http://www.billboard.com/bbcom/news/mandy-moore-continues-to-grow-on-amanda-1003\
974945.story

Mandy Moore is hoping her forthcoming sixth studio album, "Amanda Leigh,"
continues the gradual process of transitioning from teen hitmaker ("Candy") to
greater acceptance as a bona fide musical artist.

"I find it silly that there would be any sort of apprehension, as if it's really
hard to believe that people grow up and evolve and change," Moore, who married
singer-songwriter Ryan Adams in March, tells Billboard.com. "I mean, it was 10
years ago; I don't think anyone wants what they did when they were 14 or 15 to
follow them around.

"I was proud of the work I was doing back then, but I was really just a kid. I'm
going to continue to grow, and my musical tastes will change and hopefully I'll
only get better and better and work harder and harder and study more. I'm not
desperately seeking out credibility as an artist. I just love music. This is
what I'm most passionate about."

Unlike 2007's "Wild Hope," which Moore calls "a big kind of studio album,"
"Amanda Leigh" -- which comes out May 26 -- was recorded with producer and
co-writer Mike Viola, mostly at engineer Ducky Carlisle's basement studio near
Boston. "I enjoyed breaking it down even more from 'Wild Hope,' where we were in
a beautiful, huge state-of-the-art studio and you had a bunch of people there
for, like six weeks," says Moore, who also co-wrote songs for "Amanda Leigh"
with Inara George and Lori McKenna.

"This was the more acoustic form of that, I guess. This was ideal and, like, the
ultimate learning experience for me. I felt like I was the kid sister and the
assistant in terms of learning about the production and engineering side of
things, just being present for absolutely everything. That's a lot different
from being 14 and 15 yeas old and just being brought into the studio song by
song with a different songwriting team or production team."

Moore has "no solidified plans as of yet" to tour in support of "Amanda Leigh,"
but she predicts that "we'll be doing our fair share of little things here and
there." And while her acting career has taken second-fiddle to music the past
couple of years, Moore says that she plans to put some focus on that during the
second half of 2009.

"I'm ready. I'm excited," she notes. "I want to be challenged in the way that
I've been challenged with music. I felt like for awhile there so much of my
energy was put on...the acting and film stuff that the music had to sort of
match. Now the film stuff has to make sense, too, and match up to the music."