Morgan Evans is opening up about the story behind the title track of his latest album, Things That We Drink To. The song, which Evans co-wrote with frequent collaborators Chris DeStefano and Josh Osborne, was inspired by one of the biggest losses in Evans’ life.
“‘Things That We Drink To’ is a special one,” Evans shared for his Highway 1 Sessions video series. “It’s a song that I wrote for my manager, who passed away last year, in a motorcycle accident. Obviously it was completely suddenly. He was like the first guy that believed in me, 10 years ago. He was the first guy that brought me to America, and he was the guy that told me to come back to America when I thought it was too hard.”
Videos by PopCulture.com
“On the day of his memorial, in Nashville last year, I was in the studio, and I was in there with Josh Osborne and Chris DeStefano,” he continued. “He was all that we could talk about. I remember Chris started playing this beat, and I started singing along. The melody started coming out, and that line, ‘Things that we drink to,’ just came out. That sort of made us think that we could write this song. This song could be a celebration – a celebration of life, everything that we got to do together.”
“Everything that we got to do because of the fact that we knew each other, and got to work with each other,” he concluded. “I love that. I love that it’s clearly a song that’s for Rob [Potts], and a tribute to Rob, but it also feels like a celebration of life.”
The entire Things That We Drink To record covers not only the loss, but also plenty of good things that have happened to the Australia native as well.
“I’ve found a new home over here on the other side of the world, and I met the girl [Kelsea Ballerini], and got married,” Evans told PopCulture.com. “Getting to travel around and see so much of America for the first time. And I also, I also lost someone really close to me last year that had been in my life for the last 10 years. So it was a lot of life. And I feel like I’ve just sort of told that story through, through these 11 songs.”
Evans will start the year serving as the opening act for Old Dominion, and will then join Dan + Shay on their headlining tour. Find dates at MorganEvansMusic.com.
Download “Things That We Drink To” on iTunes.
Photo Credit: Getty images/Burak Cingi
