Maren Morris in Paper Magazine.
Oscar Ouk
Maren Morris is delivering a new album to the world next month, but first, she’s speaking out on what she believes. In a new interview with Paper magazine, the Grammy-winning singer emphasized the need for gun laws in America.
“I’m really not about taking someones Second Amendment right away,” she told the magazine. “I’m more about, ‘Can we have a conversation about common-sense gun reform so people can’t so easily walk into a church or a school or a music fest and shoot the place up with an automatic weapon?'”
Morris added, “I just think there’s such a fear that comes with talking about a common-sense thing. Now that people immediately get so enraged and fired up and volatile, it scares a lot of artists into keeping quiet.”
While the country star made it very clear in her interview that she isn’t going to be an artist that keeps quiet, she’s done so in her music as well: Morris released the poignant acoustic ballad “Dear Hate” (which was just nominated for two Grammys) in the wake of the 2017 Las Vegas shooting at the Route 91 Harvest Festival.
Her latest single, an empowering anthem titled “Girl,” speaks up in another way, as she told Paper that the song “was about identifying my independence as a woman in country music that was fed up with the stereotypes women have so often been blocked into.” No matter what it is she’s talking about, Morris stresses that her fans are always in mind when she’s making a statement.
“I really speak up when I’m so fed up or passionate about something I want the people who buy my records and buy tickets my shows to know that I’m so happy you love my music, but I’m a person,” she said. “I’m a taxpayer. I want to have kids someday and know that maybe I’m leaving them in a world that’s better than what I found. That’s really what’s in my heart when I speak up about these kinds of things.”
With a new album coming on March 8, Morris is looking forward to showing fans more of the many colors that make up who she is as an artist. Whether or not politics is involved, Morris promises her music will always be as bold as her opinions.
“I don’t identify to one sound when I make stuff,” she suggested. “I just want it to be a great song. I just want it to feel like me, and I’m not just one color. I feel like I have this whole spectrum inside me that I want to share.”