Love and time can heal most wounds, but the mental and emotional scars can linger, even as one moves on with life.
Ideally, those blemishes can be harnessed to help an artist grow and mature as a person, or at least provide inspiration for some cool tunes.
For "Hopeless Romantic," singer/songwriter/guitarist Michelle Branch harnessed the pain of her breakup with her ex-husband as well as the flush of the romantic and working relationship she's found with Black Keys drummer Patrick Carney.
It's only Branch's third solo album and her first release of new tunes in 15 years. But Branch, 34, who has an 11-year-old daughter, Owen, hasn't been sitting by the pool and cashing the royalty checks from her two platinum-selling albums "Spirit Room" (2001) and "Hotel Paper" (2003), and her radio pop hits "Everywhere," "All You Wanted" and "Are You Happy Now." Nor has she been resting on her laurels as half of country-pop duo the Wreckers, who scored hits with "Leave the Pieces" and "My, Oh My."
Branch, like many artists before her, fell victim to the shenanigans and vagaries of the music business.
"I had turned in not one, but two fully finished albums back to back that got shelved," Branch said from a tour stop.
"They had artwork and release dates and I was kind of a victim of corporate restructuring. And so every time a record would get shelved, I would go back to square one. So I was writing and actively trying to get an album out the entire time," she said.
But "Hopeless Romantic" didn't begin to take shape until 2014, when most things in her life seemed untethered.
"I was newly going through a divorce and being dropped from the label and it was literally _ even the lease on my house was up, the lease on my car was up, there was nothing in my life that was going to be there at this time next year," she said.
"But I'm a firm believer that everything happens for a reason, and I'm kind of happy those two albums never came out and this path, meeting Patrick and making this record, it wasn't the easiest at times."
Branch and Carney met in 2015 at a party in her former home base of Los Angeles _ she and Owen have since moved into Carney's Nashville home _ where the drummer and producer asked her where she'd been for the past several years. Carney professed his appreciation for her talents and encouraged her to make more music.
After Branch sent Carney some demos of songs she was working on, they hooked up with musician/producer Gus Seyffert, who has recorded and/or toured with the Black Keys, Beck, Sia, Norah Jones and others, to begin recording what would become "Hopeless Romantic."
Branch said Carney and Seyffert created a "safety cocoon" during the sessions, and also encouraged Branch to play her own guitar parts.
The album doesn't sound like the pristine pop rock of her first two albums. Branch is a big fan of indie rock, and the trio gave tunes such as the kiss-off tune "Best You Ever" and the slinky title track a big-bottomed, grooving live sound with synths floating in and out of the mix.
After her previous two experiences, just getting "Hopeless Romantic" out was a huge exhale for Branch.
"This has been cathartic, and it's also been me trying to find my way to do things as independently as possible. And Pat has been so instrumental in helping me find my confidence again and helping me find my voice again, and to stand up for myself. So it's been a very positive experience from start to finish," she said.
The record's 14 tracks are mostly about relationships torn asunder and newly formed, mirroring Branch's life at the time.
"It definitely forms this weird arc of breaking up with someone and then falling in love again, so that was something that I didn't see going into the album but actually it's adult messy love, I guess, in all its forms," she said.
Both the album and the tour have been well-received. "I haven't read any negative reviews," Carney said.
"The frustrating thing still is that people expected her to make the big pop album, and that's not what she was interested in doing. It's crazy because the record's come out and gotten a positive reaction, but we're still fighting about stuff with the label, like they didn't want to press it on vinyl," he said. Carney paid out of pocket for a pressing of 1,500 vinyl copies that have nearly sold out.
Not too surprisingly, Branch's new label, Verve, was less than enthused about the change in her sound. Carney said during the recording process he even reached out to the label and invited them to come hear what they were doing.
"After months of working on the record, finally someone showed up and was asking if the guitar was going to be that aggressive on the whole album," he said. "It's Michelle playing the guitar and it was just like, 'Yeah, I don't know what to tell you.'
"At that point, I was so glad that Dan (Auerbach, Carney's Black Keys bandmate) and I never had to deal with someone coming in and saying (stuff) like that. It's somebody who doesn't know how to make records telling three musicians how to make records. So now we're just going to finish the record without taking anything from the label," he said.
With all that silliness behind them, the musical and romantic pair are enjoying touring and the reaction of fans. Though Branch's first tour was at the age of 17 "on a bus with 12 dudes," making her a veteran road dog, she hasn't toured this extensively since a "really strange" tour opening for the Goo Goo Dolls back in 2011, which she recalls with a polite "no comment."
"It's been really, really fun. We've had so many people come out, and I had anxiety before this tour started. I didn't really know what the response was going to be, and it's been so amazing," she said. "To sell out Webster Hall (in New York City) and have a bunch of kids singing along to every song is amazing. It's been above and beyond what I expected."
The tour ends in September, and eventually and the duo will get around to that other important activity: becoming newlyweds.
"First time I got married, I eloped and there were like six people there," Branch said with a chuckle.
"So I told Patrick, 'You've done this before too, we don't need to do anything big.' And he said 'No, we should have a giant party.' So it will be bigger than small but not too big; we just want it to feel like a party."
