Kevin Morby on Singing, Touring, and Getting Dumb and Dumber

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Today's installment: I'm honestly surprised that it took me this long to interview Kevin Morby, but his expansive and impressive new album Little Wide Open provided the perfect opportunity for me to connect with the KC indie-rock jorneyman. True to its title, the record kicks the door open on his folk-rock sound, with added help from producer extraordinare Aaron Dessner and a wide cast of collaborators (see if you can find the one where Lucinda Williams pops up). We had a great time chatting a month or so ago, check it out:

You're currently splitting your time between Kansas City and Los Angeles. How have you liked L.A.?
Man, I love L.A. I lived in New York for seven years and then I moved to L.A. for five, and then I moved back here without meaning to. At this point, the highest concentration of my social network is out in L.A.. In Kansas City, I have, like three friends—which is totally fine, and serves its purpose. But, I love L.A. I like the desert, the vibe. I like East L.A. It feels like its own small, cool community.

Would you say you're a more social person in general, or somebody who needs time to themselves more?
I need both. Katie and I are calling this a mid coastal thing, and that really works well for me, because I'm a very social person. My friends often nickname me "the Mayor," because I can walk into any room and know everybody through all these different circles of my life. I can glue crowds together. But I can burn myself out easily, because I'll say yes to everything, and if I'm left to my own devices in a fun city, I'll burn it to the ground. Once I commit to something, once I say I'm going to do something, almost in this OCD way, I have to do it—and I have to be on time. Katie's the opposite. She'll be like, "You know, you don't have to go," and I'm like, "I said I was going to go, though, so I have to." So sometimes I have to take myself out of the equation—in New York, especially. New York is the real deal. In New York, you don't prioritize, like, food. It's so social. I think it's the greatest city in the world, and I loved living there, but I always find myself at three in the morning like, "I didn't have dinner and now I'm on my ninth beer and seventh hang in a row."

The new record is a considerable change for you, sonically. Talk to me about putting it together.
A lot of it has to do with Aaron—how great he is and what he brought to the table. I demoed everything out in this very room before taking it to him. There's a lot of more vulnerable songs on this record—I think I have more love songs on this record than any of my other albums. As I get older in general, I'm looking inwards a little bit more. So when I took these songs to Aaron...my inclination, usually, is to be really maximalist and see what sticks. With this one, Aaron kept me from doing that in this way that I really liked. At first I was like, "Oh no, but that's what I do." And he was like, "I know, but I think that these songs are really strong and can speak for themselves." That was a really positive thing that ended up coming out of this.

It's funny. I was just talking to another writer about this. There's rootsy songs throughout my discography—Americana, for lack of a better word. Obviously, Katie's career has taken the turn that it's taken, and a lot of these songs are about being in a relationship with a songwriter and those sorts of things. I feel like I made a record where I was like, "I need to write an album that's going to be Katie's favorite thing." I've certainly written love songs before—there's some on This Is a Photograph—but for Katie to really hear me, I need to lean into those influences that her and I share a little bit more.

Did you play her demos as you were putting this one together or was it more like, "I'm nearly done, see what you think"?
I made this one a little privately. This Is a Photograph and Tiger's Blood were overlapping in the way that the end of my cycle was the beginning of her cycle, but both were still very busy. I just wasn't seeing her a lot of her, so I was really making this one in these isolated weeks back in the Midwest. I was really grateful for the Midwest during the pandemic, but coming out of the pandemic where I started touring all the time, I felt unsustainable and lonely, coming back here for a week or two at a time. I ended up working on these songs more than ever, and I'd tell Katie, "I've got these songs i'm working on, you'll hear them someday."

How do you feel about touring at this point? How's your relationship to the traveling aspect of it?
It's one that I feel like I'm figuring out in real time. I mean, overall, I really love traveling. It continues to excite and inspire me. I still love playing for people, and I can't believe that anyone wants to come to the shows and that knows the songs. It's always this fresh, great feeling. But as I get older, getting from A to B feels a lot more difficult on the body and mind, because I've done it so much before. I just flew back from a press trip in Europe, and I was like, "Dude, another fucking flight, I've seen all these fucking movies." It starts to eat at your mind in this way. But then you land, and suddenly you're eating a Sunday roast in London and you're like, "This is such an amazing experience that I get to have because of music."

But—and this is something that came about in the pandemic—I become so acutely aware of my health as I get older, in terms of sleep, exercise, and eating at regular times. All that goes out the window on tour, so I'm very aware of that. But always a week into a tour, I'm like, "I can't do this." But by week two, I'm like, "Oh, I don't know any other way." It's a beautiful thing, but it's not without its complications, I guess.

Every time I've gone on tour with a band for two or three days, at the end of it, I'm like, "How do you guys do this for four weeks?"
Were they bus or van tours?

Both van tours.
It's absolutely insane. There's a rhythm to it, and you pick up on the rhythm and you can plug into that. Adrenaline is the superhero of touring, where that takes over and you're able to do it.

You mentioned the pandemic earlier. What was it like for you in general?
Obviously, it was such a crazy, tumultuous, and terrifying time. There was a baseline of terror happening at all times, with Trump and everything that was happening—the illness. But I've always had a complicated relationship with Kansas City, and suddenly I was so grateful to be back in a place that had space. Grocery stores weren't overcrowded, and it felt more or less safe. As a touring musician yeah since my late teens, I thought I was gonna have to wait 'til my fifties or sixties to have a garden—and suddenly, we have that. I went and wrote This is a Photograph while living out of this hotel in Memphis for a while. That was an amazing experience, because I'd always written on the fly before then. That taught me how to sit with my songs, edit myself, and live inside of a thing as opposed to just making this thing adjacent to this crazy life that I was living.

But then coming out of the pandemic was so illuminating, especially getting back on the road. I never paused to think just how crazy it is to be in an automobile, traveling down the highway six months out of the year, until taking that break. The first tour that I did was with Hamilton Leithauser, and the bus that we were sharing had a slow gas leak. You could smell gas in the bunks. I remember being like, "This is a fuckedpup environment. The fuck are we doing?" But at the same time, you go to sleep in Austin and you wake up in El Paso, and it's like time-traveling from city to city. It's really cinematic and cool.

You mentioned the plight of having seen all the movies on flights before. Anything you've seen recently that you liked?
When it comes to movies, I'm always oscillating between eating healthy and eating junk food, and trying to do both in moderation. I've been trying to watch more Criterion films, which is so hard to do—to just sit in your couch. My method is to treat it like reading—to do 20 minutes before I go to sleep. That way, over the course of a week, I might watch something good. I just watched Taste of Cherry, which is great—but then I did Dumb and Dumber and Dumb and Dumber Too. Then I was on a Jim Carrey kick, so I watched Liar Liar and Yes Man over the last week and a half.

I gotta say, when Dumb and Dumber Too came out, at first I was like, "Well, this is probably going to be terrible." But when I watched it, I was like, "This isn't bad. It's kind of funny."
It's not so bad. I'd say my top three films of all time are Rushmore, Dumb and Dumber, and No Country for Old Men. All three of those are perfect films.

Did you see Happy Gilmore 2?
You know, I never was a huge Sandman fan. If it's on, then I'll stick with it, but I'll never put it on. There's Donkey Kong people and there's Mortal Kombat people. He's my Donkey Kong. That said, I did watch Big Daddy recently.

Let's talk more about getting in the ring with Aaron.
I met Aaron briefly in 2018, we had dinner with some mutual friends hanging in New York. It was super fun, and I always really liked him. Of course, I watched his life greatly change, and I was rooting from the sidelines when all the pop production stuff happened with all those different artists. This record, for whatever reason, more than any of my other albums, because I was pivoting sounds a little bit, I didn't know who to work with. I knew I didn't want to work with anyone I've worked with before. I was like, "This needs something fresh, and I don't know who."

2024, by all means, should've been a year that, on my usual timeline, I would've made a new record. Because I didn't know what to do, so I just said yes to every opportunity that came in—which ended up being good, because I got asked to open for The National in London, and I'd never known their music. Of course, I know of the great entity that is that huge band, but they're one of the bands that I never checked out, for whatever reason. When I opened for them, I didn't even see Aaron when I was there. It's a big production, it's really crazy. Backstage, there's, like, a thousand people.

The next day, I was driving through London and heading towards France, and I was like, There were so many people there last night, I gotta see what this is all about. I put on the National, and I remember thinking, "This sounds really good." As I was thinking that, I got a text from Aaron like, "Hey man, sorry I missed you last night. I love your music, I've been listening to it nonstop. I'd love to like make some magic with you." It was one of those lightning bolt moments where I was like, "This guy should make my fucking next record. This is what I've been looking for." It was as easy as that. We got in the studio and made it happen.

As a listener, I had a very similar experience with the National. For years, I couldn't find the way in, and then I saw them live and I was like, "Okay, I get it now." What do you think it is about their live presence that makes things click?
It's really compelling when you see a band where it feels like you could kind of zero in on any member and be entertained by them. It was like the first time I saw Sonic Youth, which I wasn't a fan of until I saw them live. I never liked their records, I just couldn't tap into them for whatever reason. Then a friend opened up for them at Prospect Park in 2010, and I was like, "I should probably just stick around and watch this band." Then I was like, "I could look at any member and be so entertained. They're all pulling their weight in this way." I think The National are a similar thing.

I also think their singer—what's his name, Matt?

Yeah.
As a singer with a limited range, I love seeing a singer with a limited range who takes it to the sky with their charisma. I'm not saying that's what I'm able to do, but it's what he's able to do. It's a band that's working with what they have very confidently, which I always think is really compelling.

Talk to me more about the evolution of your singing voice across your career.
It's a funny thing with my voice, because I think about voices constantly—especially men's voices in the canon of indie rock or folk music. There's not a lot of great singers with range, but every once in a while, there will be. Robin Pecknold from Fleet Foxes is a great example. You're like, "Oh my God, this guy can really sing." Someone like Hamilton is a great example. He's got a unique voice, but he's got this range. With my own voice, it's why I really took to the first time that I heard Lou Reed, Bob Dylan, or Leonard Cohen, I was like, "Oh, I relate to these guys." You have to overcome limited range and make sure that the story and how you tell it is compelling. It's like that David Berman line, "All my favorite singers couldn't sing." David Berman also had a very limited range, and he's one of my biggest heroes.

I never really thought about singing before, but as I get older, for whatever reason, I'm listening to more music where people can really sing. I never want to talk disparagingly about my voice because it's given me so much, and I love my voice. I love its character and its limitations. I love it for everything that it is. But when I hear a singer that can actually sing, I always think that must be a feeling similar to flying. How would it feel to have Aretha Franklin's voice? It must feel like flying, you know? So I was trying to sing a little bit more on this album.

Living with Katie, she's a great example. Her voice knows no bounds, she can sing the spectrum of notes. Being around Katie and how she listens to and looks at music has made me appreciate the voice as an instrument. I want to be a better singer, but going back to the Baby's days, whatever limitation you feel like you might have, you have to lean into. At any moment where I kind of talk-sing, it's like, well, lean into that. If I can only hit those notes when I shout, then save the shouting for a really cool moment. It's fun to work with what you have.

Who are some artists that have emerged over the last decade who have been notable to you in terms of singing voices?
I'm a little late to Wednesday, but I've been obsessed with their latest record. I know them, they're really great and they've stayed with us a bunch of times in KC, but I always felt like, "This is younger rock music, that's not really my thing." But I recently tapped into Karly's writing. She's incredible. I don't want to be another person just talking about fucking Cameron Winter, but like that stuff is pretty great. I had this moment watching Geese on SNL where they were playing one of their songs. It made me really emotional watching it because I saw the lineage. It's so cool that, in 2026, there's this band playing a song that sounds in the vein of "Pale Blue Eyes." That really excited me. Of course, I love [MJ Lenderman's] music. Greg Freeman, he's good. He sounds like Built to Spill. I'm obviously friends with Justin Vernon, but I love his last record. I think the Dijon stuff is cool.

Something you mentioned earlier is couching the real-life stuff in your lyrics with characters and fiction. Let's talk about lyrical vulnerability and opening yourself up more. You've been doing this for a minute, and you have a considerable fan base. You're something of a public figure in indie rock in general.
The more you become like a quote-unquote public person—not that I'm, like, a household name A-list celebrity or something, but maybe I'm a household name to people who read Pitchfork or Stereoggum—you want to think more about what you're saying and how it's going to be interpreted. At the same time, you don't want to let the outside influence what you're making. Back to the pandemic, I remember during that time, because of that pause, I was feeling for the first time ever, "This is a wild thing that I'm doing." I'm putting stuff out under my name, and [on the cover of] Oh My God, my shirt's off. I was like, "Why the fuck did I do that crazy thing?" Whereas, in my twenties, I was just trying to prove myself and show my worth—releasing stuff, not thinking about it, and playing shows. As I've gotten a little bit older, I want to be a little bit more calculated with what I do.

In terms of being vulnerable, for the longest time, I prided myself on like writing from some other vantage point other than my own. As I get older, it's becoming more compelling to me to sing about what's going on from my perspective.

Let's get into the financial aspects of what you do for a living.
There's been moments where I've been very lucky in terms of that stuff—some life-changing moments. I'm very lucky in that regard. Sometimes that feels like winning the lottery, which has helped me out. I've always tried to put whatever money I do get for my career back into my career. I've seen some peers, people around me, get some commercial money or something and just live off of that—and then it's gone. I've always tried to be very calculated. If I make $10, put $8 back into my career and put the other $2 away.

There's been moments where touring has been good to me, and there's been moments where I really lost my ass with touring. But it's a funny thing, because touring, depending on your comfort level or how you go about it, you could easily spend all the money or hire another two or three people. It's about finding this balance of being lucky enough and bwing able to make some money on the road, while trying to be as smart about that as possible. ButI feel very middle-class. I still got to work. I've had lucky moments for sure, but I still feel like I got to pound the pavement—and I got the best job in the world, so I'm very grateful for that.