As a result of her authenticity and artistic grit, Morgan Wade is one of this generation’s brightest country stars. A modern-day storyteller, Wade is a classic country singer-songwriter who is as honest as she is inspiring. Praised for her signature raspy vocals and fearless songwriting — which tackles mental health, relationships and her sobriety — Wade has made serious headway in the country music scene. On her fourth studio album Obsessed, released last August, Wade took her vulnerability to new heights.
Alongside the release of Obsessed, Wade spent last summer opening for Alanis Morissette on her Triple Moon Tour alongside Joan Jett and The Blackhearts. Recently, Wade has been enjoying the success of her 2025 Obsessed Tour, which marks her first headlining tour in nearly two years. On this run, Wade has been able to meet new fans who were introduced to her through Morissette’s tour. “It’s been really cool to go back out on this run and hit some of the same places that I did with Joan and Alanis,” Wade tells Melodic Magazine over Zoom in late February. “We were in Denver and like half of the VIP [guests] that I met before the show was like, ‘I saw you with Joan and Alanis and I became a new fan.’ That’s been really cool to be able to see that.”
Long before she played alongside Morissette and Jett, the Virginia native grew up surrounded by music, with her grandparents taking her to local bluegrass shows throughout her childhood. In college, Wade was inspired to immerse herself in songwriting after ending a relationship and began to assemble what would soon become a discography built on the foundation of honest expression.
To record her debut musical release, Wade recruited four bandmates through Craigslist, naming the group Morgan Wade and The Stepbrothers. They released one album, Puppets With My Heart, in 2018. Three years later, Wade released her debut solo album, Reckless, which topped Rolling Stone’s 2021 “Best Country Albums of the Year” list and climbed to number 14 on the Billboard Top Heatseekers Chart.
Wade kept up her success with her 2023 LP Psychopath, an album that continued to showcase the cathartic and raw songwriting that Wade had become known for. Along the path to today, Wade has been nominated for the Academy of Country Music’s New Female Artist of the Year, the Americana Music Association’s Emerging Act of the Year, and Country Music Television’s Breakthrough Female Video of the Year.
Obsessed, Wade’s fourth full-length record, takes on a more stripped-down, singer-songwriter approach to the singer’s musicality than ever before, as evidenced by Wade writing all but one of the LP’s songs entirely on her own.
“I didn’t put that record out thinking, ‘Oh my gosh, this is going to be a record with a bunch of radio singles or anything like that,'” she admits. “These are all pretty much deep cuts, so to be able to be out on [that] tour and have everybody singing those words right back to me, it’s a great feeling because it’s showing me how loyal my fanbase is. It’s not just the catchy songs that they’re out there watching me for. They’re out there for the deep cuts, and for the real shit too.”
Following Obsessed, Wade’s latest single “East Coast,” released March 14, maintains an acoustic-heavy approach as the song tells an anthemic yet melancholy story about the fall out of a one-sided relationship. Written around the release of Wade’s 2021 album Reckless, “East Coast” was a deep cut that never made it onto the record.
After a fan mentioned their love for the song, Wade decided to dig up the track and give it new life. “It was, lyrically, another song that I was proud of,” she says. “And honestly, if it’s just one person that comes up and says, ‘Man I really love that song, I hope you release that song.’ That’s one person out there that really appreciates something you wrote when you were at a really difficult time. If I can go put that song out and it makes that one fan really happy, then I’m happy to do it.”
Wade will display the edgier aspects of her sound as she tours alongside hard rock bands Bush and Beartooth supporting Shinedown on their Dance, Kid, Dance Tour. Beginning April 25 in Des Moines, Iowa, the tour will make its way throughout the U.S. over the spring and summer before ending on August 30 in Memphis, Tennessee.
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