John Mellencamp has been lying low for a bit of time now, but he's coming back with a vengeance for his 2014 tour after signing with Universal. Not only does he already have a mature discography to pull from, he's coming back with a lot of new material.
"So I'm back on a major label," he told Rolling Stone. "I've got a notebook with 85 new songs that I've written for my next record. T Bone Burnett is going to come out to Indiana sometime in early January and we're gonna go into the studio for however long it takes to make a new album. I haven't done one in five years."
Mellencamp has had a good relationship with Burnett after working with the iconic producer on his last two albums, 2008's Life, Death, Love and Freedom and 2010's No Better Than This.
"I never want to work with anyone else," Mellencamp said. "At least, I want to work with him as long as he wants to work with me. He's a minimalist. He was able to strip down all my songs. My Nineties records were almost paint-by-numbers. He came in and said to me, 'You don't need this part. You don't need that part. Take out these background vocals...'"
Although there are no specifics yet on dates or venues, Mellencamp is looking forward to touring North America and the rest of the world. "I'm going to devise a show that works in arenas and theaters so I can go back and forth," he said. "Like anything else, if you do too much of one or the other you get burned out. I will probably never play outside again though. I really have a terrible taste in my mouth from playing outside. . . But I might though. I don't want to say never, but in my mind now I don't wanna play outside."
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