In less than three years, Megan McKenna has gone from been a reality TV personality to one of the most famous young women in Britain. Her fan base has grown exponentially throughout that time with more than four million social media followers loving her combination of no-nonsense honesty, true natural style, following three number one country singles and mesmerising voice.
Megan is currently touring the UK in support of her album, Story of Me and will perform an intimate show at Cardiff’s Globe on June 2.
Andy Howells recently spoke to Megan about her career.
Had you always wanted to be a singer/songwriter?
It was always my aim to be a singer. I trained at full-time theatre school and went to every audition going. When I was little, my Mum had to drive me all over the UK.
TV kind of got me to where I want to be and I’m on my journey with my music. I’ve always been doing it, but no-ones really known about it and its like “Oh? Is she doing music now?” and its like “I’ve done it my whole life!”
Your initial TV appearance was on Britain’s Got Talent nearly a decade ago, but you then moved on to reality TV shows such as The Only Way Is Essex. Was reality TV a difficult path to take?
I never really wanted to do reality TV. At the time I was auditioning for lots of different things, but I just felt like I had to take what I got offered.
I’d been auditioning my whole life for different things and just felt I had to make it my own way. I got the opportunity to go on to a TV show when the producers contacted me through Twitter, it was so all out of control but amazing! At first, I didn’t believe it was real when I was asked to go to a club to audition, it turned out it was MTV!
After appearing on several reality TV shows, you released High Heel Shoes. Was it difficult to be taken seriously as a musician?
I think at first people thought “What is she doing? Country music? “As soon as they hear me every show I do or everything I put online, (its all completely live), people can’t judge you badly if you love what you do and your good at it.
Which musicians do you enjoy?
I love Kacey Musgraves, she’s my idol and I met her while I was over in Nashville. I discovered there are so many great country artists that are undiscovered in Nashville, its crazy!
There’s currently a strong interest in Country music in the UK isn’t there?
It’s certainly getting bigger over here. When I first started singing country music some years ago, it wasn’t that popular but now I’ve noticed, especially the younger generation have started to like country music a bit more
Is there a distinctive Nashville sound and has it influenced you as a singer/songwriter at all?
I’ve been to lots of Nashville concerts and what I found is everyone is different because everyone is telling a different story. It’s not so much the sound and with me I’ve always been told I’ve got a natural vibrato and I feel that totally works with the whole country vibe. Country music is all about the heart, you don’t need to sing it with a twang!
Can you tell me about your forthcoming shows? What can people expect?
It’s going be a personal intimate show. I write all my own music so this is going to be telling a story behind each song. Letting people get to know me a bit more away from the cameras and the craziness of reality TV.
This is completely me and how I would be singing when I go to Nashville, completely different to any concert in the UK. Nashville shows are just on another level.
I’m so excited, I can’t wait to meet everybody. it’s going to be a smaller venue, so I’ll be able to chat with everybody as well.
Are you working on anything else now?
I’m still writing, I wrote one track in Nashville and I’ll be giving a little sneak peek of that as well.
I’m not giving up; this is my dream and I’m loving every minute of it.
- Archived: February 2021