James Vincent McMorrow has landed back in Australia, guitar in hand, head full of memories, and he’s feeling the love for the country that first embraced his music.
Ahead of his solo anniversary tour celebrating Early in the Morning, the Irish singer-songwriter caught up with Rolling Stone AU/NZ to talk nostalgia, fan connection, and why Aussie audiences still hold a special place in his heart.
And he didn’t waste time shouting out one of his favourite local acts.
“Angie McMahon is incredible,” McMorrow said from a rare sunny corner of Ireland. “There’s just something so effortless about what she does. There’s a song of hers called ‘Fireball Whiskey’ that I absolutely love.”
That stripped-back honesty is something McMorrow is returning to himself on this tour, a decade-plus on from his debut album’s quiet, home-recorded breakthrough. The tour sees him performing solo, revisiting those formative songs with just a guitar, no band, and a renewed sense of clarity.
“Australia was the first country to really get some of my records,” he said. “When Post Tropical came out, my label didn’t know what to do with it. But I sent it to people here and they just said, ‘We get this.’ That’s never been lost on me.”
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McMorrow recalled playing early shows in bars and pubs across Australia to crowds of around 100 people, moments that made him feel, for the first time, like a real professional musician. It’s part of what inspired him to come back, on his own terms.
“I’m doing this to reconnect with a part of myself that had been dormant,” he explained. “Looking backwards has never really excited me, but coming out of the pandemic, like many people, I had time to think about whether I appreciated things as they happened. I realised I wanted that feeling again — the sense that, ‘Wow, that was really special.’”
While many anniversary tours can feel like a calculated move, McMorrow insisted this one is deeply personal. “I know anniversaries can seem contrived, but anyone who knows me knows I don’t do stuff like that without reason.”
Now, back on Aussie soil and revisiting the songs that started it all, he’s also found himself rebuilding creative confidence after a bumpy few years navigating major label expectations and uncertainty.
“I used to have a belligerent sensibility, in the right way,’ he said. “But then I let other people take the reins because I was so busy. That’s not their fault, it was just reality, but it made me lose the thread of what I was doing. Being alone with a guitar has reconnected me to that early drive — write a song, make it good, then figure out how to make it work in the studio.”
As he tours Australia once again, starting in Sydney tonight, McMorrow is less interested in reliving the past than he is in recharging for the future. But he’s clear-eyed about how far he’s come.
“I used to think Early in the Morning was a bit shy or limited,” he admitted. “Then I listened back and thought, actually… I couldn’t have done better at the time. That album holds up. And I’m proud of that.”
Tickets for McMorrow’s Australian tour can be found here.
