Who Is Meg McRee? The Story Behind Her Journey to Country Music
Who is Meg McRee? The singer-songwriter joined us to chat about her journey to country music. Get to know the rising star here…
Meg McRee
Quick Facts:
Full Name – Meg McRee
Birthday – 04/02/1996
Hometown – Sugar Hill, Georgia
Current City – Nashville, Tennessee
Musical Influences – The Beatles, Bobbie Gentry, Grateful Dead
Current Single – “Tried & True” (*as of date of article: 01/30/2023)
The Beginning:
Meg McRee is an artist you are going to want to pay attention to! She is currently on tour with Lainey Wilson and Ben Chapman, and is poised for success with her upcoming album, slated for release later this year. We caught up with her to learn all about her story so far. Keep reading!
Growing up in Sugar Hill, Georgia, McRee always had a natural pull towards music. “When I was five, my mom had all of The Chicks’ CDs in the car and she played this song called “There’s Your Trouble” all the time. I kept asking her what’s the instrument in that song, and she said that’s a fiddle or violin. […] For my birthday, they put me in lessons.”
Throughout her youth, all the way through high school, McRee played and competed with the violin. “I ended up sticking with it pretty much my whole life. I was in lessons, competitions, and orchestra until I was eighteen. On the side, I also picked up the guitar.”
All along, she was quietly building an arsenal of music knowledge, while listening to artists from both the county genre and the classic rock genre. “I listened to a wide variety of music. I was a music-head,” she recalls, later naming artists like Guy Clark, Steve Miller Band, The Eagles, and Bobbie Gentry as some of her earliest influences.
While, she was not exactly sure if she would pursue music for a living, despite wanting to, McRee fell in love with Nashville. “When I was fourteen, I visited Nashville for the first time, and I kind of became obsessed.” A few years later, she moved to Music City to pursue her college degree at Vanderbilt University.
The Turning Point:
During college, McRee knew how much she wanted to pursue music, but like many of us, practicality often seeped in. “I kind of told myself that it’s not really realistic for you to do music full time, you’re going to go to Vanderbilt to get a degree. However, in my heart, I was like I want to at least work around the business if I can’t be a musician,” she shared, adding later, “I got a bunch of music internships while I was at Vandy. […] I thought it was so rad to get to be around it.”
In her last year at college, a series of events brought her to a crossroads. “I was interning for a company called SMACKSONGS, and I asked my boss, I showed him a few songs, and I said be honest do you think I should go for this and he was like ‘honestly, yes.’”
With a push from her boss, McRee began waitressing and nannying and writing every spare minute she could. “The week after I graduated, I got a job waiting tables and started writing songs every day, and now I’m here.”
McRee also made sure to find her crew in Nashville. “There’s a lot of cool ways that my story has kind of woven into people around me. I think that’s why I always go back to the Nashville community. It has been so good to me in a lot of ways.”
While working at The Listening Room in Nashville, McRee would perform often at writer’s rounds. By happenstance, she signed a publishing deal because of one of her performances and a write with Hillary Lindsey.“Right before COVID, I got the opportunity to write with Hillary Lindsay who is my hero of heroes. […] She owns the publishing company I’m signed at.”
Today:
Flash forward to today, Meg McRee is on tour with Lainey Wilson, heading out with Morgan Wade later in the year, and has her debut album coming out this March. One of the singles off the record, “Tried & True” speaks to the project as a whole.
“‘Tried & True’ I wrote with Lainey [Wilson] and Harper [O’Neil] […] I had been writing this record and my manager was like why don’t you just write for one more week […] We ended up adding four of the songs on the album that we wrote in one week, and that was one of them,” she began.
“If I’m going to be honest about where I am right now, I’m in a committed relationship with another musical, and I had this idea on my phone, ‘Tried & True’ and what the song is exactly about, the more time you spend together, the more you know it’s real […] That’s what real love is.”
When it comes to the album, McRee spent a full year getting it to where she wanted it with her producer and team. “It was a long process [over a year] of finding my sound, and I feel really proud and excited about my debut record, and I feel it shows who I am and I’m really looking forward to everyone hearing it.”
Fans can expect to hear a lot more from McRee coming soon and can definitely expect to see her out on the road in 2023. For New York country fans, catch her on tour with Lainey Wilson at New York City’s Irving Plaza this Friday, February 3rd!
Connect:
Fans can join our Weekly Round-Up e-newsletter here, for the latest in country music and more news and announcements about future Meg McRee releases.
To keep up with Meg McRee, follow her on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, and Facebook.
Meg McRee’s music is available everywhere you buy or stream music. Take a listen below and check out more new recently released tunes on our ‘New Country Music’ playlist. Be sure to give the playlist a follow for your weekly new country music fix.
