Megan Moroney
Born in Savannah but raised in Douglasville, Moroney covered songs like Lambert’s “Mama’s Broken Heart” with her father and brother as a teenager, then took up guitar at age 16. “I got my heart broken so my dad brought me to Guitar Center and got me the Taylor that I still play now,” she points out. After undergoing knee surgery her junior year of high school (a turn of events that derailed her dreams of becoming a college cheerleader), Moroney spent two months in a wheelchair and used that downtime to sharpen her guitar-playing chops. During her freshman year at the University of Georgia (where she studied accounting), she won the Miss Sorority Row pageant by performing a cover of Deana Carter’s “Strawberry Wine,” then took the stage at a campus event attended by country star Chase Rice. “Chase invited me to open for him at the Georgia Theatre but told me I needed to have an original song,” she says. “I’d never written before but I finished a song in time for the show, which ended up being sold out. Right away I fell in love with performing—it was so cool to feel a room full of people connecting with the words I was singing.”

Not long after that night, Moroney changed her major and joined UGA’s music-business program, eventually landing an internship with Kristian Bush. Just two months into lockdown, she graduated from UGA and moved to Nashville on her own in hopes of kickstarting her music career. “I wanted to connect with other songwriters, but because of Covid I ended writing by myself most of the time,” she says. “Kristian checked in with me after a couple months and asked how it was going and I told him, ‘Honestly—not great.’” At Bush’s urging, she headed to Atlanta to record a handful of demos that soon caught the ear of Juli Griffith of PunchBowl Entertainment, who later took her on as a management client. In early 2021, Moroney made her debut with “Wonder”—an irresistible first glimpse at the full-hearted candor of her songwriting—and racked up over two million views within 24 hours. “It was the first time I understood that writing about my real-life experiences could be therapeutic for other people, and it motivated me to keep going,” she says. After spending all of 2021 writing and refining her songs, Moroney delivered Pistol Made of Roses in July 2022 and soon returned with “Tennessee Orange”: an impossibly catchy slow-burner that puts a brilliant twist on the typical love song. “I’m a diehard Georgia fan, but one day I found myself in a boy’s Tennessee shirt and realized my mom would kill me if she saw me wearing it,” she explains. “I thought that was a clever idea for a love song—sort of like, ‘Look what I’m willing to do for you.’ I had no idea it would be the song that changed my whole life.” Along with surpassing a million streams in just five days, “Tennessee Orange” found Moroney fielding offers from nearly 20 record labels, then inking her deal with Sony Music Nashville/Columbia Records by the end of the year.

Since the arrival of “Tennessee Orange,” Moroney has achieved such milestones as making her debut at the Grand Ole Opry and selling out her first-ever headline run (the spring 2023 Pistol Made of Roses tour). Now gearing up for an opening slot on a summer tour with country legends Brooks & Dunn, she’ll hit the road for a nearly-sold-out tour in support of Lucky this fall—a coast-to-coast trek including stops at iconic venues like the New York City’s Bowery Ballroom and the Troubadour in Los Angeles. “The way the shows are selling out has been so surreal, especially when I think about how not too long ago I figured I’d grow up to be an accountant,” she says. “I wish I could tell my younger self to dream bigger, and I hope this record somehow inspires people to go after what they’re really passionate about. But mostly I hope my music helps people feel like they’re not alone in whatever they’re going through. All these songs came from me writing about my life; I don’t ever put on a persona or try be something I’m not. I’m just a 25-year-old girl from Georgia who happens to be very in touch with her feelings, and knows how to turn them into songs.”