Have you ever wondered why Morgan Evans doesn’t sing his sweet and soulful country tunes with an Australian accent, despite being born and raised in Newcastle, NSW? Well, now we know the answer: he’s not a big fan of the Ocker drawl.
In a new interview with 9Honey, Evans revealed he finds the Australian accent “unnatural” to sing in, explaining: “When I go to sing, it just sounds like that. And when I do an Australian accent while singing, it feels very unnatural.”
This wasn’t the first time he’d been queried on his culturally ambiguous tenor, though. Over 21 years of singing, he’s been asked so many time why he doesn’t sing with an accent that he even set out to answer the question for himself, researching “why everyone sings in an American accent” – especially since “even Ed Sheeran and Adele and the Beatles, all these big British acts, sing with an American accent a lot”.
“It's something to do with the way the American accent approaches the vowel sounds that just sounds nicer over music,” he continued. “So for me, it's not really a choice.”
As writers Maddison Leach and Bronte Gossling noted, Evans’ singing voice has started rubbing off on his conversational tone, with a Nashville twang flavouring some of his interview answers. He had a good excuse for that as well, though: “I've been hanging around with Americans for the last few days, so it's hard to not just assimilate.”
It’s worth pointing out that Evans is indeed still a true blue Aussie: earlier this year, he sat down with Billboard to introduce US listeners to some of his favourite Australian slang.
Meanwhile, Evans is gearing up for a massive national tour in support of Life Upside Down – the EP he dropped back in April via Warner Music Nashville – which kicks off in Meanjin/Brisbane next Thursday (August 31). He’s also headlining this year’s Gympie Music Muster, running over August 24-27.
Last month, too, Evans teamed up with Kita Alexander for the standalone single Date Night.
Countrytown brings you Australia’s best country music news, interviews, charts and more every week! This post was authored by Countrytown and originally published on the Countrytown website. It has been re-published with permission.
