TV Tattler: Celebrity Interviews
Mandy Moore Hits the Road
The Actress/Singer Talks About Her New CD, Her Fave TV and the Tabloids
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August 10 -- Be prepared to see another side of Mandy Moore in her Oxygen channel concert special, 'I Am Mandy Moore' (Aug. 14, 10:30PM). The 'Candy'-crooning pop star of the '90s has just released 'Wild Hope,' a well-received CD that puts her more in the company of singer/songwriters like Sarah McLachlan and Paula Cole (who she's touring with this month) than her former 'TRL' cohorts Britney and Jessica.
Moore, whose highly-publicized break-up with 'Scrubs' star Zach Braff inspired much of 'Wild Hope,' tells AOL TV's Kimberly Potts about how proud she is of her new musical direction, the record label she had to ditch to make it happen, her plans for the future (CBS just announced her guest appearance on an upcoming episode of 'How I Met Your Mother'), her favorite TV shows and those oh-so-pesky tabloids.
Congratulations on the new album.
Awwww, thank you!
You must be excited by the reception you're getting with this new sound.
Yeah! I mean, I'm quite excited. But you know what? I think when you are proud of something, people sort of responding to it as positively as they have, it's kind of the cherry on the sundae at this point, because I am really happy that it has finally come to fruition.
You actually worked on it for a couple of years, right?
Yeah. It was sort of a writing process that went on over the course of two to two-and-a-half years.
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And you switched record labels to be able to do this album?
Yeah, Warner Bros. was interested in me doing something a bit more mainstream, like more of a just a typical pop record. That wasn't my intention. I knew what direction I wanted to go the whole time, and they knew as well, but I think they thought over time maybe my intentions would shift. And there was just a lot of back and forth, just going around in circles, and eventually it just came time to go our separate ways.
The songs on the album are obviously very personal. Is it difficult then or scary to actually be performing them in front of people now or to have people hear them and try to guess who or what they're about?
I don't think my life is interesting enough, really, that all that attention is warranted. Like, I am just a regular girl who was sort of feeling low about herself, feeling low about various situations in my life, and that is what I chose to write about. And for me, it's more that I am able to look back on the experience and go, "Wow! I came out of all of that a better person and a stronger person, and I need to give myself more credit, maybe, next go 'round." But it's a cool little time capsule for me.
And what is it like then to be performing them on your tour with Paula Cole and on the Oxygen concert special?
It's the ultimate feeling. It's exciting to even see people start to know the words of all of the songs or one of the songs, or be excited about hearing stuff. It's a feeling that I'm not used to, because I never felt really invested in a record before.
Is this one of your favorite things that you've done ever, including movies and TV and other music projects?
Oh yeah! This is the thing that I'm most proud of, and that's because it's me and it was sort of my project from start to finish, and you don't really have that control when you're doing a film. So it's kind of hard to compare, but yeah, this is the one thing that I'm like, "Wow! This really has the stamp of approval in terms of it being 150% my choices."
