Ruston Kelly rediscovers the creative spark in an old house in Portland, TN

Before he could start to write his next album, Ruston Kelly decided to leave Nashville and head northeast to Portland.

That's not a typo. The singer-songwriter moved northeast – to Portland, Tenn., some 40 miles from Nashville and just shy of the Kentucky border. He found an old Victorian house that needed some serious foundational work, which was the right fit for Kelly. He needed it, too.

Not long after he finished recording his previous album, 2020’s “Shape and Destroy,” the 34-year-old went through a period of immense personal upheaval.

Four months into the pandemic, he and his now-ex-wife, country/pop star Kacey Musgraves, filed for divorce. His mother had a cancer scare, and his sister was also in the process of ending her marriage.

Adding insult to injury, Kelly suddenly found his go-to avenue for relief and catharsis – songwriting – was closed.

“I felt kind of numb from that creativity,” he says.

“I've dedicated my life to creating and being an artist. I felt like if I couldn't find the center of everything, and where it began, and have a new sense of beginning, then I wouldn't be able to create fully again. So, I made a very intense decision to leave town and move up to a place where everything is at a standstill. I could walk to the grocery store. My neighbors are all much older than me. I don't know anybody here, and there's like one restaurant, so (laughs), I got to it.”

On Friday, April 7. Kelly releases his third album “The Weakness.” Most of its songs were written in the now-renovated house that he still calls home today. He then headed to Los Angeles, where producer Nate Mercereau lent clever sonic flourishes and just the right amount of rock bite – fitting for a songsmith who cut his teeth on 21^st century emo.

He came out the other end of this process not just with an engrossing album, but a document of a crucial healing period. He says it may have been a “Superman complex” that made him want to shoulder the multiple challenges facing him and his family, but first he needed to find the strength.

“The more I used my hands and worked on this house, and spent time really reflecting, meditating and being alone,” Kelly says, “Not only did I feel like I was capable of fulfilling those roles in reality, but when it came to my creativity, the numbness kind of thawed out. I started to feel a bit of that blood rushing in.”

“Mending Song” – the rare track that was written in California – shows Kelly’s ability to use metaphor not as a mask, but more of a magnifying glass.

“My marriage ended and I moved up north to mend,” he sings over a baritone ukulele, with a progression not unlike that of “These Days,” written by one of his songwriting heroes, Jackson Browne.

“I tried to fight it like a needle in my skin/ The hole inside me kept on growing/ Everything went black/ Was then I heard the words of my father/ “Have faith, there’s no storm that doesn’t pass.”

Kelly released “Mending Song” ahead of the album in February: “Writing this was like unclogging the largest nuclear drain in my whole life,” he wrote on social media. “I hope you get something similar out of it.”

But “The Weakness” also shows that the process of figuring yourself out can have its wilder moments, too. Standout “Michael Keaton” was born, in part, out of an experience Kelly had after purchasing what he thought was CBD at a nearby gas station. It was Delta 8.

That led to a late-night viewing of the ‘90s Keaton flick “Multiplicity,” which then immediately birthed a folk/pop song that’s bouncing off the walls with hooks, film theories and repeated threats to “set this house on fire.”

“I literally have no idea where it came from,” he says. “It popped out: lyrics, melody, chords, all at once. So I just decided to roll with it. “

Today, Kelly celebrates the release of “The Weakness” with a free in-store performance at Grimey’s New and Preloved Music, starting at 5 p.m. He’ll also sign copies of the album, but attendees will need a wristband which is free with purchase or preorder of the album from Grimey’s. Kelly will also open for Jenny Lewis at Nashville’s Ascend Amphitheater on June 2.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Ruston Kelly rediscovers the creative spark in an old house in Portland, TN