Megan Moroney Goes Deep on ‘Am I Okay?,’ Beyonce, and Her New Music

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here it is,” Megan Moroney says, looking out of the tour bus window while slipping on white cowboy boots and a camo hoodie. “The promised land!” 

The sun is setting over endless rows of gas pumps on a windy January night in Crossville, Tennessee. Six massive fluorescent ­letters and a cartoon beaver in a red cap ­illuminate our way. We’ve arrived at that roadway mecca common to the Southern U.S.: Buc-ee’s.

“The overstimulation hasn’t started yet,” she warns me as we walk into the massive chain store, which is sort of like a gas station crossed with a HomeGoods, plus a pinch of Disneyland. It’s my first time at a Buc-ee’s, and I’m getting the Megan Moroney tour. “Where should I take you first?” she asks, scanning about. “The home section’s over here, but I’m going to save that for later.”

Moroney scurries by Buc-ee’s-branded Squishmallows, Louis Vuitton-­duped handbags, and mounds of beef jerky, as customers discreetly turn their heads to watch her hot-pink hat weave through the aisles. It’s not long before a mom in a hoodie and sweats approaches Moroney. “Excuse me,” she says sheepishly. “I don’t mean to be a pain, but my daughter wanted me to ask, ‘Are you Megan?’”

“I am,” Moroney responds with a grin, spotting a shy teenager opposite the aisle with pickled quail eggs. “Tell her to come on over.” The girl hugs Moroney before posing for a photo. Once the first brave fan says hello, other shoppers follow suit.

For them, it’s hard to believe that the Country Music Association’s New Artist of the Year is at Buc-ee’s on a random Friday night, buying bedazzled wine glasses and a kitchen towel bearing the phrase “Queen of Damn Near Everything.” But Buc-ee’s is near and dear to the rising star’s heart. “When I used to tour in the rental cars and church vans, finding a Buc-ee’s was like you hit gold on the road,” she says with a laugh.

Right now, Moroney’s on her way from a songwriting session in Crossville to a gig opening for Alan Jackson in Oklahoma City, and she’s dropping me off in Nashville on the way. We pulled up to Buc-ee’s in the brand-new bus she’ll bring on the road for tour dates that stretch through October, and she’s just starting to decorate it. (Later, she’ll proudly display her purchases: a cow-shaped sponge she hangs over the sink, and a cast-iron pan she slides into a drawer, even though no one on tour cooks. “Our only weapon on the bus,” she jokes.) The house-on-wheels is the nicest Moroney’s ever gotten. It has sliding electric doors, a vanity mirror, a walk-in closet with Moroney’s white dress for her show tomorrow, and a fake-fireplace heater she’s excited to show me.

Things have changed since those days of rental cars and church vans. In 2022, the singer’s career skyrocketed after she released “Tennessee Orange,” a tender ballad about putting aside her family’s college football loyalties for a boy who treats her well. Its sweet lyrics, “He ain’t from where we’re from/But he feels like home,” spawned a TikTok trend that would lead to offers from 18 different labels. (She ended up signing to Sony Music Nashville/Columbia.) 

Moroney has built her profile as a prolific songwriter with a rough-hewn voice reminiscent of early Miley Cyrus. She has an inimitable way of telling stories about love in the internet age while staying true to country music’s roots. (“You say that your phone’s gonna die/Then you just go put it on silent,” she sings over banjo and steel guitar on “I Know You.”) “She’s song-oriented.… She couldn’t care less about being a celebrity,” says Kenny Chesney, for whom Moroney opened last year. “She cares what her music means to people — and making sure they get the best of everything she does.”

Moroney, 27, may have built an audience by posting TikToks of herself singing in the car, but now, she’s learning how to feed the genre’s old-school radio machine, crafting songs that fit seamlessly on FM airwaves: “Like a 6’2″ dream, heaven-sent/He says what he means, and he means what he says/And he’s funny, and he’s smart/And he’s good in—” she coyly croons on the radio hit “Am I Okay?” So far, she’s released a pair of excellent albums, won CMA and ACM awards, and has collected fans the likes of Tate McRae, Lana Del Rey, and Olivia Rodrigo, who came to her 2023 show at the Troubadour in L.A. and sang along to every word of her songs. “She’s brave as fuck,” says Sugarland’s Kristian Bush, Moroney’s go-to producer, of her songwriting. “I can’t believe she puts some of these things in her songs.”

Moroney’s appeal isn’t just emotion and lyrics, however: Aesthetically, she’s a Southern-belle Barbie. She styles her wavy blond hair with “10 pounds of extensions” and a hairspray-glued pouf on special occasions, and pairs minidresses with her signature white boots. She’s fun to watch and connects with both girls who want to be like her and guys who might want to be with her. “It’s the juxtaposition of my vulnerable, emotional songs with someone that looks very put-^­together and over-the-top,” Moroney says. “This is who I am. And if that’s the barrier that makes you not want to listen to my music, then …” Moroney shrugs.

While Moroney began playing guitar at a young age, she didn’t even try to write a song until she was in college, making her something of a late bloomer. “I have worked my ass off,” she says. “But I will say that the positive things have happened quicker than I expected them to, which is nice.… It’s funny, because this used to be a hobby for me, and now it’s my whole life.”

A FEW DAYS BEFORE our Buc-ee’s visit, Moroney and I meet at SkyHouse Nashville, the 25-story apartment building near Music Row that Moroney moved into after graduating from the University of Georgia. This is where it all started for her in 2020: She had her first writing sessions here (over Zoom), and penned “Why Johnny,” a poignant ballad about Johnny and June Carter Cash’s relationship that appears on her 2023 debut, Lucky.

Moroney hasn’t been back to SkyHouse in years. But as soon as she arrives this morning, dressed in navy sweats and Uggs, the memories come rushing back. “I just ran in and hugged the door guy,” Moroney says of a smiley, bald man named Bob who takes me in the elevator to meet Moroney. “Me and Megan?” he says when we get to the ninth floor. “We go way, way back.”

“This is who I am. if [looks] are the barrier that makes you not listen, then…” Moroney shrugs.

The Moroney that Bob the Doorman first met was a lifestyle influencer who wanted to make music. When she arrived in Nashville in the thick of the pandemic, Moroney already had an online presence as a content creator, built around her photogenic sorority-girl lifestyle at UGA. She jokes that her Instagram Stories would often go from a clip of her playing the guitar to an ad encouraging her followers to “use my code for 20 percent off.” She was pushing everything from beauty products to Bud Light bottles to a following of more than 60,000.

Working as an influencer helped pay the bills — Moroney says she’d sometimes cover a month’s rent with a single video — and gave her a leg up in finding her creative voice. “I could do pretty much anything because I was making money on the internet rather than having a 9-to-5,” she says, switching between sips of her caramel cream cold brew and an Alani Nu energy drink, her latest brand collab. “If I had a marketing job out of college, I wouldn’t have the freedom and mental space to get good at songwriting.”

Moroney grew up in Douglasville, Georgia, 20 miles outside of Atlanta. She got her first guitar as consolation from her dad following a heartbreak that felt “like you’re falling off of a cliff,” she says. (It was a Taylor, and she still has it.) Her dad, who played in a band but kept a full-time job in sales, spent hours teaching her chords. Not long after, she injured her knee while doing cheer and was forced to recover in a wheelchair for two months. “I was like, the guitar fits here,” she says, pointing to her good leg. “I had nothing else to do.” 

Music was always playing in the Moroney household. “I was like seven years old and my dad would be like, ‘Did you know that the songwriter wrote it like this, and this is why?’ He was passionate about the stories and lyrics,” she says. Her dad put her onto the Eagles, James Taylor, and Jackson Browne. She loved watching Hannah Montana, singing to Miranda Lambert in the shower, and was (scratch that — is) a loyal Belieber. Before attending one of Justin Bieber’s shows, a young Megan handmade shirts that read “Dudes are linin’ up ’cause they hear we got fever, but we kick ’em to the curb unless they look like J Bieber,” a play on Kesha’s “Tik Tok.” Looking back, maybe she thought she’d be like her dad, balancing a pastime with a real job. But a career in music? “I don’t think it ever clicked in my head that this would be possible,” she says.

In 2016, Moroney enrolled at UGA planning to become an accountant, like her mom. During her freshman year, she rushed Kappa Delta and, lured by peer pressure and a Chick-fil-A gift card, unknowingly began her country journey. Moroney tells the story with a giggle: None of her KD sisters wanted to compete in the annual Miss Sorority Row pageant, so they offered her fried chicken to represent them. “It was like $200,” Moroney says. “That’s going to get me far!” Moroney ended up winning the crown, thanks to her rendition of Deana Carter’s “Strawberry Wine.” “It was terrifying and so out of my comfort zone,” she says of the pageant. “I think it was kind of rigged — I kissed one of the judges.”

A few months passed and Moroney, already obsessed with Kacey Musgraves’ debut album, Same Trailer Different Park, found herself onstage again when Kappa Delta needed an opener for a charity event. In the crowd that night was country singer Chase Rice, who approached her after the show. “You’re actually pretty good,” she remembers Rice telling her. “What are you doing next month? I play at the Georgia Theatre. Will you bring all these girls with you and you can open first of three?” Moroney couldn’t say no — even if there was a catch: She’d have to perform at least one original song.  

She’d never even tried to write before. “You’re going to pull your boots up and do it,” she remembers telling herself, and wrote “Stay a Memory” for the performance. She hasn’t put the pen down since. “They say you get the bug,” she says. “And the bug was got.”

With that adrenaline rush still fresh, Moroney changed the direction of her studies. She enrolled in UGA’s music-business program, led by Drive-By Truckers producer David Barbe, and honed her songwriting while learning music-business basics. “She carried herself with quiet confidence and never seemed like anybody’s helpless Bo-Peep,” Barbe says. In between classes, Moroney would send him snippets of songs she wrote. “The songs connected on an emotional level instantly,” he recalls.

“I’ve had dads say my songs helped them feel closer to their daughters. I love writing songs that mean shit.”

For her final semester, Barbe recommended her for an internship at the studio of Sugarland’s Kristian Bush and his brother Brandon. Eventually, Moroney played Kristian some of her music. He was entranced. Moroney had a smoky voice, similar to his friend Melissa Etheridge’s, and she could accentuate her delivery with cracks on ­command. “If you put that break in the right place of an emotional lyric, you don’t need a recording studio to break a heart,” Bush says. “You can just break it right in front of someone’s face.” 

Bush and Moroney recorded a few demos, including her first single, “Wonder,” which ended up on the desk of Juli Griffith, the Nashville exec Bush had worked with on his solo music. He sent no headshot or description of Moroney, just the music. “I can’t remember when somebody [last] made me feel that way, especially a female voice,” Griffith recalls. “I just fell in love with it, and he still wouldn’t tell me what she looked like.… ‘Am I going to get a 700-pound ogre? Why will he not tell me?’”

Bush set up a Zoom call for Moroney and Griffith to finally meet. Griffith was wowed by the songwriter’s creative vision. “If you knew she was blond and you looked up her ­Instagram-influencer thing in a bikini, you wouldn’t have taken her seriously,” Griffith remembers Bush telling her. “And I go, ‘You’re probably right.’ He let me fall in love with the songs and the voice before I saw the image.” 

It’s the sort of thing Moroney still hears today. “There are people that are like, ‘Oh, this Barbie doll can’t have much depth to her,’” she says. “It doesn’t bother me when people say it, because if you listen to my music, that’s the opposite of the truth.”

For the next two years, Moroney kept grinding, writing songs with partners Griffith suggested. Her debut EP, 2022’s Pistol Made of Roses, caught the attention of Spotify, which selected Moroney for their Fresh Finds program just in time for college-football season. She had the perfect song for the platform to promote: “Tennessee Orange,” which she announced with a mysterious Instagram photo while wearing a University of Tennessee T-shirt. The song found an audience on TikTok — and made a slew of fans eager to know whose Vols shirt that was. 

Moroney wouldn’t admit it right away, but the shirt belonged to Morgan Wallen, whom Moroney was involved with briefly in 2020. “It’s one of those things where of course they’re going to wonder. I write songs that people can dream up in their head [and think] that this is who it’s about,” she says. She prefers to keep the details of her relationship with Wallen to herself. “As much as it is my story, it’s their story, too, and I just have respect for the other artist because they’re public, too,” says Moroney, who remains friendly with Wallen. 

Lucky arrived in May 2023, trailed by a successful single, “I’m Not Pretty,” about an ex’s new girlfriend stalking her Instagram. “I think the algorithm was just set up to where, if the lyrics were related to the person that was going through that, then it would show up on their For You page,” she says. “I found that, specifically with ‘I’m Not Pretty,’ a lot of people are like, ‘I don’t like country music, but I started listening because of you.’”

Lucky introduced what Moroney calls her “emo cowgirl” aesthetic, an ultra-specific, Gen Z perspective that connected with fans not bound by a genre label. (Rolling Stone ranked it the Number One country album of 2023.) There are clever lines throughout, like, “I sleep on my side, and you sleep with everyone,” and quintessential country ones like, “Who’s gonna break down first, this Mustang or me?” But it’s “Girl in the Mirror,” a self-reflection in which she admits “You can’t love the boy more than you love the girl in the mirror,” that hits the hardest at her concerts.

“I’ve had dads cry at meet-and-greets and say that they’re so grateful for my music. If they didn’t have my songs, they wouldn’t feel as close to their daughters,” Moroney says. “If I have a migraine before I go onstage, it’s like, ‘Well, it’s all worth it because you’re out here impacting people.’ That’s why I love writing songs that mean shit.”

As Moroney’s profile started to grow, Bush encouraged her to see a therapist to help with the pressures of fame. He says he wishes he had had that emotional support when Sugarland took off. “He wouldn’t take no for an answer,” says Moroney, who finally agreed to find one.

Therapy can come in handy when dealing with the collateral effects of stardom. For example: In early January, Moroney’s name began trending on X after news broke that Carrie Underwood would sing at Donald Trump’s inauguration. Underwood’s fans, especially her large gay following, were angered by what they viewed as her implicit endorsement of a president who’d vowed to roll back LGBTQ+ protections. Many channeled their frustration by pivoting their allegiance to Moroney.

Moroney was surprised by her sudden inclusion in the conversation. “I’m like, ‘Why am I getting brought into this?’” she says. “I’m happy that they relate to my music … [but] I’m never happy tearing down another woman.” She says it’s “hard to say” whether she would’ve accepted a Trump invite, but she thinks “it’s a valid feeling” for fans who felt betrayed by Underwood’s choice. “I come from a really big family, with each side of the [political] spectrum. And I’ve found that you can’t change anyone’s mind,” she says. “The best thing I can do is love them. That’s what I want to give to my fans, too. My music is there so hopefully they can find comfort.”

The genre borders around country music are expanding, as highlighted by Beyoncé’s Grammy-winning Cowboy Carter. Moroney’s here for it: “[She’s] bringing people to ­country music who otherwise would never listen to country music,” Moroney says of Queen Bey. “If the storytelling is there, and it feels authentic, then there’s room for you. Bring it.”

Also expanding: Moroney’s circle of besties outside of the genre. Olivia Rodrigo checked in to see how Moroney is doing over the holidays. “She was like, ‘Are you getting rest?’” Moroney says, still in awe. “I’m like, ‘What is life?’” In October, Moroney joined Tate McRae onstage in Nashville after they became friends online. “She got me blue roses and wrote me a really sweet note,” she says. “It’s in my room at home.”

Moroney is here for Beyonce’s ‘Cowboy Carter’: “She’s bringing people to country music.”

And she has Kenny Chesney, who’s become Moroney’s musical godfather. Before they went on the road last year, he invited her to breakfast. “I thought she was very smart, that a lot of the things she wanted to do were very creative, and that she was wise beyond her years,” Chesney tells Rolling Stone.

In between shows with Chesney, Moroney focused on her sophomore album, Am I Okay?, released in July. The transition between albums was quick but clear. She went from casino greens to royal blues, and captured the energy of the LP in its artwork: Moroney poses in pageant-esque makeup while holding two fingers to her neck to check her pulse. She’s learned to market her art flawlessly, and she’s taken notes from one of her heroes, Lambert, who has had “consistently good music for a very long time,” she says. “No flop eras.” Its lead single, “No Caller ID,” was a smoky slow-burner about late-night calls from an old flame. She channels Fearless-era Taylor Swift on “Noah,” about a two-date romance. But there are also the tearjerkers she’s known for, like “Mama I Lied,” about holding back the truth about relationship woes: “I can’t hide it anymore, I really need you,” she sings.

At the CMAs in November, Moroney was named New Artist of the Year, an accolade Taylor Swift, Luke Combs, and the Chicks all earned before her. “Thank you, Jesus, for putting this dream on my heart, and thank you for the gift of songwriting,” she said in her acceptance speech. That night, she also earned props from two of the people who inspired her most: Musgraves and Lambert. There’s an old photo floating around on the internet of Moroney waiting outside of Musgraves’ tour bus to ask for a picture. This time, they shared dressing rooms. “She was like, ‘Thanks for all the nice things you always say about me,’” Moroney says. 

After she won her award, Moroney felt Lambert’s hand on her arm congratulating her backstage. “I grew up listening to powerful women who had something meaningful to say. It’s important to keep that going and ­support each other,” Lambert tells Rolling Stone. “When I was starting out, the best advice my mom gave me was to ‘know who you are, and stick with it.’ Megan knows exactly who she is.”

IT’S A CHILLY FRIDAY in Crossville, though the snow from a recent storm has nearly all melted. As I approach the porch of ­songwriter Connie Harrington’s lake home, a familiar figure greets me from afar: Buc-ee the beaver, in inflatable form, sitting out front like a cartoon sentinel. Moroney and the trio of songwriting partners behind “No Caller ID” and fellow Am I Okay? track “Bless Your Heart” have spent the past week here, ­writing songs for her third album, whose release date Moroney hasn’t even begun to consider. 

Inside the cozy house — adorned with a Saint Dolly Parton candle, a stack of board games, and various knickknacks — the songwriters relax in matching camo-print sweats. On the recliner is the group’s matriarch, ­Harrington, who downs shots of tequila with guests (me) after dinging a xylophone; at the kitchen table sit Moroney’s managers, Griffith and Hayley Corbett; and sprawled on the sofa next to Moroney are the Jessies: Jessi Alexander, who tells of writing “The Climb” for a 15-year-old Miley Cyrus, and Jessie Jo Dillon, the older-sister-like lyrical genius behind “10,000 Hours,” the 2019 hit by Dan + Shay and Bieber. “Avengers assemble! That’s what this trip feels like,” Moroney says of the writing retreat. “And Buc-ee is the fifth avenger.” 

Today is the last day of the retreat, and Buc-ee has already blessed them with inspiration: The women have written six songs. “Our brains are mashed potatoes right now,” says Moroney, who plays me the new songs, which may or may not all end up on the album. She accompanies herself on guitar, sometimes pausing to scroll through the lyrics on her phone. No one outside of this house has heard them before.

The first song Moroney performs is a ballad she compares to “Girl in the Mirror”; it’s called “Beautiful Things” (and, no, it’s not a Benson Boone cover). “Lies can break q fragile heart, and doubt can crush your dreams/But, honey, just take it from me,” she sings, “the world is hard on beautiful things.” Moroney’s 21st-century blues shine through in a different line: “There’s a party, you didn’t know/You just found out from your phone/ Do they not want you to go?”

We’re one song in, and Harrington is already in full-on waterworks. “A lot of girls suffer in silence. And you suffer publicly,” she says to Moroney, blowing her nose and drying her eyes. That’s a good sign, I learn. “We always say that our song is probably not as good as it should be if Connie doesn’t cry,” Moroney says.

Then there’s “Wedding Dress,” whose chorus Moroney teased on Instagram years ago but could never get the verses right. “I knew that the bones of that song were good and worth fighting for,” she says. On “You for Me,” she strums her guitar and sets the scene of “the voice of Elvis in Graceland down the hall” before she sings: “I could go anywhere, I swear … but it’s always going to be you for me.” The song is meant to be a duet, and Moroney deepens her voice to mimic a male partner. The Avengers wrote several options for whoever ends up on the song — some about hunting, another about beers and bourbon — but Moroney has a dream collaborator in mind: Justin Bieber. “Maybe he would feel that way about Hailey. I know he does,” Moroney says with a sigh.

“We wrote the crap out of these songs,” Moroney adds. “We exerted all of our options on every verse, every word.” The Buc-ee Avengers agree. The songs they’ve written on this trip are much less emo than what Moroney is used to. (She later plays me a lighthearted song she wrote with “Espresso” co-writer Amy Allen about a boy who was dumb enough to ghost her. “What’s there to not love? I’m the whole package,” she sings on it.) Perhaps it’s because she’s in a different headspace this time. 

After all, Moroney says, she hasn’t been in a relationship for almost a year after breaking up with “a regular finance dude” in early 2024. “I could not imagine going through the past year if I was upset and crying over a dude,” she says, brushing off the breakup. Choosing not to date is something new to Moroney, who tells me about her fifth-grade romances and fuckboy fuck-ups in college throughout my time here. “I feel like I’ve always had bad taste in men,” she says. “I had a really sweet boyfriend in fifth grade, and I broke up with him because I wanted to date the eighth-grade bad boy who had failed a bunch of times.… I don’t know if this song will make my next album, but an opening line is ‘I know how to pick them. Copy, paste.’”

Does she want to find love eventually? Absolutely. Moroney heard a recent Lambert interview where she opened up about meeting her NYPD officer husband, and she’d be interested in a similar meet-cute. “She just swooped him up!” Moroney says. And she recalls how her new friend Lana Del Rey — with whom she sang “Tennessee Orange” last year — married a Louisiana airboat captain not too long ago. “I love that for her. Go get you a country boy, girl!” she says.

But Moroney has high standards for any potential matches. Instagram DMs are a no-go, and asking for her Snapchat is a big ick. “I’m too old for that!” she says.

Days before I met Moroney, fans theorized online that she had gone on a Caribbean vacation with country heartthrob Riley Green. The internet sleuths used Google’s AI reverse image search to look at both stars’ beachside posts in late ­December and deduced that they had been in St. Barts at the same time. “I didn’t even know that was a thing!” says Moroney of the image search.

Was Green on the trip? “He was individually on his vacation with his friends,” she says. “St. Barts is a popular place!” So it was a coincidence? “Yeah.” Did you guys get to hang out? “It’s one of those things where if you know someone on a small island, you’re like, ‘Oh, shit, you’re here too.’ So it was fun.” Are you dating? “Just because we’re hanging out doesn’t mean we’re romantically dating. You know what I mean?”

Moroney isn’t bothered by fans being interested in her personal life. In fact, she takes it as a compliment. “I don’t blame them for doing some FBI research,” she says.

It’s hard to look at Moroney’s ever-growing career and not think of a young Taylor Swift: the glittery guitars, the sharply detailed lyricism, her clear point of view, and the public’s nosiness into her personal life. Swift took several albums to pivot her way from country hitmaker to full-on pop star, bringing the teachings of Nashville songwriting with her. Moroney’s a Swift fan (“When The Tortured Poets came out, I listened to it nonstop,” she says), but does she see herself going pop in a similar way? “The songs you heard are very country, so no time soon is that happening!” she says. “But I’ve always just been a storyteller, and if one day a shift in my life makes me want to write something that sounds different, then I’ll probably do that.”

Moroney smiles, and gives her best teenaged Justin Bieber impression: “Never say neverrrr.”