Morgan Wallen Opens Up About Bonding With His Son Indigo Wilder: ‘It Just Gets Better and Better’

As Morgan Wallen’s son, Indigo Wilder, approaches his fifth birthday this summer, the country star reflects on watching his personality start to become more evident, along with his growing interest in his dad’s music.

“I think it just gets better and better as the older he gets,” Wallen shared during a recent appearance on Theo Von’s This Past Weekend podcast.

He goes on to say that the older Indigo gets, the stronger their relationship has become. Wallen also joked that the young boy has a “little sass” and an “attitude” on him but is also “too sweet” at the same time and tries to make friends with everyone he meets.

“Yesterday my dad was telling him, he was trying to get him to eat. It is kind of a task to get him to eat, to sit still long enough to eat, and my dad was like, ‘Hey, man, if you don’t eat, I’m going to put you in the bedroom. You got to go to sleep’ or whatever. I don’t know exactly what my dad said to him, but he looked at my dad and he said, ‘I don’t want you to stay here anymore.’ I mean, it’s just hilarious,” Wallen said with a laugh.

“Eyes Are Closed” Strikes A Chord With Indigo

Later on in the episode, while discussing the father-son relationship, Von asked if the four-year-old has a favorite song yet. It turns out that one tune that has really stuck out to him is one that hasn’t been released yet as it’s set to appear on Wallen’s upcoming I’m The Problem album.

The Tennessee native explained that with Indigo getting a bit older and more aware of his surroundings, the process of building out this new album has also been the first time that he has started to understand what’s happening and even form an opinion. The tune that has supposedly really struck a chord with him is one called “Eyes Are Closed.”

“I would come home after I’d been writing, and I’d show him songs. This is the first time that he’s ever cared, and there’s a song called ‘Eyes Are Closed’ on my record, and I brought it home that night. We wrote it that day and took it home that night, and I was just playing it. I wasn’t really playing it for him. I just had it kind of played in the background ‘cause it was my first time hearing the demo of what we had just done that day. He was in the background and he moseyed on over there and started being like, ‘what’s this?’ And then after it was done, he said, ‘I like that song, daddy.’”

Wallen continued, “It was the first time he had ever done that, so it was a special moment for me, something I’ll never forget. And he said, ‘play that again.’ And I was like, this song’s a hit for me no matter what. So that was the first time I had really seen him, you know, all those dots start connecting.”

Wallen On Writing His First Song For His Son

This song, along with the rest of the 37 tracks appearing on this next album, are expected to showcase Morgan Wallen in a new light as he went into this process with the mission to “dig deeper” than ever before in his songwriting. In doing so, he was finally able to write the perfect song for his son, something that he has tried to do in the past but was never able to get it right.

“It’s also one of those things to where I’ve tried so many times to write a song like that for him, and it always fell flat. So I’d listen to it on the way home or whatever after we wrote it, and I’d be like, it’s good, but it’s not how I want it. And I also didn’t want to write a song to him that was all, I don’t know, sappy and slow and just like what you would expect a dad/son song to be…I didn’t want that song at all. That song’s been written plenty enough, and I wanted it to have a little bit of my sound and my swag,” Wallen shared.

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He admits it was a challenge to try and find the right words to reflect everything he felt about his journey with fatherhood and the immense love he has for his son without making it sound cliché. Finally, he landed on a tune called “Superman” that ended up being the last song to make his next record. Wallen says he knew it was the song he had been looking for when he cried listening to it.

“It’s not like I’ve had it for a long time. It took us a while to get that song. And it was actually Blake, one of my buddies, it was his idea…I changed the hook and it was like, oh, there it is. And all three of us, four of us in the room just kind of was like, ‘oh yeah, that’s it.’ And then on the way home I was listening to it and started crying and that’s the first time that it happened with a song for him. So that I kind of knew.”

Fans are eagerly awaiting the full I’m The Problem album to drop on May 16. The official track list has yet to be released, however Wallen shared a glimpse into a few of the titles during his guest appearance on NBC’s Saturday Night Live over the weekend.

The project’s release day also coincides with the “Smile” singer’s inaugural, all-genre Sand In My Boots Festival, taking place in Gulf Shores, Alabama from May 16-18. Following this highly anticipated event, he will embark on his I’m The Problem Tour, which launches at NRG Stadium in Houston, Texas June 20 and features a total of 20 shows running through September.