Joshua Black WilkinsMichelle Branch is back. The Grammy-winning singer hasn’t released a solo album since 2003, but next month, her new project, Hopeless Romantic, finally arrives. Michelle admits it’s been so long since she released any new material, her fans almost stopped believing that she ever would.
“Everyone was holding their breath because I was the boy who cried wolf for so long,” she tells ABC Radio. “I kept saying there was going to be new music out. And everyone was like ‘Okay, we’re excited!’ And then two albums got shelved, and I kept trying to get music out. So I think people were just not sure whether to believe me or not.”
When Michelle finally released the title track last month, she says her fans “couldn’t believe it!”
But it’s not like Michelle’s been doing nothing all these years. After her second album, Hotel Paper, she got married, had a baby and started The Wreckers, a successful country duo. The seeds of Hopeless Romantic were planted around 2012-2013, when she decided to end her 11-year marriage. During that time, she wrote a song called “The City,” which she describes as her “a-ha” moment.
“[It was] like, ‘Oh gosh, I have to make a change in my life,'” she says of writing that song. “So it really, in a way, was the first song written for this album.” In the next two years, she got divorced and left her long-term record label.
“I suddenly was given this clean slate, and so I just started writing,” she says.
At a 2015 Grammy party, she met Patrick Carney, drummer for The Black Keys. He became her producer, main collaborator on the project and, eventually, her boyfriend. You can hear the results on April 7, when Hopeless Romantic hit stores.
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