Sunday Sitdown with Willie Geist - Maren Morris

Episode Date: December 4, 2022

Maren Morris first began to find her now-famous voice as a child, singing at her parents' hair salon in Arlington, Texas. She made her name playing bars across the state before moving to Nashville, where she wrote songs for artists like Tim McGraw and Kelly Clarkson. In 2016, though, Morris recorded one of those songs herself, a love letter to country music called My Church, that became a top-10 hit, won a Grammy, and launched her career. Since then, she has become one of the biggest stars in country music and beyond. In this week's Sunday Sitdown, Maren and Willie Geist got together at a Texas barbecue spot in New York. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey guys, Willie Geist here with another episode of the Sunday Sit Down podcast. My thanks as always for clicking and listening along. I am thrilled to bring you today a conversation with one of my very favorite people to talk with. Marin Morris, she is a Grammy winner. Of course, she came up playing the honky tonks as a kid in Texas and then moved to Nashville where she was a songwriter for other artists. But she held on to one song for herself called My Church. It was her big hit in 2006.

and launched her career. She's had big Grammy-winning, Grammy-nominated album since then, songs like Bones, Middle. Why don't you just meet me in the middle? You know that one with Gray and Zed, which became a relentlessly popular hit for many, many months. She's also an incredibly thoughtful person outspoken on social issues in a genre, frankly, in country where they kind of try to play it down the middle so as not to alienate fans. She goes there. She talks about social issues on social issues. line and in her music. She recently, well, I guess not that recently anymore, but she had a son,

Hayes, in March of 2020. Like literally, right when the world shut down, she had her baby. And she was home, obviously, like the rest of us, for a couple of years, raising her son with her husband Ryan Hurd, also a singer-songwriter, and thinking about her life and her career and a new album that became Humble Quest. So Marin and I got together in New York City at Hill Country barbecue, kind of a Texas-themed barbecue joint in Midtown Manhattan, give her a little bit of a taste for home. To talk about the album, Humble Quest,

and the tour she was on at the time, but just finished of the same name. A very busy woman, a very talented woman, a great songwriter, a great voice. Also, mixes an incredible Margarita, which you'll hear later in the interview. She's got her own little recipe. She makes them every night on the tour bus

for the band and the crew. she is a party and she is a lot of fun to talk with. So I will step away and make way for Grammy winner, Marin Morris, right now on the Sunday Sit Down podcast. Great to see you, Marin. You as well. It's been too long. I was just saying five years since you and I sat down together at the Palm in Nashville.

Yeah. And you were on the cusp of a lot of things. Yeah, I was still in album one. You were? Yeah. Yeah. And now I'm on three. Album three.

Yeah. and you're back out on the road. What does it feel like to be back out there with your fans after a couple of years at home? It just feels like a steep sigh of relief. Just getting to see them and not just through comments on Instagram or Twitter or, like, doing virtual shows like we all kind of had to do to make ends meet. Yeah, just being in person with a bunch of people, three-dimensional is amazing. Does it feel like a party? people, not just for you, but the other side of it, people are just so happy that live shows are back and they get to be with a bunch of people and sing your songs back to you?

Yeah, and I haven't toured since 2019 this way. So, yeah, it did feel like a huge gap of time, not just from the pandemic, but just between albums for me. So it was a lot to come back to and just create with them. So, yeah, I don't want it to end. We're almost done. It makes me sad because we started in June. and now it's like wrapping up. We have a few weekends left. And, yeah, I'm just not ready for it to be over. I wish we had done more shows. Maybe we can add a few at the end. Yes.

For fun. I'll go busk in the street. I bet you would actually. You've done it before. I'll open the guitar case. I believe that. I believe it take you way back to, what was it, the white elephant where he used to play when you're a little girl?

Yeah. One of those gigs. Yes. So the tour and the album are called Humble Quest. Yeah. What does Humble Quest mean to you? I think from 2020 on to now, I've learned a lot about myself. I had my son in March of 2020, kind of getting through the new first phases of motherhood,

parenthood, doing that whilst being in a brand new pandemic that no one preps you for. It was just a lot of newness and a lot of loss at the same time. because my tour got canceled. I lost my producer Busby in late 2019. And so just everything was really humbling. I think just about being a human. It's like you are not in control. You never were.

You just have to like laugh it off all of it and stop taking yourself so seriously. And I think that was humbling for me to learn. And maybe it took a pandemic for everything to grind to a halt and just, yeah, realize who you are without all of the applause and flowers and people telling you, like, how, you know, you've changed their life. It's like, you're going to have to change your own to be, you know, in a pandemic and not tour. So, yeah, it's just like finding new purposes without the noise of the applause. It was strange for all of us, but I have to imagine for someone who's been on the road for, what, 15 years or something like that, doing just.

shows, grinding, hustling the whole time to just hit the brakes for two years. It was probably disorienting to you in some way. Your husband, too, because he's a performer as well. Yeah, I think the bottom fell out in many ways for me, and I've sort of learned through therapy that I've been doing this hustle since I was 10 or 11 years old, you know, touring and doing all of that through my childhood and teenage adolescence into now, you know, I'm 32. I haven't stopped. It took the world coming to a halt for me to stop. And I think a lot of identity crises happened there, not just like being a new parent and a new mother

and dealing with, you know, postpartum depression for the first time and reeling from that and trying to like find the forest through the trees. But also just knowing my worth without someone clapping for me. I've been doing that performer thing since I was a kid. So, yeah, doing this without that, I kind of felt like this sounds so cheesy, but I felt like a woman, like the sort of form I was supposed to take a long time ago that I've been in arrested development over, it finally came because I had to stop doing this thing that always gave me this pride. So how did that manifest itself? What did it mean to you to become a woman, as you say, beyond becoming a mother, which was the biggest part of it, I'm sure. But what else did you learn about yourself?

I think that I'm a child still in a lot of ways that I haven't properly matured because I've always been able to throw it into music. But as far as relationships go, I think from a very early age, I've been taking care of myself and other people and just performing. And, yeah, I think when you have your own kid and you kind of can't go to work, your purpose is very different. And so you kind of have to just, like, chisel it out of stone yourself. And I think I was probably supposed to do that a long time ago, but it just didn't happen until now, or in the last few years. And Ryan was there at your side, people don't know, an amazing talent of his own.

So how did all this manifest itself in the music then in this new album? Did you guys talk about what kind of message you want a new album? Did you think about, okay, I'm going to take these experiences and put them down on a page and make songs out of them? Yeah. I wrote a lot in late 2020 that were just a lot of songs that were really introspective but really sad. And they didn't feel productive, honestly, to my mental health. Maybe they were just for me. They only exist for my brain and not anyone else's.

But maybe I had to kind of sift through those to get to the gold, which usually happens with songs when you're writing for a new record if you haven't written in a long time. But yeah, Ryan was there. He's always been my confidant, not just in music, but just in all things. As my friend, as my husband, as my, you know, the father of my son. But yeah, as far as being creative with him goes, it was like, can we just please write something light to pull me out of this like pandemic doldrum? And I don't want to, you know, sit in the ashes very long here. Like it's okay to, but I don't think it's really helping me to write all these sad songs. So he kind of just helped me in song form and in just conversation form figure out how to get to the light. And yeah, so a lot of these songs on Humplequest I wrote with Ryan or about Ryan. He's the muse for a lot of my songs.

But yeah, we've kind of reached a bridge in our relationship where we've written together for so long, 10 years. We have so many songs together that have been cut or not cut. And I think that we've come to a point in our relationship where we're like, we don't need to do this together. we like doing it together. It's not like, oh, the relationship's going to fall to pieces if I don't collaborate with you on this one. It's like a very respectful understanding of each other. But yeah, out of necessity, I was stuck inside with him for two years.

So I was like, I guess we'll just write a song. Pretty nice to have somebody across the dinner table who understands what you're going through so well and can help you get through it and find the good stuff. So many great songs on the album. Circles around this town stands out. out among other great songs because it really tells your story of coming to Nashville sort of with some wisdom, you know, a decade or so of wisdom after the fact. What is the message of that song? What are you saying? Well, the line that I love and the chorus is, um, of circles around

the town is, uh, I thought when I had hit it, it all looked different, but I've still got the pedal down driving circles around this town. And that to me was like, I moved to Nashville 10 years ago with nothing, with a dream, and moved into like a sight unseen Craigslist house with two other roommates. And I didn't have anything. And I really had to build myself up and build my song repertoire just from scratch. And I think I thought back then a decade ago that when I moved to Nashville and this was back when I just wanted to write songs for other people, not necessarily be an artist. But I just wanted to go to my number one party and have the artist I wrote for. you know, hand me my medal and, you know, take the photo and then on to the next one.

Like, that was the dream. It was just like writing for other people. And then I wrote my church, decided to put it out myself, got a record deal. Now we're here, you know, six years later. And I think I still have that grind in me that is like your best song is the last one you wrote. So you always are trying to one up yourself. And that's the beautiful. competition art form that is Nashville songwriting is like all your friends are better than you. And it just, it doesn't make you downtrod and it makes you excited to show them the last thing you wrote. So that community there is really special to me because I feel like they hold me accountable. They also make me a better writer every single time I go back into the room.

Yeah. Isn't it interesting? I found this too where you think in the course of your career there's going to be some moment where you go, I did it. and you put your feet up. But if you have the motor that people like you and I probably both have, you never put your feet up, right? So it does feel like you're always going to be driving circles around the town with the gas on the floor, doesn't it? Yeah, I mean, Ryan, my husband jokes that he'll be wheeling me off the casino stage when we're like, I'm 90 or something.

That's going to be my fate. It's like I'll probably just die on stage because I love it so much. I don't want to take time off. I don't like the idea of saving up a bunch and retiring because it's not a job to me. It's like my passion. Maybe some days it feels like a job, but I don't want to stop. I really genuinely love doing it. And it's all I know.

But yeah, he'll be wheeling me off the stage with my emphysema tank probably. I don't know. I think we just booked you on a riverboat and tunica. I love that idea. Right? I love a boat. Let's wait a little while, but we'll get there eventually. Another amazing part of the story, which gets to your personal journey and your road to where you are,

is that you recorded it at the home of one of your heroes. Yeah. And I can't imagine what that must be like to have grown up in Texas and listen to Cheryl Crow on the radio and say, boy, I like the way she makes music, but she's some big star who lives on a different planet. I'll never even meet her. Yeah. What was that like to be in her space and record this album? I mean, it's still not real to me that she is so down to earth.

I mean, Cheryl, I met, oh my goodness, probably in 2016 or 2017, and she's just been so loving and so much great advice has been given to me by her over the years, whether it be personal or professional. But then in the pandemic, we really had to be creative, Greg Kirsten, my producer and I, on how to make this record in a pandemic. So how do you do that? I ended up going to Hawaii because Greg has a place there. We wrote a lot, me and him and Ryan and got a good bit of a recording done. But then a few months went by. I was kind of ruminating on these mixes and we needed to finish some stuff. And I, in Nashville, Greg was like, I want to come to.

in Nashville, do you have a studio in mind? And I really, there's so many studios that I've worked at and love in Nashville, but I just, I don't know, I recorded a good amount of them with Busby, and it just felt very strange to be, I don't know, going back into the same rooms, the same studios with a different producer. So I just thought, oh my gosh, Cheryl Crow once offered her studio to me probably is not a serious thing, but I'm going to take her up on it and see if she was being for real. I texted her. I said, does that offer still stand if I can use your studio? And she was like, absolutely, name the week.

So we got to go to her beautiful place in Nashville. And for a whole week, it was like perfect weather. sunshine. She's got horses and these horse stables that are underneath the barn, or the studio on the first floor. And so we would take breaks and just go see the horses and just eat outside. And just she's got a chapel on her property. It's so her. But yeah, it's like you just, she's so kind and giving to let us use her space because it's very sacred. But she doesn't think anything of it. She's just like, yeah, I got to bring my son. Hayes got to meet Cheryl Crow.

I don't know if he knows how cool that is yet. Someday. He will appreciate that. He will appreciate that. So you were upstairs in that room, the guitars on the wall and all that. Yeah, that's an amazing space. When you sit down to write any new album now, given the success of your previous albums and the fact that a lot of your songs

cross over and, you know, they're in the top 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 and all that, do you think about hits at this point? Are you just trying to write great songs? I think a hit for me at this point is just a byproduct of hopefully a great song. I think that going in, and it's always the kiss of death, and it has been since I started in Nashville, is like, oh, if you ever say, oh, while you're writing the song, this is a hit, or if it's a smash, that word is so dirty in Nashville writing rooms.

Oh, we've got a smash on our hands. Well, you just totally ruined it. Like, you jinxed it. So we don't, we don't say that word. Smash in Nashville rooms. But, yeah, I think that it's always a plus. Like, you, I think there was that great Patty Smith quote about, you know, she's done so many records that maybe 10 people heard or books that maybe like five people read.

I would be one of the five. And she was like, in all these people, these punk rockers, I'm going to totally botched this quote. But it's like, oh, you don't want your song to be made. stream or because you want it to be like only for this crowd and she's like well F you because I mean you're trying to connect with people and that's what a hit ends up doing it just connects with however many more hundreds of thousands of people so it's always such a beautiful plus when that happens but I can't go in and create with that formula in my head of what I think a hit will be because then you end up following a trend that someone has already

set. And I think that you want it to be the opposite of that. You want to set it and create something that's new. Or if it is reminiscent or nostalgic of something else, it's done in a way that's really fresh. And so, yeah, at this point, I've had crossover success. I've had songs on pop radio, on hot AC, on country. But it's like hungry, hungry hippos at this point. Like, how many do you need to feel like you have a fulfilled life and career. I'll always take it when it comes, but I don't go in and set out to be the hitmaker. I just want to write a great song,

and I want to connect with my friends that I'm writing it with and, you know, connect to a higher self or God or whatever it is in that room. That's what I'm there to do. Hey, guys, thanks for listening to the Sunday Sit Down podcast. Stick around to hear more from Marin Morris right after the break. Welcome back now more of my conversation with Marin Morris. I hesitated to use the term crossover, but since you used it.

Yeah. What does that mean to you exactly? Because it seems to me that genre doesn't really matter as much anymore. Yeah. If you're good, you're good and people find it wherever it is. So what do you make of the definitions of like, Marin is country, but sometimes she's pop or she's pop now and she goes back and does country once in a while? Does that mean anything to you?

I don't know if it's as strict as it once was, you know, where you would go to buy a CD or a record and you're trying to find it and it's under a category of genre so you can find it easier at the CD store. Like that's just not as prevalent anymore. Everything has gone over to streaming and people are just pulling up playlists based on mood, which I love. That's kind of how I search for things. but yeah, I mean, I think kind of respecting and staying true to a root of what made you fall in love with a genre in the first place is important, but it's not my Bible. I think that I am so influenced by so many genres, and I've never said otherwise. Like from my church on, it's always been the kitchen sink. So, yeah, I think crossover at this point to me means,

it started somewhere and it ended up in a very, very different place. You went somewhere that you not intended. And I think that the fans, the listeners are the only people in control of that. It can't be something that's formulaic or marketing strategy from the team. It's like it kind of has to just happen organically and fans will let you know if it's crossover worthy or not. Yeah, I think that's right. crossover just seems like a dated term anyway. On Humble Quest, you, in the title song, in Humble Quest, you start to speak about

and sing about sort of waking up and speaking up about things, which I would say since the last time you and I sat down five years ago, you've done a lot more of, you've used your voice and your platform to speak out on issues. When you started to do that on issues like guns or abortion or trans rights or whatever the issue is, was there any? any trepidation of I'm about to step in it, and now I'm going to be in the middle of it. Yeah, I think anyone with a brain would know that they're about to step into territory that is extremely hot and uncomfortable and, you know, polarizing. And when you have a platform and you have people screaming at you every day via phone, how awful you are, how terrible your music is, how terrible your morals are, you really do have to, like, shut it all out and only listen to yourself because you'll go crazy.

And I think that at the end of the day, like, I've truly know who I am. That's been a given for a long time. And I know that especially, I think it's gotten more galvanized since I've had my son, that I am really trying to make something beyond music. I mean, it's through music, but it's absolutely important to me to know where, as a fan of musicians myself, where my money is going. And I think that if you're going to come to a show of mine or buy a t-shirt or listen to my music, I want you to know what you're getting. And if you just want to listen to the music and shut the rest of it out, great. Like, I have full respect in that. But it's so much bigger than that sometimes.

And especially when you, like, go to a concert and it's not on Twitter. It's real. Those are real people and real people on stage as well. That's when like those boundaries go away. And it's just you and a bunch of strangers that are all there for the music. And I want people to look around at my shows and realize, okay, this is really loving and safe and comfortable. Like no matter what walk of life or where you come from, I want you to be able to be safe at my show. And I think in 2022, you.

you do have to kind of like stand up for yourself and for others to make that safe space at a show a reality. And I'm willing to be uncomfortable to do that. Yeah. Is there a risk to it? Because I would say I'm a fan of country music. Most artists aren't going to sit down in an interview and talk about the things you talk about or to even go on social media and take on those issues because they say,

maybe I believe that, maybe I do feel that way. it's just not worth the fight, it's not worth losing fans. Do you feel any hit from doing that? I mean, it sure doesn't look like it from the outside. I mean, I think in different phases throughout my career, ever since my church, honestly, like, when I put my church out, it was met with, like, a ton of critical acclaim. And, like, I was making new fans very quickly just from it being on the radio and it just being a new voice on the radio. but I kind of got my first dose of criticism of people saying the song is like blasphemous at my church. And even though I feel like that's kind of ridiculous, there's a group of people to think that.

And I remember, you know, oh, wow, I'm really going to have to have some thick skin to get through this if this is like the song that's already pissing people off in a very weird way. So I think from the get-go, I've gone through the chapters of feeling just the criticism and knowing that, you know what, you're going to piss people off either way, so you better let them know where you stand. And I think that, yeah, I've probably lost listeners along the way. But I think the ones I've gained and the ones I've retained, they know exactly who I am and what they're getting. And I think that that's to me an artist that I love really admirable is, you know, I don't judge anyone for staying quiet. I mean, I get it. It's scary. It's really scary to start talking.

But yeah, I think that I have built something over time and I see the residual effect of it now that time is past. of the positivity that it's ingrained into the fan base. So even if you take a hit here and then, you know, here and there, it's worth it because you see something that you and your fans and your team and your band, your co-writers have all built and it's really solid. But yeah, it takes some licks to get to that really strong, like, hard as a diamond space.

Yeah, that skin is pretty tough. point, isn't it? Yeah. You've also formed, since I saw you last, the high women with three amazing, talented friends of yours. And that was, you know, in many ways a tribute to the highway men, but also, I think, a statement about women in country music, if that's fair to say. What is the state of women in country music? Is it getting better than it was a few years ago when you broke into the business? Yeah, I think it has in a lot of ways because, I mean, it's still extremely slanted when you look at, you know, who's on the chart and who's not. But I will say as far as, like, new female voices go, I think we hear way more of them today than we did, you know, five,

six years ago when I was first getting on the radio. You know, I would like to see more women in the entertainer of the year categories because I think everyone's busting their butt to, like, make something of themselves in a very dry environment sometimes. And so, yeah, I would like to see more of that. And not me, like just anyone. Because it sometimes becomes like the same few people. But I do think that it would be, and there's always room to grow. There's a lot of growing room, I would say, still.

And I think that it's just going to take work. And it takes like a lot of hard, heavy work to make that a reality. And it's not just the artists doing it. It's, you know, the writers that write these beautiful songs that like never get cut because, oh, it's too feminine or too ballady or whatever. It's like you just kind of have to find your pockets of light to know where like you'll fit in or just make your own lane altogether. And is that, is that view of songwriting? Is that just habit in Nashville?

In other words, do they want a song about a pickup and a beer rather than that feminine ballad that you're talking about? Because when they do come out from you or anybody else, they sell, you know, once they're out there. I don't know. I think there have been, like, number ones and, like, really big songs from women that have been that, especially lately.

Yeah. Yeah, for sure. I think that, yeah, it's hard for me to say. I think that I've been so laser focused on my own thing. It's been hard for me to make space here lately to just listen to new music. But yeah, I think I'm finding so much inspiration in the new crop of people in Nashville. I think that they're the new guard and they're really refreshing the format. And it just makes me inspired because, you know, I'm on album three.

wouldn't really call myself a new artist anymore. But it does make me inspired to see that things are a little bit better and people are braver and saying things and wearing things that, like, they maybe didn't feel like they could get away with a few years ago. So I think it's all modernizing in a really amazing way. And it just breeds better music, honestly. And the sort of cross-pollination of music, if we don't want to say crossover, I think it bodes for better music in the end because the boundaries are getting swept away. And you can just go in

and write a great song, not so much worried about like what format will it fit today. But yeah, I think the new crop of people in Nashville, and they're not just mainstream country artists. Like there's amazing artists that are outside of that lane that are making our town so diverse and the music is so diverse and beautiful that it's nice that Nashville's kind of opening up even more in that way and not just in country music. Not just music row. Yeah. Speaking of the cross-pollination, your hit song, The Middle, I swear it was just on the radio again, all these years later.

Like, it's been number one and on the top of the charts for years and years and years. Did you have any sense when you put that song out with them that it was going to become this massive hit, number one, and change your life in the way that it did? I think I knew just hearing it for them. first time on a cellular level that it was really special. That only happens maybe you get like one of those a year that just feel like, okay, this is a go. But no, none of us could have predicted that it would go where it went. I mean, I remember I was on tour with Nile Horan and we were in South America. And I remember taking a taxi in like Buenos Aires or something. And

the middle came on and it had only been out for a couple of weeks and just thinking like whoa i don't think this has ever happened to me in a in a foreign country like i've gotten to hear my song it just shows you the reach of pop music and why it's such a worldly genre um but yeah that was a first for me what did it do to your life how did things change with the success of that song um I think it showed people that wouldn't typically listen to country music that, and there were a good few country pop collabs that year, one of which being the middle. But I think it just opened up a huge world audience to my voice. And so if anyone ever heard that like, baby, they'd be like, who is this? Oh, Marin Morris, who's that?

And then, you know, they would go to my previous work. And, you know, so it definitely brought in a new. realm of like fans and possibilities of just like where we could go with um album two and yeah so it was it was a huge moment it's cool to think about some of the fans at your shows now probably heard you first on that song and then came to the rest of your music it was a way in for him um your son i understand on the tour bus for this tour has his own like part of the bus yeah he's and he's really loving life on the road is that fair to say he does he has a crib bunk um in Bunk Alley, and he's, I didn't know how he would fare with it just because he's,

I was supposed to originally bring him out when he was six weeks old. And then COVID happened. And, you know, now he's two and a half. So I am kind of glad it worked out this way so he could come when he's a little bit bigger. And he's not just like rolling around in there on the bus ride. But he loves it. I mean, he knows everyone's name, all the crew, all the band. And his retention is insane.

I'm just like memories of what we experienced like three weeks ago. He'll be like, oh, yeah, that thing that happened in Aspen or whatever, wherever we were. But yeah, he's loving it. I think that we had a really long run on the West Coast a few weeks ago. And he's getting to see all these museums and zoos and just places. And so he got back to Nashville. And I feel like he was just a different kid. He had a full vocabulary and knew everyone's name and he can count and say the alphabet.

And it's just like something clicked with him. And I don't know if he's just meeting all these new people every day. And that wouldn't have happened previously or what. But he's like completely online now. It's wild. Educated on the road. That's the best education, right? Yeah, I mean, he's only two and a half.

But yeah, he's learning a lot. He loves the bus. He's a bus kid. And he's on the album, so he's going to be looking for that royalty check, too. You're going to be careful. Yeah, I, you know, he's in my will, but I'm going to tell him, like, please don't sell all my publishing. I know it's going to seem, you know, tempting, but just, you know, wait a little bit after I die. So you're sitting down having that conversation with your two-year-old, about the royalties, the will, and the publishing.

Leave it, leave it. So before I let you go, what else in your world, like so much. as possible right now because of success you've had. What else is still out there that you want to do? Is there a different genre of music you'd like to try? Is there like what? I know your brain moves fast and you're always thinking about things. What else do you want to do? I want to do Broadway. You do? Yeah. I love Wicked. So I tried out for Wicked. And I can't like reveal too much because I'm still in the process of it. You just tried out for Wicked. Well, a couple months ago, but yeah, I love Wicked. I want to do Broadway. I want to write a children's book that has a companion album with it. Yeah, I mean,

I think having a kid made me, and also COVID and just having too much time to think about everything. Yeah, I was like, I love writing songs. I'll always be able to do that and tour, but like there's all these other creative outlets I'm excited about. So yeah, I think just, I, I've really tried to just scare myself the last few years. I, like, hosted a late night show, had never done that. I flew with the Air Force Thunderbirds in, like, a fighter jet. I'm doing that. I'm just kidding.

I'm just kidding. That's an adventure. Yeah. But I'm just like, I think it's like, what's the worst that they could say, no? So I'm just trying everything. Now, when do we hear about the Broadway? I don't know. Let me know.

Are we still waiting here from Wicked? I'm just like in the throes of like just trying out. So yeah, I'm just like, I'll literally do anything they ask. That is amazing. Where do we go vote? Is there like an online? Is there something? We need to make merit.

Are we going Glenda or we go in the other direction? I love Elfabah. Okay. But no, I'm also like never expected to get to this point. So if they do say no, I'm going to be like, thank you for even allowing. me to get this far. This is such a dream. But yeah, I was like one of the first shows I ever saw. That's awesome. Good for you for taking a shot at it. That's really cool. Yeah. I have friends that have started just sending self-tapes in, especially like during the pandemic when we were all stuck

inside and just like, oh, just get a tripod and a ringlight and just like send self-tape auditions in for stuff. And it works for my friend Jason Isbell because he's in that new Martin Scorsese film. I was like, okay. I'm going to try this out. You could say, by the way, my audition is come to my show at Radio City. Yeah, right. So you're sold out, crowd. There's my audition.

How about that? Well, good luck. Keep us posting on that. Maybe our next interview will be at a theater and Broadway. Oh, God. Stick around for more of my conversation with Marin Morris right after a quick break. Welcome back now to the rest of my conversation with Marin Morris. You famously are a fan of tequila, Marin.

Yeah. And I've heard your margaritas famous on the... the bus. It's famous at home. Do you mind mixing one up here? I would love to make you one. Okay, so I've kind of already prepped these. I like a little bit of a kick. So we're not doing a spicy margarita. We're doing a regular one, but put some tahin on the rim for a little something. Someone very sweetly already pored this lime juice for me. So I don't have to squeeze a bunch of limes for you. All right. I've never done this behind a bar. No, you're slinging it pretty well.

Thank you. All right. This is a very small jigger, so I'm going to hope that this is correct. What's your secret on the, what makes you're special? I mean, honestly, it's just keep it simple, like fresh lime juice. Don't use the one in the jar or whatever. It's gross. All right, this is triple sec.

I do like triple sec. I prefer quontro. Okay. Not that I have a brand deal with them or anything. but that's kind of my orange. Any like orange liqueur is great. Okay. All right.

So I'm making this for two. So yeah, it's two ounces, tequila, two ounces, one ounce of lime juice. There you go. And then we're doing a little triple sec. Is this a talent honed in Texas before you got to Nashville? I learned it in Nashville. Because I hate sweet margaritas. So we're just using like,

a little bit of simple syrup. And then now we just need the tequila. All right. So it's a little boozy. That's okay. That's why we're here. I know it's early, but whatever. So two ounces of tequila each for each.

I'm making two cocktails. Okay. So we're doing four of those guys? Yeah. Wow. So that should be good. So part of it. But yeah, tequila, orange liqueur, lime juice, simple sauce.

syrup. And then we shake. Here's the, here we go. This is not, my dad was a bartender. Dad, this is embarrassing. This is not as good as you do it. But there was icing my shaker, so. Yeah. I'm going to get it everywhere. Yeah. All right. So it's just hope that this is, I don't have a strainer, but I'm going to try to get this. I hope it's good.

I like the color. Yeah, I hope it's sweet enough. I prefer a tart. Marg. I do not like super sweet cocktails in my 30s. Yeah, we're getting to that age, are we? I think this is all we kind of need. I'm just going to put them right in.

Beautiful. Here you go, Willie. Erin, thank you so much. I'm honored. Cheers. Cheers. Not bad. Excellent.

A little, like, spice from the... I love the tahine more than... them thus. I love the salt, actually. Yeah. I'm not just, like, I think if you have this, just do it. That is delicious. Truly, not just because you made it. That's a really good mother-in. Yeah, just keep it tart, not too sugary,

and it's good. She does it all. She does it all. Thank you for giving me a bar to do it in. Cheers. Cheers again. Thank you. My big thanks again to Marin for a great conversation. You can stream her latest album, Humble Quest, wherever you get your music. And my thanks to all of you for listening

again this week. If you want to hear more of these conversations with my guests every week, be sure to click follow so you never miss an episode. And don't forget to tune in to Sunday today every weekend on NBC. I'm Willie Geist. We'll see you right back here next week on the Sunday Sit Down podcast.