As singer/songwriter Robert Earl Keen has built a reputation as one of the nation’s finest musical storytellers, he has been guided by several self-imposed rules and traditions that are often the antithesis of music industry standards. It’s because of Keen’s confidence in his work that he had the courage to abandon his tried-and-true formula while making his new Lost Highway album and 16th release, Ready for Confetti. As a result, he has produced one of the finest albums of his career, and likely the most approachable one as well. He tackles such universal themes as losing love, living the best possible life and transcending this world into other spiritual realms.

Almost everything about Ready for Confetti is different for Keen, from some of the songs’ shorter lengths (likely considered sacrilegious in the past) to the songs’ topics and attitudes and his method of songwriting. “I always said that I never write on the road because it’s too sterile and I’m too tired,” says Keen, who wrote nine of the album’s songs and co-wrote another with Dean Dillon. “Well, last year I just decided that we were going to throw that rule away and write on the road.” Traditionally, he would spend three weeks at Scriptorium, his cabin on a hill, where he would write an entire album’s worth of material. This time, writing whenever and wherever the mood struck allowed him to explore ideas as they developed while performing 180 shows a year.

Keen also no longer felt the need to prove anything to himself as a songwriter, so he was able to just relax and follow wherever his creativity led.

“I feel like my gift is my lyrics. They have always come easily for me and I’ve enjoyed it. When I was doing this record, I thought, ‘I’ve done all that. I don’t need to keep on provoking thought or making people want to sit up and listen to this. I really would like to write the best songs I can in the best way I can and let the songs speak for themselves.’ So I sat down and really dropped my guard about how it needs to be different.”