Making a marriage work with two thriving careers in country music, not to mention a two-year-old in tow with their son Hayes, can be a challenge, but Maren Morris and Ryan Hurd have found a way to make it work. For Morris, the secret to their success is to be intentional with their time together, sporadic as it might be.
“It’s definitely a labor of love,” Morris tells her record label. “I think it takes a lot of planning and forethought, especially when you’re touring for a living and you’re constantly away from each other. You have to get creative with your schedule. And luckily we work with a lot of the same people that help our calendars coalesce. And we have good date nights planned and we’re gonna go on vacation in a couple of months, which I’m really excited about, just to get away and just be with each other.
“But it takes a village for sure to help us go, but we’re really lucky that we have those people in our life and that we love each other so much that we want to make our dreams and our relationship substantial.“
Morris and Hurd met in a songwriting session in 2013, penning Tim McGraw‘s “Last Turn Home” together, getting married in 2018. While Morris spends the fall on her headlining Humble Quest Tour, in support of her third Humble Quest album, there isn’t a bigger supporter for Morris than Hurd.
“I am always amazed at how good Maren is,” Hurd boasts on Apple Music Country’s Today’s Country Music with Kelleigh Bannen. “She’s my favorite songwriter and honestly, has just a world-class voice. It is very humbling to be a songwriter and to think that some days you’re really good, and then come home and realize like, ‘Damn, that was nowhere near as good as what she did today.’”
Morris and Hurd have continued to blur their personal and professional lines, as they both still collaborate together, and released their Top 5 hit, “Chasing After You” together in 2021.
“We still write together,” Morris says. “I think that’s always going to be a part of our relationship, is being creative. There was a time that we wrote so many songs together in the beginning that we were scared. Like if we did get into a serious relationship, that we wouldn’t be able to write as honestly to and about each other in the room, but I don’t feel like that’s been the case. I think it’s only strengthened our dynamic in the writing room over the years.
“And obviously we still write with other people,” she continues. “We’ll come home, and sit on our back porch, and play each other our demos from the song wrote that day. So it’s cool to be collaborators, but also still be each other’s cheerleaders when we have a song that we’re excited about. I think we’ll always write together, and it’s definitely not like a make or break of our relationship, but I think we’ll always be creative with one another.”
Find all of Morris’ music and tour dates at MarenMorris.com.