In the past five years, John Morgan has had a major impact in country music as both a hit songwriter and artist. Starting with his first #1 hit as a songwriter in 2021 (“If I Didn’t Love You” by Jason Aldean & Carrie Underwood), Morgan has co-written an impressive seven #1 country hits. He is now known as the top songwriter for country star Aldean, and he has co-written five #1 hits for him, and he’s written over 30 songs that have been recorded by him.
On top of this, Morgan has now established himself as a hit artist. In 2024 he had the #1 hit “Friends Like That” (featuring Jason Aldean), and he recently had another #1 hit with his single, “Kid Myself.” As a result, Morgan has now built a multi-faceted career where he can keep writing hits for other artists, or focus on being an artist, play live shows and tour.
As a pro songwriter, Morgan has already had an excellent run of country hits. After he wrote the hit “If I Didn’t Love You” in 2021, he went on to write man other hits for Aldean including “Trouble With a Heartbreak” (2022), “That’s What Tequila Does” (2023), “Let Your Boys Be Country” (2024), “Whiskey Drink” and “Don’t Tell On Me” (2025), and “How Far Does a Goodbye Go” (2026).
Then in April of this year, Morgan accomplished another impressive feat. He co-wrote a remarkable 13 songs on Aldean’s latest album, Songs About Us. Morgan has also written songs that have been recorded by Thomas Rhett, Jon Pardi and Dustin Lynch.
As an artist, Morgan has just released his single “Cry Baby,” which is the follow-up to his hit, “Kid Myself.” In addition, Morgan has been on tour as the opening act for Brantley Gilbert, and then he’ll launch his own headline tour.
We are pleased to do this new Q&A interview with John Morgan, He discusses his current hit “Kid Myself,” the hit songs he’s written for Jason Aldean, and his live show and tour.
DK: I read that you’re from the town of Sylva in North Carolina. How did you get started with singing and writing songs?
John Morgan: I started singing when I was young. I traveled around in a bluegrass band for a lot of my early years, and that was how I got my chops there. But I didn’t start songwriting seriously until I was in my early 20s. I kind of fell into it…it was fun.
Here’s the video of John Morgan’s hit, “Kid Myself.”
DK: You’ve had great success as a songwriter, and you’ve now had two hits as an artist. Do you think of yourself mainly as an artist, or as a pro songwriter who is also an artist?
Morgan: Honestly, I still look at myself as just a songwriter. To me, being an artist is so much fun, just getting to do it and seeing the trifecta of starting an idea, bringing it to life in the studio, and then getting to see the reaction on the road. It’s just cool. And I’m not somebody that if a door’s open, I’m not gonna kick it down. The doors keep opening, so it’s been a blast to get to put 100% into the road for once this year, and make a push. It’s been fun.
DK: As a songwriter, your first #1 hit was “If I Didn’t Love You” by Jason Aldean & Carrie Underwood. What’s the story behind writing that song, and how did you place it with Jason?
Morgan: I think Jason was putting together his album Georgia, which is a double album. We (with Tully Kennedy, Kurt Allison & Lydia Vaughan) had been writing towards that record, trying to get some cuts on it, and we thought we had run out of time. It was down to the last day of tracking for that current session. Then I got a text that day from Tully Kennedy, and he was like, “Hey, you guys wanna try to write one more time before we wrap the record up and they pick the single?” He that they were chatting about which song they wanted to do a feature on, and he’s like, “They haven’t made their mind up yet, so we might have a shot.” So we were like, “Well sure, let’s try one more time for it.” So we got together and started throwing around ideas. I think Tully had that title, “If I Didn’t Love You,” so we started chasing. Thankfully, Lydia Vaughn is amazing and she started chewing on it too, and came up with that chorus melody.
That top line, “If I Didn’t Love You”—that hooked me right there. And from there, it was a pretty fast session, about four hours. Lydia and I sang the demo, and we sent it over to Jason’s team, and he was like, “This is it.” We didn’t find out until two weeks later that Carrie Underwood was on it.
DK: You’ve had several #1 hits with Jason Aldean, and you’ve had about 30 cuts with him. What makes you and Jason such a good team?
Here’s the video of John Morgan’s single, “Cry Baby.”
Morgan: I think he’s just a good dude—he’s easy to work for. He doesn’t really ask a lot of me, and he doesn’t bug me to make me work overtime. You know, he’s a pretty good boss. He’s an artist too, and it’s cool to have that perspective from somebody who’s done it, and they care to help you along the way.
DK: Two years ago, you had your own hit with “Friends Like That,” which featured Jason. Can you tell the story behind writing that song, and singing it with Jason?
Morgan: I wrote that with some of my other buddies in town: Brent Anderson, Will Bundy & Lydia Vaughn. We wrote that song around 2022. When I wrote it, I was like, “You know, it’s a fun song, it’s uptempo.” At that time, we didn’t have a radio single. And I remember being like, “Man, our show is all midtempos.” I realized how bad we needed an uptempo in our live show and it’s one of those songs that goes over really well.
We had played it for Jason and he wanted to cut it. I knew it was in his wheelhouse, too. So anyway, it was cool how it worked out—he jumped on it with me and made it what it is.
DK: I like your new #1 hit “Kid Myself,” which has a unique and clever lyric. Can you talk about writing this song?
Morgan: I wrote that with Jordan Schmidt and Tyler Hubbard. It was the first time I had met and written with Tyler. I knew I had a good start on the idea. I’d worked on it the night before and tried to have a really good hook. I actually had two ideas that I felt good about. So when I pitched them, we started the other idea first, but we hit a wall. And I was like, “Hey, guys, I’ve got this other idea. We could try something else.” So we worked on “Kid Myself,” and Tyler really liked it.
“Kid Myself” ended up being more personal for me than I thought it would be. You know, my story was that I came from North Carolina. I had a girlfriend at the time that I was serious with, but it didn’t work out. And I knew if I was gonna chase the the music thing, I had to get out of there and move to Nashville, and so there’s stuff that comes with that. I’m thankful for all the decisions that I made, but it’s still part of my life, and I think it’s fun to write it. And you never know how much a song’s gonna impact somebody else. That’s been the crazy thing to me as a writer too, and being on the road, is seeing other people be able to connect with a song that is really about my life. You don’t feel like it is about anybody else sometimes, and then you see the reaction of people singing it back and knowing the words. It’s pretty cool.
Here’s the video of John Morgan’s hit, “Friends
Like That” (feat. Jason Aldean).
DK: You recently released a new song called “Cry Baby.” Will “Cry Baby” be your next single?
Morgan: Yes. “Cry Baby” is our next radio single, and we’ll have an album out around March (2027). I wrote “Cry Baby” with Kurt Allison, Tully Kennedy & Lydia Vaughn—the dream team. We started this idea, and I thought “Cry Baby” was an interesting title. It’s not a rocket science title, but it intrigued me where we could take it. It was cool to break it down and keep it realistic, too. You know, it’s not about what you think it’s gonna be—it’s pretty straightforward and I love the melodies in this song. They’re hooky and fun to sing.
It’s definitely something I’ve lived through as well, and I plugged and played a lot of my story in it. You know, I actually sent it to Aldean when he was cutting his last record, and he had it on hold and he ended up not cutting it. So after I saw it didn’t make the list, I texted him and was like, “Hey, do you care if I take this one back?” He was like, “No man, cut it.” So it’s good to have a good boss.
DK: I want to ask you about your live show and tour. I read that you’re on tour opening for Brantley Gilbert, and then you’ll be headlining your own shows. Can you talk about your live show and touring?
Morgan: BG (Brantley Gilbert) has been awesome to us. He’s a good dude as well, and it’s been fun trying to win his crowd over. I’m a bluegrasser at heart, and I feel like I’m always learning what my sound is. I feel we’ve got a good grasp on it now, and I know that I enjoy playing live now. And it’s been fun trying to win some metal fans over, ’cause you know, if you’ve been to a BG show, you know what it is. He brings it, and that’s what his fans expect. And if my job is to go out there and get them fired up for his set, then we’ve gotta turn it up a bit.
It’s been fun to attack that challenge and push myself on the performance side of things, and be able to take our songs and dial the throttle up a bit for for the live performances. It’s been a lot of fun doing that and seeing it at a professional level every night, with Brantley and his crew. I mean, his band…they kick ass, man. They don’t mess around. So it’s fun for us to go out there, and everybody’s fired up for him.
