John Morgan Talks Daytime Pints and Making His Scottish Debut
- 17 hours ago
- 5 min read
When you’ve got a mentor like Jason Aldean, the sky is the limit for reaching your dreams and goals. John Morgan made his European debut at C2C on the Spotlight stage, and the ‘Friends Like These’ singer caught up with LiveWithLP to chat about all things British and how rowdy Scotland can be.
John Morgan, may I say welcome to Scotland! How are you finding it?
Oh wow, it is beautiful here. We spent last night here checking out the city, and it's such a fantastic place.
Kicking off those C2C festivities early! You also played a matinee show at Glasgow’s iconic King Tuts before the OVO Hydro arena for the main event. How did you find playing to such an intimate crowd in a new city?
Oh, the vibe was incredible, we had such a good time - we were on really early, but the crowd showed up from the start - I wasn’t expecting such an audience being in the afternoon, but we had such a good time - the Scottish has a good crowd - they love a good party, people were drinking pints at 1 pm?!
The Scots know how to drink, that's for sure! It’s great to finally have you over here. I must admit my Spotify Wrapped was just John Morgan, John Morgan, JOHN MORGAN.. How is it as an artist looking at something like Wrapped, seeing how far across the world your music has reached?
Oh, it’s so wild you don’t realise the reach your music has until you see something like that, or you come overseas and play a show, it is so wild, I mean, seeing people in King Tut’s in Glasgow singing back my own lyrics? It’s crazy but such a fun experience and it’s such good fuel for me I was saying earlier there's every once in a while you get in the rut of it and you get so far in and the repetitiveness starts to hit - but then there's moments like this when I’m in Scotland and people know my music/ It’s incredible.
And, being your first time here in Scotland, you’re paying for the biggest music arena we have?
No pressure!
It’s so cool, especially on the Spotlight stage, which is where a lot of the pre-headliners this weekend started - Drake Milligan and Russell Dickerson, it’s a great way to showcase what you have and return!
It’s a good trajectory, and I hope we stay on the path. John Morgan is headlining 2027, let's manifest!
So many of your songs I have on repeat daily, but one in particular, Friends Like These with Jason Aldean, has garnered a following online. When you released it, did you expect this was the impact it was going to have?
Oh no, not at all - seeing as it was first released by me two years prior, we put it out on Spotify just to see what it would do, and it started to get some organic playlisting, and as you said, when it hit a certain level, I was like ‘how do we take it to the next level’
So… I hit up my boss, Mr Aldean, with a “Hey man, can you help me out here?” It's funny when we first turned in the demo, I sent it to him, and he said it was going to be a hit. So it was cool to not only have him on the track, but also to get a number 1 under my belt.
Being under the wing of Jason Aldean must be pretty awesome for guidance.
Oh absolutely he’s given me quality advice throughout my career with a few nuggets here and there - the biggest one is down to the business side of things, cause you move to town as a musician and then all of a sudden you’re running a touring company or a publishing company so there's a lot of things that go on in the back end of the business and he's been super king to throwing me some advice here and there and a great mentor.
We’ve seen some brilliant collabs in your music already, but is there anyone out there that you think, ‘damn, I’ve made it when I cut a track with them?’
Oh man, there are a lot of people right now that are on my bucket list, but the main one is Kasey Musgraves - she’s coming back and putting out new music, which is cool. Ella Langley would be a killer. I'm a big fan of hers, so just trying to be an Ella Fella like everyone else. Tyler Hubbard is a friend of mine. I think we might try to pull something out of our sleeves there.
Hey John, if you can get Florida Georgia Line back together.
I might have to retire if I did that. But I'd love it! I’m super excited about the year, and there's a lot of potential in what is to come, so we’ll see who ends up jumping on some songs or not.
We’ll keep our eyes peeled! 2026 is shaping up pretty nicely. Already over making debuts on this side of the pond, but what does the rest of the year hold for you?
We’re doing a lot of ‘one-off stuff’, we're not doing any support or heading out on tour with anyone as of yet, but we are putting together a headline tour in the fall, which is going to be fun. We did that at the end of last year and just had a blast playing some of the smaller clubs and a lot on the West Coast.
But the main one for me is that we’re going to be putting out new music. We just cut four new songs and headed towards a full-length album, whilst dropping a few tracks along the way.
Sounds like a packed year for you, teasing us with music along the way!
You gotta tease the fans, it’s funny how music is confirmed now because you write a ton of music and can put out a full project as an artist, and then some songs just get lost - so we’re trying a few things to see what people are digging and hammering down on that.
What is your process when it comes to writing - are you a writing retreat guy or just take it as it comes?
There are two different broads of it - it really depends on the mood and situation, a lot of the time it’s just living and thinking outside the Nashville box. Being over here for C2C is a perfect example of that - seeing the reaction we get in Europe has given us so much creativity - everywhere from a writing room in Nashville, to the woods or on a flight - I’ll sometimes start jotting stuff down on my phone - but as long as I’m writing relatable music that works for me, I like to approach my music with an open mind.
Final question from me, getting your name out in the industry is a tough job, who is someone on your radar you want to give a shoutout to, and I should be adding to my playlist?
There are a few which come to mind - Jep Gibson, he is a great dude, great songwriter, and he was actually my roommate when I first moved to town and has recently written some stuff for Hardy.
Well, Jep - you’re going on my playlist straight away.
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