Mandy Moore Reveals What Made Her Finally Return to Music After Ten Years

It's been over ten years, but as much we've enjoyed watching Mandy Moore on the big screen and our TV screens, she's finally returned to the thing that made us fall in love with her in the first place: her music.

Moore has officially released her new album Silver Landings, which is her first since 2009's Amanda Leigh. The new record features 10 new songs, including previously released tracks like "When I Wasn't Watching," "I'd Rather Lose," "Save A Little For Yourself," and her latest, the nostalgic "Fifteen."

Mandy exclusively tells iHeartRadio of how it feels to have made a new album after these last ten years, "It feels pretty crazy to be making new music after over a decade. I feel incredibly creatively fulfilled by my day job. But, the idea that music hasn't been this fully realized part of me in so long, it just, it feels overwhelming in all of the best ways to be back at it again, and to be able to sort of step into this new chapter with my husband and one of my best friends, Mike Viola. I wrote the record with both of them, and Mike produced it. It feels very comfortable and sort of safe wading back into musical waters knowing I have both of them on either side of me."

Although deep down she's been wanting to get back into the studio many times over the last decade, part of what propelled her into putting pen to paper to write a new album was watching her husband, Taylor Goldsmith, perform live with his band Dawes. And it was also Goldsmith who helped write songs on Silver Landings, along with Moore's good friend and Grammy-nominated producer/songwriter Mike Viola. Mandy tells us, "I think there have been a lot of moments over the past 10, 11 years that have really made me pine for music and pine for this part of myself that was sort of dormant. I watch my husband who's in a band called Dawes, and we've been together for five years, and I remember when we first started dating, watching him play shows and feeling almost jealous that I wasn't on stage too. I missed it. I missed that feeling, I mean, that connection you get playing music live, feeding the audience, and then they feed you back. It's sort of this cyclical thing that you can't get if you're not performing live in front of an audience. So, I think there's a number of those factors that made me really realize I had to get back to music."

Silver Landings may have been a long time coming for Moore, but it has also been that way for fans who have been with the singer/actress from the time she was a teen pop star at the beginning of the millenium. One of the songs on Mandy's new album, "Fifteen," calls back to that time, and recognizes that even though that music is very different from the songs she is making now, she is embracing it as part of her journey to the present and beyond.

Moore describes "Fifteen" as "autobiographical" and explains, "For me, it was a full-circle journey to get back to accepting that time in my life and loving that 15-year-old. I mean, essentially because she is still a part of me. I say that very clearly in the lyric, but I mean it. I think for so long, I sort of apologized for that phase of my life because I felt like, creatively, I didn't have any control over the music that I was making. And, you know, you're embarrassed of your output as a teenager, whether it's a school project or a paper you wrote or your year book photo. And this was sort of akin to that for me." She adds, "But I think with enough time and distance... I mean, I'm 35 years old now, and 20 years reflecting back on that time of my life was so incredibly special, and I have so much affection for that girl and the choices she did make, and that I came out on the other side a rational, functioning human being. And, a lot of people have affection for that music, and I don't want to disparage them or judge them for liking that music. It doesn't have to be my cup of tea, every song, but I'm really proud of that time. And that's sort of what the song is talking about."

"Fifteen" is one of Mandy's favorite songs on her new album, in addition to its title track. She says that "Silver Landings" was the last song that was written for the record and that it "felt incredibly fitting," which is how the album eventually got its name. She explains, "A silver landing, to me, feels like a silver lining actualized. It feels like something concrete and grounded and it feels like an analogous idea to what this entire record really is, what it took to make it, what it took to write it, what it took to sort of come into being. There's a real presence and a real forward thinking momentum, I think, that Silver Landings, that idea kind of has for me. It was the last song we wrote for the record, and I don't know, it just felt incredibly fitting."

Another one of Moore's favorites from Silver Landings is "Tryin' My Best, Los Angeles," which as she describes is her "ode to LA." She tells us, "I've been an Angelino now for a little over two decades and I have a real love/hate relationship with L.A. Less hate, maybe more love now. A love/frustration relationship because it really is a company town and I have felt time and time again, like, 'Can I make it here? Am I supposed to be here?' But, I think over the last few years, I've really come to feel like I can't imagine myself living any other place in the whole world."

In celebration of Silver Landings, Mandy Moore curated an exclusive playlist on iHeartRadio featuring some of the songs from her new album, and some of her other favorite songs including one from her husband's band Dawes, and even a Joni Mitchell song (which, in case you didn't know, Mandy's This Is Us character, Rebecca, is basically Joni's No. 1 fan). The playlist also features songs from a broad range of artists from Beyoncé, to Bruce Springsteen, to David Bowie and so many others.