Joshua Black WilkinsWelcome back, Michelle Branch. The Grammy-nominated singer returns Friday with Hopeless Romantic, her first solo album since 2003. The album documents Michelle’s emotional journey of the last few years, from her 2014 split with her husband, to her current romance with her musical collaborator Patrick Carney of the band The Black Keys.
“It follows that arc of me leaving a relationship and trying to figure out what to do next and finding love again,” she tells ABC Radio.
It was Carney, says Michelle, who helped her create the album after they met at a Grammy party in 2015.
“He just kind of flagged me over and he was like, ‘Michelle, why haven’t you had music out?’” she recalls. “And I told him..where I was at, and…it was as if I had like dumped puzzle pieces in his lap. And he was like, ‘I wanna help you.’”
One way Carney helped was in bringing more of a rock vibe to her music — a sound she personally loves, but never explored in her previous hits.
“I guess I always felt…a pressure to make something that was more ‘commercial’ or pop,” she says. “This was my permission to explore stuff that was a little bit more aggressive and not so polished.”
“My lyrics, because they’re all relating around relationships, are more feminine [and] vulnerable,” she notes. “And I wanted there to be a backbone that was a little tougher.”
Michelle will tour this summer, and she’ll take her 11-year-old daughter Owen along.
“She’s now more concerned, not with seeing me play, but ‘Hey mom, when you go out on tour, do I get to take off school?'” she laughs. “That’s why…this year I’m…waiting until summer so she can be out of school and be around.”
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