Morgan Evans‘ Life Upside Down EP is out. The five-track project includes his heartbreaking “Over For You”” song, along with the positive “On My Own Again,” and more — all songs that captured Evans’ myriad of emotions in the unexpected end of his five-year marriage to Kelsea Ballerini.
“I started recording these in May last year, if I’m being honest with you,” Evans tells Everything Nash. “So, I started the process then, and then I kind of reworked them a little bit, sonically and lyrically at the start of this year. I held off as long as possible, to put them out now. And it feels like the right time now going into summer, especially being out on this tour. It feels right.”
The tour is Brett Young’s 5 Tour 3 2 1 Tour, where he is enjoying playing all of the songs, including two new ones that came out with the EP.
“There are two new ones that came out on Friday,” Evans explains. “They’re super fun to play. We’ve been playing ‘Hey Little Mama’ for the last couple of months, and it’s fun to hear people singing that back already. And ‘All Right Here’ is brand-new, so we just played that the first time over the weekend. That’s a good-feeling song, and it’s good to play good-feeling songs.”
It was “Over For You” that Evans’ introduced to the world first, openly sharing his sadness over his divorce. By his own admission, the Australian had no idea how much the song would resonate with the rest of the world.
“I just played that song live at a festival in Australia, a week after I wrote it,” Evans recalls. “And then with the time difference, I went to sleep in Australia, and by the time I woke up, I realized that clips of that song had been shared so much on TikTok, and all the American radio stations had picked up those clips and played them on air. It was just kind of at a point where it was like, ‘Well, I guess you either put it out, or this clip just keeps circulating around.’ And that’s what we did.
“Two nights later we were playing in Melbourne, and I played it live there,” he continues. “We just pressed record on the, the desk. My mate was out filming the show anyway, so he just filmed it and we put that up. That’s the live version, which is on the EP.”
“Over For You” might have been born from Evans’ personal heartache, but he quickly realized that the message is one that is almost universal.
“It was probably the only song I wrote during a four-month period last year,” shares the singer. “It felt super personal at the time, and it just felt like something that I needed to say when I played it. But over the last six months, it’s been a wild ride with that song, to see the way so many people have related to it. And as personal as those lyrics felt when I wrote them, I realized that at least one person in almost every breakup feels that, or some version of that.
“I’m also pretty acutely aware of how many people are breaking up every day, how many marriages falling apart every day, thanks to all the messages and comments that I get on social media,” he adds with a laugh.
Fortunately, Evans’ fans will have plenty of opportunities to hear him perform all of the songs on Life Upside Down throughout the remainder of the year, while he tours all over the world.
“We are doing a lot in America over the summer here,” Evans says. “A lot of the festivals, and then in the fall, we’re gonna go do more international stuff, and then by the end of the year, we’ll be back here. I can’t really say too much about it, ’cause a bunch of the stuff later in the year is not announced yet, but I am very excited about it. It’ll be a lot of shows, a lot of playing live.”
Amid his busy touring schedule, the singer-songwriter is already working on his next project, one he is also eager to share with the rest of the world.
“I think I’ve got probably half the next record written already,” Evans reveals. “I’m looking forward to getting started on that even though this is release week and we should be talking about the new songs. I feel like it’s all systems going.”
All of Evans’ music, including Life Upside Down, and his upcoming shows can be found at MorganEvansMusic.com.
