Mandy Moore talks touring with her family, life on the road while pregnant and more
Mandy Moore said her "In Real Life" summer tour is a "family affair."
The singer and actress is making her return to touring after 15 years and said her "life looks wildly different in every sense."
For the headlining tour supporting her seventh studio album of the same name, which she kicked off earlier this month, she's joined by her husband, musician Taylor Goldsmith, their 1-year-old son, Gus, and her brother-in-law, drummer Griffin Goldsmith.
Moore also announced earlier this month that she and Taylor are expecting their second child.
The singer spoke about how the tour is a "really special" time for their family during an interview with "Good Morning America" before her concert in New York on Thursday.
"My husband and his brother are in a band Dawes and they're always on the road, they're always touring," she said. "So the fact that there was this little break in their schedule that allowed for them to come on the road with me, I know will never ever happen again."
"I'm very much soaking it in because this is kind of this once-in-a-lifetime, bizarre but incredible summer family vacation," she added.
Moore's "In Real Life" album celebrates motherhood, her marriage and many more of her personal experiences. She said she's always been intentional about embracing vulnerability when it comes to creating music.
"I think as I've gotten older and my life has gotten more complex, in all good ways, there's more to share with people, there's more to open up about," she said. "I kind of feel like I wouldn't know any other way to do it other than just laying it all out on the line and putting it all on the table and showing people all my cards."
She previously shared that she wrote much of the album while she was pregnant with Gus and didn't finish making the record until after her son had arrived. She said it's "very weird and unexpected and beautiful" to perform the songs that she wrote while pregnant with Gus now, while pregnant with her second.
"It's really strange to be pregnant on the road and singing the songs that I wrote the majority of while I was pregnant with his brother," she said. "I think it'll make for a fun story one day to be able to tell him, like, your brother was on the road with us -- he has no recollection, he remembers nothing of it."
Performing such a vulnerable project for her fans and getting to connect with them in person is also something that excites Moore, she shared.
"I'm in such a different chapter of my life -- it's so exciting to sort of meet the audience where they are," she explained. "And I already ... four or five shows in have sort of felt this deep connection with people looking in the front row, like, 'Oh, I think we've grown up together, I think we've been on this journey together.'"
"So it feels really special to be able to share what's happening in my life -- what's been happening for the last couple of years with folks in an intimate, vulnerable setting," she continued.
Along with songs from the new album, Moore said she's also "really excited" to break out some of her hits from the past during the tour.
"I think up until this moment and this opportunity to play these songs, I've really made great strides in my life to distance myself from them, to dismiss stuff that I've done in the past, because I didn't have the creative control, I didn't write them, I didn't feel as intrinsically involved and linked to them," she said.
"And I've realized over time, I'm diminishing myself and other people who enjoy those songs," she continued. "And they're the reason I'm here today -- part of the reason -- and so I've really sort of come full circle and I have a lot of appreciation and gratitude for that teenage version of myself but also those songs and what they've meant to me and my career and where they've sort of taken me."
She said that she sees how her fans connect to these hits and doesn't want to take away from that.
"I look out in the crowd and I recognize that people feel connected to them as well, and I don't want to dismiss that. It's not up to me to do that," she said. "So it's fun to sort of like reclaim those songs in a way while being on the road."
One of the hits fans will be excited to hear she's performing is "Only Hope" from her 2002 romantic drama "A Walk To Remember."
"There's nothing better than looking out and seeing a sea of people sing along with you, and that song always seems to check that box," she said.
