Maren Morris is “still shocked” to see people showing up for her gigs.
The My Church singer has lost fans in recent years for speaking out on political and social issues and for shifting away from country music into a genre-less space.
As a result, the 36-year-old is still amazed to see people filling the auditoriums when she’s on tour.
“I still just sometimes walk out and wonder, ‘How are all these people here?'” she told Rolling Stone. “And it’s not to diminish my work or my presence. I’ve just been taught by the book and from a young age, that there’s only one way to do something. Now that I’m doing it my way, I think it still shocks me that people still show up.”
Maren noted that she has accepted playing in intimate venues instead of larger arenas, and believes artists should not consider themselves a failure if they have to downsize.
“There’s a lot of pride probably with artists that don’t want to,” she said. “It’s almost like if you’ve graduated to arenas or stadiums and then you go to a lower cap, there’s a pridefulness of, ‘Well, that’s a failure.’ But it’s not. It sometimes has nothing to do with you; it’s just the way the world has changed. To still give your fans the experience of seeing you and giving them the escape, I think you can bite the bullet and play the smaller venue.”
Maren, who went on tour with her album Dreamsicle last year, then added, “This is my life’s work. I really want to put it somewhere that it will be cared for. And if that has to look smaller, so be it. I’ll have more care for it.”
