ATLANTA — When Megan Moroney was an undergraduate at the University of Georgia in 2020, she landed an internship focused on music publishing with Brandon and Kristian Bush out of their studio in Decatur.

“She was smart, inquisitive and even taught us a thing or two about digital marketing,” Brandon recalled.

Moroney, who grew up in Douglasville, never told them she was a musician until the internship was over. “Points for being classy,” Kristian said. “She wasn’t trying to hustle us.”

But when the two brothers heard her sample songs, they were surprised and impressed. Kristian produced her first EP out of his own pocket and, soon, major labels called. Arista Nashville signed her. He linked her with her manager Juli Griffith and helped shape hits including “Tennessee Orange” and “I’m Not Pretty.”

Two studio albums later, Moroney is a rising country music star collecting awards, magazine covers and critical acclaim. An “emo cowgirl” is how she happily describes herself.

“There’s a certain timbre to her voice, a scratch break in it,” said Bush, who is part of 1990s rock band Billy Pilgrim and country duo Sugarland. “She can control the break, which is masterful. It dictates her delivery, which is much like Elvis Costello. It’s naturally sad.”

He said some producers might have been tempted to “scrub out” those flaws in her voice. “I turned it up in her,” he said. “I think it’s an instrumental part of why people empathize with her music.”

When Bush first heard Moroney songs, it took a moment for him to match her voice to her looks. “Megan was coming out of the UGA sorority scene and was exploring the odd job of influencer,” he said. “I just wanted to protect her because she presented so pretty. Nashville has a bad habit of sidelining females. I don’t like it.”

As part of Sugarland, he understood fans tended to focus on lead singer Jennifer Nettles, although he and Nettles are coequals behind the scenes. So he said he knows the feeling of being underestimated or dismissed.

“When I work with women in the business,” Bush said, “it’s very easy for me to communicate with them even as a man. I did my best to prepare her for what she was going to go through and head off problems early.”

Moroney’s levelheaded nature certainly helps, he said. And she writes with a specific point of view. “She doesn’t pitch her songs to other artists,” he said. “I’m a big proponent of (not doing) that.”

When Bush spoke to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution last week at his stand-alone Decatur recording space next to a yoga studio, he was working on a pop-country song “Surf’s Up” by an up-and-coming artist, Payton Sullivan from Hawaii.

He is also in the middle of producing Moroney’s third album and has sensed a shift in how Nashville perceives him: “I’m now paddling the river of being a producer in Nashville at the highest level.”

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