Kip Moore Made a Whole New Album in Quarantine, and He Says His Creative Work Has Been a ‘Lifesaver’

Less than a year after putting out Wild World — and just weeks before releasing that project’s deluxe edition — Kip Moore already has a brand new project well underway. “I’ve written a whole ‘nother project that nobody’s heard,” he revealed to Country Now and other outlets during a recent virtual press event. “I set up the studio in my house and for a month straight, that’s all I did, write and record.”

While no formal details on the project have arrived yet, Moore approximates that he’s “hoping to get [the album] out in June.” That’s a pretty fast turnaround for the singer, who’s averaged a new studio project about every two or three years since debuting in 2012, and whose last album before Wild World — Slowheart — arrived in 2017.

But 2020 was no ordinary year. With his tour schedule nixed and months of unexpected downtime on his hands, Moore says that he leaned on his creativity and his drive to keep sharpening his musical standards.

“Having that creative outlet, I feel very alive when I’m doing that, and I’m definitely in a place of happiness. I’m in a place where that drive is still safe to live,” the singer explains. “Because the drive in me to still be great at what I do has never stopped. No matter any success that comes my way, I’m always pushing myself to write better and better music. To make better arrangements. To try new guitar tones. To try different bass riffs. You know, to make the music keep growing.”

Having a musical project to work on also did his sanity some favors, Moore adds.

“I think having that outlet here at the house has been a lifesaver for me. Because I can get dark. I can go down those spaces and crevices that we go when we see how crazy the world is acting, and how divided everything is,” he comments. “It can get very heavy at times, and that’s the way that I’ve been escaping.”

Obviously, there’s a connection between the COVID-19 pandemic and the batch of tunes to come from Moore, in that he wrote and recorded his project in quarantine. But the singer doesn’t think that means fans should expect a finished project that’s explicitly about life in 2020. As a songwriter, he explains, he tries to be a little less literal.

“I won’t be so direct in my messaging of trying to write about that thing. I’m not that kind of writer,” he says, adding that the pandemic’s impact will seep into his new body of work in more abstract ways. Moore has always made a point of being open and vulnerable in his songwriting; On Wild World, he achieves that goal perhaps more poignantly than ever before in his career. In his new music, Moore goes on to say, he’s continuing that effort towards honest emotion — and living through a pandemic is a part of that.

“I can’t help but be influenced by the way my heart, what my soul is telling me during these times. It also makes things very present in your mind — what matters to you. Trimming the fat. And what’s really important. So those things will shine through.”

As an example, he mentions one song he wrote in 2020 called “High Hopes.” “It’s not COVID related, but it is COVID related, if that makes sense,” Moore reflects. “I’m not writing about COVID, but because of the mindset that COVID has put me in, I think it’s made me reflect on things a different way.

“So there will be subliminal thoughts that push these songs,” he adds, speaking of the way his next project will be shaped by the time in which it was made.