Maren Morris on Pursuing a ‘Humble Quest,’ Working With Greg Kurstin and Dedicating ‘Tall Guys’ to Ryan Hurd
variety.comChris Willman Music WriterCountry superstar Maren Morris is not trying to play things down the middle. She had pop hits with Zedd on “The Middle” and on her own with “The Bones,” but her third album, “Humble Quest,” carries an extra level of humility in not having any overt pop aspirations.
Never mind that it’s her first time doing an entire record with pop maestro Greg Kurstin (Adele, Paul McCartney), whom she’d previously done just a trio of tracks with, following the death of her primary producer, Busbee.The album — out this Friday — is upbeat, but she speaks with Variety about some, yes, humbling circumstances feeding into the record’s celebratory spirit.After you had such crossover success with “The Middle” and “The Bones,” it would have been reasonable to expect at least a little bit of pop-leaning stuff on this album.
Yet this album feels the closest of any of yours to being straight-up country. I think maybe, in an influential way, doing the Highwomen record [with Brandi Carlile, Amanda Shires and Natalie Hemby] re-sparked something that made me feel like I was at the beginning of my career again, as a 10-year-old touring little honky-tonks around Texas, And then just with the organic way we were writing songs for this album — some of it on Zoom, some in-person — I was writing with Greg, who would start on real instruments.
We weren’t writing to 808 loops. I don’t know if it was lucky No. 3 or just feeling settled and solidified as an artist where I am, to not have to chase down a concept or a genre.
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