Country Next: Myles Morgan

For Myles Morgan, what began as picking up his dad’s guitar after high school has quickly turned into a fast-rising career rooted in Alabama grit, honest songwriting, and a real connection with fans.

Before becoming a regular on stages across the country, the rising act spent most of his time on the baseball diamond. That changed after a summer of playing bars and restaurants along the Gulf Coast, a passion he carried to the University of Alabama, where he studied general business, joined a fraternity, and balanced college life with building his artistry. Once the music started gaining traction, Morgan packed up and headed to Nashville.

In just over a year, he’s released his debut single, “Nobody’s Fault But Yours,” signed with WME for global representation, opened for artists like Miranda Lambert, Blake Shelton, and Riley Green, and launched his first headline run. He’s keeping that momentum going into 2026 with the release of his next single, “Never Been Better,” arriving January 30.

Ahead of the song drop, Morgan described “Never Been Better” as a slight departure from his previous work as he explores more emotional depth with the idea of masking heartbreak at its core. A true songwriter at heart, Morgan pens all of his own music. Previous releases like “Jon Boat or a Yacht” to “Is This Seat Taken” and now “Never Been Better” continue that practice while keeping authenticity at the center of it all.

With new music on the way and major moments ahead, Myles Morgan sat down with Country Now for this installment of Country Next to reflect on his journey, recent milestones, new music and what’s next.

Your love for music started when you picked up your dad’s guitar after high school. What motivated you to do that?

So I would say I’ve always kind of liked music, I guess more than the average person, but nobody in my family ever had a music background or anything like that. And I’m born and raised in Birmingham, Alabama, so we were still living there…But my junior year of high school before I moved, I picked up a guitar and started picking around a little bit and taught myself how to play a few chords. And then my senior year, I moved down to Orange Beach and was playing for my friends and stuff when they would come over to the house. And then after I graduated high school, got done with baseball season and I started playing the guitar and my dad said, “Hey, you got to get a job before you go to college.” And I was like, “Okay, well if I make money playing music, does that count?” And he said, “If you can figure it out.” So I picked up the guitar and learned a few songs and then started playing at some restaurants down at the coast.

What was it like carrying that passion into college with you?

I went to the University of Alabama and started playing some shows in college and came back to Orange Beach over that summer and started playing at the Flora-Bama a lot. And I got a band together in Tuscaloosa and started doing a bunch of stuff. And then what really started everything was my first headline show in April of 2025 at Soul Kitchen in Mobile. 

What were those first performances like over that summer when you really started getting into music?

It was amazing. I had gone from playing two different types of gigs very quickly. So it was a mindset switch for sure, to say the least, because I had to go from the mindset of playing a small little show at a college bar where it doesn’t really matter what’s going on, to I’m playing on stage in front of 25,000 people at Barefoot Country Music Fest in New Jersey. And you’ve got Ella Langley playing right after you and you’ve got to sound and look like a professional, like you’ve been there doing this for years. And my band and I are just students from Alabama, we’re all buddies and I’ve taken them everywhere with me. And so we’ve had to really have some meetings and be like, “Hey guys, we’ve got to take this seriously and do everything we can.”

You also released your debut single, “Nobody’s Fault But Yours,” during that time. How did it feel to see it rack up so much success so quickly?

After we saw the feedback with that song, it was definitely something that we wanted to keep rolling. And so we kept writing and I was working with my producers in Nashville a lot, and then we released “Jon Boat or a Yacht” shortly after that and just kept the ball rolling, kept putting out singles. And then I think I had three singles out at the time when I played my first headline show at Soul Kitchen. 

Who would you say are some of your biggest musical influences?

Well, I have influences from a lot of different people and a lot of different types of music. I would say I grew up listening to the Luke Bryan, Jason Aldean era of country music, the Florida Georgia Line’s and everything like that. And I’m a big fan of Morgan [Wallen]. I’m a big fan of HARDY and Ernest and Bailey [Zimmerman] and all those guys, but I also love Southern rock music. I grew up, my dad was playing Guns and Roses all the time. And I know that’s not Southern rock, that’s classic rock, but I was listening to Leonard Skynyrd all the time too. And actually, I’m a big Post Malone fan, also. I was listening to Post Malone a lot back when he had his first couple albums in 2017, 2018. I was bumping that all the time. And then when he went country, I was like, “Man, this is the best of both worlds.” So I pull from a lot of different areas. 

It seems like 2025 was such a pivotal year for you and your music career. How does it feel to reflect on everything you achieved?  

It’s crazy. We were sitting there talking about that the other day, just when you look back and when everything is happening, it all happens so fast and it’s all just bang, bang, bang, and you never really get a chance to take a step back and think about what all you’ve done. But we were having a conversation about that just the other day. I mean, it has been crazy. We’ve been able to go play multiple festivals. I mean, I had a bunch of firsts in 2025, and it was definitely something special, but I want to keep it up in 2026 for sure. 

Can you take us into the writing session of your next single, “Never Been Better”?

I wrote this song. This one’s a little bit different than my others. It’s got a little bit more of a deep vibe. It’s more of a six-eight traditional style song, but I really, really like it. And it’s kind of one of those songs that you don’t fully understand it until you get to the end of the chorus. So you think it’s going one way and then it hits you that it’s going another way. So I’m really excited about it and I think hopefully everybody else is going to like it too. 

Talk to me a little bit more about the story and what you’re hoping that fans kind of take away from hearing this one. 

It’s like sometimes a relationship may end and you may have to put on a face and pretend like you’ve never been better and go out and have a good time and pretend like nothing’s really bothering you, but in reality, you may not be okay and you have never been better at pretending that you’re okay. 

What has it been like for you to see fans fall in love with each one of your releases so far?

It’s special. One of the coolest feelings that, I mean, probably the coolest feeling that I’ve gotten from this whole thing is when you see a crowd of people that you don’t know singing a song that you wrote back to you for the first time, that happened. We played a show in Hattiesburg, Mississippi this past fall tour, and the kids were singing “Is This Seat Taken.” It was my third single, and that was the first moment I was like, “Man, this is surreal right now. Everybody’s singing this song.” 

What else can fans look forward to from you in 2026?

Well, we’re going to have a lot of music coming out this year. We’re going to have a song just about every single month so far for the rest of the year. And I’m going to be playing Rock the South this summer, and I’m going to be back at Carolina Country Music Fest and Barefoot Country Music Fest. And we got a lot of good stuff coming up. I would say look out for my social media because I’m going to be teasing a bunch of stuff very frequently. 

Fans can follow Myles Morgan on Instagram HERE.