't really serve me anymore," she explained on Tuesday. "It felt like calling it The Bridge felt like this step to the next thing, whatever that is."
Morris noted that while the business changes, her creative spirit hasn't changed.
"I don't think it's something you can really leave, because it's a music that's in me and that I grew up doing," she shared. "That's the music that I write, even if I've been sort of genre fluid my whole career. You can't, like, scrub the country music out."
She continued, "I'm taking the good parts with me and all are welcome. But, yeah, there were some, you know, facets of it that I didn't really jive with anymore. I'm a lot happier now."
Following the interview, Morris was joined by Mickey Guyton and Brittney Spencer for the live television debut of "The Tree."
In an in-depth interview on the New York Times Popcast podcast last month, Morris delved into her experiences as an artist in Nashville alongside the public backlash she's faced for voicing opinions about the industry's shortcomings.
Morris has long been vocal about her support for the LGBTQ community and has spoken out against racism and misogyny, as well as other hot button issues. Last year, she was involved in a high-profile feud with with Jason Aldean's wife, Brittany Aldean, over trans rights. Before that, she spoke out against Morgan Wallen when he was caught on camera using a racial slur, for which he's since apologized.
"I couldn’t do this circus anymore of like feeling like l have to absorb and explain people’s bad behaviors and, you know, laugh it off," she said on the podcast. "I just couldn't do that after 2020 particularly. It was just like, I've changed. A lot of things changed about me that year."
That was the year in which Morris became a mother, welcoming son Hayes with her husband, Ryan Hurd, who she recently split from. It was also the year that her song, "The Bones," achieved critical and commercial success, after which she notably used her CMA Award acceptance speech for Female Vocalist of the Year to empower women of color within country music.
"It is so ingrained and sort of Pavlovian to just be like, 'You are not allowed to criticize this family ever,'" she said of the genre. "You feel like, the shock collar. Not only are you 'criticizing our way of life' -- which I'm not -- 'you're criticizing every fundamental belief we have. You're criticizing Jesus, you're criticizing blue collar workers, you're criticizing farmers.' Like, they will go to these lengths to justify the abuse and discrepancies that exist within the machine of what this is."
Morris filed for divorce from Hurd on Oct. 2, citing "irreconcilable differences" as the reason for their separation.
Morris and Hurd, 37, first crossed paths in 2014 while cowriting the Tim McGraw hit, "Last Turn Home." Their initial connection evolved from friendship to romance, and they began dating in 2015. Hurd proposed two years later, and the talented musicians exchanged vows in a beautiful ceremony in Nashville, Tennessee, in March 2018.
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