Morgan Evans’ long-awaited freshman album, Things That We Drink To, is out on Friday, Oct. 12. The singer-songwriter is a fan of all 11 songs on the album, but he says “Dance With Me,” a duet with his wife Kelsea Ballerini, is definitely his favorite.
“I felt so strongly about that one,” Evans told PopCulture.com of the song, which he wrote with Chris DeStefano about Ballerini. “I wanted to keep it a couple of days and then I showed it to her and she loved it. She loved it so much that she came and sang on the record. We’d finished that song and handed it into the label, and then we took it back from the label, and we brought her in.”
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Evans was inspired to write the song while waiting at home one morning to watch Ballerini perform on a morning talk show on TV, never imagining that one day the song would be included on his debut record, with Ballerini singing on the track. But when he felt like “Dance With Me” needed a little something more, he asked Ballerini to add her vocals, resulting in unexpected magic.
“The second she opened her mouth and started singing on that first chorus, my producer [DeStefano] and I were the only other two in the studio,” Evans recounted. “He turned around, and the hair stood up on the back of my neck and we just knew that it was just how it was meant to be. So that’s my favorite. And I just hope people dig it.”
Ballerini, whose deluxe version of her Unapologetically album will be out later this month, is also a fan of the collaboration.
“It was the first song he ever wrote for me,” Ballerini told Billboard. “It’s so emotional and so sweet. Just the fact that he wanted me to be on his debut record over here is a big deal.”
Things That We Drink To also includes Evans’ first No. 1 hit, “Kiss Somebody,” as well as his current single, “Day Drunk,” which stars Ballerini in the video.
“It’s definitely me, probably my life over the last couple years,” Evans told PopCulture.com of his freshman record. “I’ve been performing live with a loop pedal set up over the last couple years, and writing everything on an acoustic guitar. So it’s a really acoustic guitar driven album. But at the same time, we didn’t really hold back on any of the production. There’s a few love songs on there, a few songs about moving to the other side of the world. One sad one in particular. There’s hopefully a little bit of everything.”
Pre-order Things That We Drink To at MorganEvansMusic.com.
