Just days after announcing her third studio album Cloud 9, country music powerhouse Megan Moroney returned to her roots for a full-blown pink takeover at Raising Cane’s — the same Athens location she used to walk to between classes as a University of Georgia sorority girl. But Friday wasn’t just any hometown visit; it was a celebration of the emo cowgirl’s newest chapter, hosted by Raising Cane’s owner and founder (and fellow UGA alum) Todd Graves, and packed with hundreds of fans ready to soak up every drop of Moroney’s new era energy.
“Every time I come here I’m reminded that I used to be the sorority girl singing songs in the house without anyone to listen to,” she said in a press conference. “It’s amazing and humbling.”
Dressed head-to-toe in her Cloud 9 pink aesthetic, Moroney quite literally clocked in for her shift — working the drive-thru, the front counter, pumping Cane’s Sauce, signing guitars and posters, taking selfies, and even frying Chicken Fingers under Graves’ supervision.
“Megan and I both went to Georgia and this is where it all started for both of us – I had a dream to open a Chicken Finger Restaurant and she had a dream to be a musician and we’re living our dreams. It’s great coming back to this place and partnering with Megan for the announcement of Cloud 9. Megan is an incredible artist and she just wants to be here celebrating with her fans, so when she told me about her idea for a ‘pop up’ I loved it,” said Graves.
And yes, the Celeb Secrets gals hit the drive-thru, where Megan herself handed us our Box Combos with the kindest smile and the strongest country superstar aura imaginable. Consider it our personal “Cloud 9 moment.”
But before her hands-on shift, Moroney opened up about all things Cloud 9, including its meaning, the music, and the mindset.
While the pop-up felt like a party, there was real artistic depth behind why she chose this moment to bring Cloud 9 into the world. Celeb Secrets asked Megan about describing the album as the strongest and most confident version of herself, and her answer revealed a new layer of maturity behind the glitter.
“I feel like I’ve lived enough life and grown up enough to where not only do I feel qualified to tell myself, ‘you are worth it,’” she told us, “I feel qualified to tell other people, ‘you’re worth it too.’”
That shift shows up in the sound. While the album remains rooted in her emo cowgirl storytelling, it introduces a softness we haven’t heard from her before — and it’s intentional. The color pink is bold, bright, and feminine, making it the perfect embodiment of that balance she is trying to convey in these new batch of songs.
“There’s a softness to this album that hasn’t been in my other albums,” she said. “I think that comes from me being confident enough to know that it’s okay to be soft. You don’t always have to be on guard.”
Since the album title is about a mindset, we asked Megan when she truly felt she was living that reality during the making of the record. Her answer? Let’s just say it involved sunshine, saltwater, and main-character energy.
“A lot of the vocals on this album I sang in The Bahamas,” she told us. “Being by the ocean calms me… I’d go on the boat in the morning, and then at 6PM be recording my third album. It was like — how did I get from writing songs in a sorority house to this?”
That juxtaposition — the girl who once scribbled lyrics in a UGA sorority bedroom now cutting vocals on island time — perfectly captures this era. The music isn’t just confident; it’s free, fresh, and elevated.
That free, fresh and elevated vibe will, according to Megan, bring collaborations, emotional themes she hasn’t explored before, and a natural, unrushed writing process that she wasn’t given on earlier projects.
She even shared that her chaotic Notes app contained the earliest spark for the album.
“It’ll be like ‘eggs, milk,’ and then ‘Cloud 9.’ Only I know what that means,” she laughed.
Megan Moroney is stepping into her most confident, creative, and unapologetically herself era yet, and we can’t wait to see what Cloud 9 will make us feel after hearing the project from start to finish on February 20th.
For more highlights from our afternoon with Megan Moroney at Raising Cane’s in Athens, make sure to watch our reel below.
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