Ray LaMontagne on Learning to Love Music Again — elle.com

Perhaps it’s naive for us to believe our beloved singer-songwriters operate independent of their craft. Or in other words: just because they sing of love, loss, and falling on hard times, there’s no way they actually feel that way, right? Not quite: Ray LaMontagne, who has written some of music’s most heartfelt, soul-baring material of the past decade, was so down on himself after his last round of touring, he wasn’t even sure he could continue. Thankfully for us, he chose otherwise. “I started writing again and everything had a new light on it,” he said of the genesis of Supernova, his new album due tomorrow. The soft-spoken LaMontagne was nothing if not open and forthcoming when he rang up ELLE.com on a recent afternoon and broke down his new album, recording with The Black Keys' Dan Auerbach, and why he no longer feels as if each show is a fight.

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