Wondering where John Moreland has been? After unplugging from the world, he's back

In fall 2022, John Moreland stopped playing shows, went home and unplugged from the world.

He didn't even use a smartphone for six months.

"It was a little boring, but only for a couple of days, honestly. Then, it was an old familiar like, 'Oh, yeah, this is ... how it used to feel, before I had a phone in my face all the time.' I guess, in that way, it reminded me of being a kid, because it felt like the age that we were referencing back to," Moreland, 38, told The Oklahoman.

"My wife was doing the same thing with me. She actually got a flip phone before me, and then I was like, 'Oh, man, that actually sounds kind of awesome.' But it just felt like everything slowed down, and I had space to think for the first time in 10 years."

In that space to think, the acclaimed Oklahoma singer-songwriter, who hails from Tulsa, crafted his new album "Visitor," a surprise 12-track folk-rock collection he released digitally April 5 on his label Old Omens, with distribution via Thirty Tigers. A vinyl release for his contemplative new collection, the follow-up to his 2022 folk-electronica album "Birds in the Ceiling," is slated for May 31.

"It had just been nonstop touring and writing and recording for like 10 years — probably more like 12, I guess, at that point — and it just felt like 2022 was a tough year," Moreland said. "I had tried to take breaks in the past ... but it felt that I was always squeezing it in. And it would never usually end up being as long as I intended for it to be.

"So, this time, I was just like, 'Nobody call me. Don't book me anything. And don't call me. I'll call you.'"

When can Oklahoma fans see John Moreland play a home-state show?

In April, Moreland returned to the road, and he said he feels more comfortable on stage after spending all of 2023 away from it. Fans will be able to hear the renowned troubadour play selections from "Visitor," as well as songs from his previous albums, when he performs a May 3 home-state show at Oklahoma City's Tower Theatre.

"I got on medication that really helps with like stage fright and stuff. I take beta blockers for live performances now. I never knew those existed (before), but, man, that really has helped a lot — and, yeah, just being in a better head space," he said.

Based in Bixby, the singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist said his manager and booking agent supported his need to take from the road, from the 24-hour news cycle and from social media.

"At first, I wasn't really making music because I was so used to making music through this lens of being an artist ... who people know and are gonna have thoughts and opinions on what I do," Moreland said. "During that break I realized, 'I need to figure out how to just make music because I want to again.' And that just came with time."

How did switching to a flip phone help John Moreland get back to writing songs?

Following the lead of his wife, artist Pearl Rachinsky, Moreland switched to a flip phone in March 2023. Soon after, he found himself playing around on his guitar again.

"I had always used my iPhone to record demos on, to record little musical ideas and stuff. Without the iPhone, I was like, 'I want to get something that's not connected to the internet so that I can record demos.' So, I got this little handheld field recorder, and I got into just making little field recordings," he said.

"I would go out at night and record bug sounds or go to a creek and record water sounds or just go out and play music outside somewhere ... with all the ambient outdoor sounds going on behind it. It just felt like they had a cool vibe."

In June and July, he wrote several songs, including a couple of short instrumental interludes. Suddenly eager to return to recording, he decided the quickest way to make that happen was to make his new album at home.

So, he recorded "Visitor" at his Bixby house in just 10 days, playing nearly every instrument himself — from fiddle and guitars to drums and mandolin — as well as engineering and mixing the album.

"I definitely wanted it to just be a very natural-sounding, sort of loose recording, where the songs can just be what they are and speak for themselves," he said. "The last couple records before that one, I was experimenting with different ways of making music, which was really fun and rewarding. This time, with this batch of songs, it was better to just keep everything really straightforward."

Moreland's wife sang along with him on the thoughtful toe-tapper "Ain't Much I Can Do About It," and his longtime collaborator and fellow Oklahoma musician John Calvin Abney supplied the guitar solo on the evocative ode "The More You Say, The Less It Means."

"When I started recording, I thought I might be recording for a couple months, and I thought I might invite more people over to house to play on it. ... Then, it ended up coming together so fast, and it just felt like whatever the most immediate thing was felt like the right thing to do. So, I just ended up playing all the instruments," Moreland said.

"I wanted to keep this album as much like, 'Here's my heart on a record,' without a bunch of other people's ideas and vision clouding it up."

How has the singer-songwriter adapted to getting his smartphone back?

The songsmith said his unplugged year helped him process and ponder all the unprecedented events he'd lived through in the past decade. But he didn't delve too specifically into current events on his new songs — no, not even on provocative lament "One Man Holds the World Hostage."

"That song's about me. People keep asking me who it's about. It's about me. They're all about me," he said with a chuckle. "The song I want to write is not some finger-pointing accusatory (expletive), but just describing, 'I know I'm capable of less-than-cool things when I don't know how to deal with my feelings. And so is everyone else. And that's kind of like why the world is (expletive)."

A few months ago, the low-key folk musician said he switched back to a smartphone, and it's been a bigger adjustment than he anticipated.

"Getting rid of it was an easier adjustment, because now my brain's not used to it anymore," Moreland said. "And it really does feel like a really unnatural degree of information that we have access to and are processing all the time now."

JOHN MORELAND

• When: 8 p.m. May 3. Doors at 7 p.m.

• Where: Tower Theatre, 425 NW 23.

• Tickets: https://towertheatreokc.com.

• Information: https://johnmoreland.net.

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Musician John Moreland is back touring and with a new surprise album