Jessica Simpson Feels a 'Sense of Freedom and Empowerment' as She Prepares for New Album and Tour

The wait for new Jessica Simpson music is nearly over.

In a new interview with Footwear News, the singer and entrepreneur opened up about spending more time in Nashville, creating new music in the city and gearing up to release an album and tour for the first time in over a decade.

"It’s like a retreat for me. I get to just crawl up inside my head and embrace my heart," said Simpson, 43, of living and creating music from Tennessee. "I feel so enlightened there."

The "With You" performer's last album Happy Christmas was released in 2010, while her most recent non-holiday project Do You Know came out in 2008. She put out six songs alongside her 2020 memoir Open Book and released a cover of Nothing But Thieves' "Particles" the following year, but it's been a while since she's been in the swing of musicianship.

Lately, however, Simpson's artistic instincts are coming back to her. "Writing music has become a beautiful therapeutic thing for me that I didn’t know was so natural, but it’s because I haven’t done it in so long," she told the outlet.

"It’s just nice to know that I’m meeting myself back in this place, as a woman, and after going through everything that I’ve been through in my life," continues the former Newlyweds star. "There’s a sense of freedom and empowerment."

According to Footwear News, Simpson plans to release her next album in early 2024 followed by a concert tour — and she's already written over 400 poems this year.

Speaking to PEOPLE on Wednesday, Simpson opened up about splitting her time between L.A. and Nashville as well as how it's impacted her husband Eric Johnson and their children — son Ace Knute, 10, and daughters Birdie Mae, 4, and Maxwell Drew, 11.

“I’m back and forth a lot so now they know what it’s like to miss me and I feel very loved," she said. "They helped me find a house [in Nashville], we all moved there, they picked their rooms, that type of stuff, but they’re in school so I have two weeks [in Nashville], two weeks home."

In August, Simpson also spoke to PEOPLE about her family supporting her move back into music.

“I was too nervous to go back into other careers that are my passion until I felt like they were confident enough in school and in life before I would step foot on stage,” she said. 

“It's crazy, the responsibility to feel as a parent, but really I look to them and they teach me so much. They're teaching me to be brave,” Simpson added, noting that they're "very excited" for her.

“They know that I'm living my dream and that that's what I was born to do,” she continued. “And so to have them experience that with me is going to be really beautiful.”