  Jessica Simpson (Handout)
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Up until now, everything she’s ever done has been accomplished with calculated precision.
Her clothing line, reality-TV stint, ascension up the pop charts, foray into Hollywood, even who she has dated, has all combined into making Jessica Simpson a household name. So it seems a little off that the former Mrs. Nick Lachey is trading all that to go…country.
“I was ready to make a change in my life,” she says matter-of-factly in a phone interview from Nashville. “And it seemed natural for me to go country because I grew up loving country music.”
Hitting stores this week, “Do You Know,” her sixth studio album, trades the bubblegum pop that has defined her career for a far more earnest musical experience.
“For me, in my life, I think it’s a genre I can be honest in,” she says. “It’s a chance for me to be a singer-songwriter that affects people’s lives. To be someone that people can relate to.
“That’s not saying I couldn’t do that in the pop world,” she pauses. “But the pop world, for me, became too obsessed with my personal life. For me to talk about my personal life, I really have to feel like I’m at home.”
So it is slight acoustic strumming, followed by pert organ blasts that let her open up about her boyfriend, Dallas Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo, on “You’re My Sunday.”
“‘You’re My Sunday’ is a very romantic song about how Tony calms the craziness of my world,” she says softly. “When life is like a hurricane and it’s flying off the rails, I have him to lean on and rest in.”
She holds her cards a little more closely to her chest when talking about the record’s 10 other tracks. “I want people to hear the album and be able to relate to it and not think of me and somebody else while they listen to it,” she says.
But when fans hear the domestic-violence tinged “Remember That” or the reflective “When I Loved You Like That,” it’ll be hard not to wonder whom they’re about.
“When people listen to it, I hope the music encourages people to get out of certain situations or stop trying to make something seem great that they can’t even get off the ground.”
“It’s kind of like, Oprah-gone-country,” she jokes.
Tired of the dog-eat-dog mentality that prevailed on the pop charts, Simpson appreciates the camaraderie amongst country musicians.
“It’s really refreshing to have healthy competition,” she says. “The songwriters are genuinely excited for one another when one gets a cut on a Tim McGraw record. Unlike pop, there’s room for everybody.
“I felt like in pop music I was always trying to follow the trend and keep up and I couldn’t ever completely get to the point where I wanted to get too, musically. It just never really made sense to me.”
And now that she knows she wants to sing and knows she wants to write music, hopefully people will see how normal she is.
“To perform live and see people react and watch people embrace this side of me has been an absolute highlight.
“Then I get to go home and sleep on an air mattress at Tony’s house. What a glamorous life.”
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On the Net:
http://www.myspace.com/jessicasimpson
