Ruston Kelly Liked to Focus on the 'Clouds.' How He Learned to Let the Light in on His Joyful New Album (Exclusive)

Ruston Kelly has made his sanction connected haunting ballads and ungraded emo stone songs — songs that, complete nan people of 3 albums, person often focused connected what he calls nan “rain clouds,” aliases life’s darker aspects. Struggles pinch addiction. Life successful recovery. The fallout of surgery relationships.

So nan merchandise of his caller album, Pale, Through nan Window (out now) feels for illustration thing of a reset. For nan first clip successful a agelong time, Kelly is letting nan ray successful — and if nan joyous caller grounds is immoderate indication, nan singer-songwriter is… situation he opportunity happy? 

"This seems to beryllium a wide sentiment I'm hearing. It's like, 'Whoa, he’s happy,'" Kelly, 37, tells PEOPLE complete a caller Zoom call. "To me, I conscionable constitute astir whatever’s going connected successful my life, and I decidedly americium penning from a spot of gratitude and emotion and emotion beautiful solid."

Writing from specified a spot is caller for Kelly, who successful December will mark 5 years of sobriety. On past records for illustration Dying Star, Shape & Destroy and The Weakness, he utilized his euphony to process life’s troubles, and says that for a agelong time, he felt arsenic though his imaginative intent was to "articulate nan dream and suffering successful nan quality condition… My activity is, I’m focusing connected nan clouds."

Cloudy tunes came easy for nan prima — connected songs for illustration “Brave,” he sang of really he hoped his loved ones would retrieve his courageousness erstwhile he 1 time died. On “Mending Song,” he sang astir trying to heal from his 2020 divorcement from pop-country superstar Kacey Musgraves.

But erstwhile it came clip to constitute this album, he struggled. Writer’s artifact reared its disfigured head, thing that went manus successful manus pinch what Kelly describes arsenic his heavy desire for perfection successful each aspects of life.

"I conscionable felt for illustration I was falling short each nan time. 'Why person I not sold retired Red Rocks? Why person I not met my wife?'" he recalls. "It was very overmuch like, ‘What americium I worthy if I can’t definitive myself?'"

He’d soon travel to recognize that what he needed was a caller position — an appreciation of each nan things he had achieved. 

"For nan first time, alternatively of trying to conscionable climb an ever-growing wall of imaginative block, I conscionable was like, 'Well, I’m going to locomotion nan different way. I’m going to really move astir and look astatine this plot and beryllium like, 'I planted that. That’s beautiful. That’s worthy something. That has intrinsic worth sloppy of what it does for me,'" he says.

It was acknowledgment to that caller position that Kelly was successful nan correct headspace to let destiny to do its thing. In June 2024, he met his now-girlfriend Tia Cubelic while connected a family vacation. The stars were surely aligned; though they met successful South Carolina, nan brace soon learned they lived conscionable 8 minutes isolated successful Nashville.

At that constituent successful his life, aft a bid of grounded relationships, Kelly says he was surviving successful nan "classic trope" of reasoning he’d apt beryllium azygous for nan remainder of his life. He’d moreover written a opus while successful what he calls "the loneliest place" of his life, 1 successful which he was haunted by nan ghosts of his past (It would spell connected to go nan title way "Pale, Through nan Window").

"I wondered, ‘Am I nan problem successful relationships?’ I’ve surely done my champion to support relationships that conscionable seemed to not activity retired astatine nan extremity of nan day," he says. "Especially post-divorce and each of that, my lens for what being pinch personification [should look like] conscionable didn’t rather beryllium anymore. I surely didn’t want to get myself successful a business wherever I sewage wounded aliases I wounded personification else."

But past came Tia, and past came nan nighttime he picked up her roommate’s guitar while waiting for her to get fresh for a nighttime out. Something clicked arsenic he strummed and played that night, and earlier long, his writer’s artifact was gone, helped on by nan burst of inspiration that comes pinch nan excitement of caller love.

For 2 weeks, Kelly wrote from sun up to sun down, crafting odes to Tia for illustration "Me & You," which features nan jangle of a The 1975-esque guitar, and nan affectional "I See You," arsenic good arsenic self-reflections for illustration “Twisted Root,” which lays bare nan mistakes of his past.

"The floodgates were open," he says. "It was a small huffy scientist, but I was loving it because location weren’t narcotics fueling that. There wasn’t a mania fueling that. It was a clear-driven purpose."

Even “Pale, Through nan Window,” which he’d written earlier they met, took connected a caller clarity. The ghosts of his past he’d thought he’d seen lurking were conscionable his reflection.

"You recognize that that’s not a shade successful nan window, you’re conscionable staring astatine yourself," he says. "I was like, ‘What if that ray successful nan window, it wasn’t conscionable nan things that don’t beryllium anymore? It really was nan ray that was arriving, of nan goodness that I was astir to encounter?’ I was like, ‘Okay, that’s nan title of nan record.'"

Kelly was helped on successful his inspiration by a "psychedelic" belief awakening, thing he says was "not connected my bingo card," but he welcomed pinch unfastened arms anyway. Tia was pinch him each measurement of nan way; she plays violin connected "House successful nan Country," astir nan couple’s dream to ain a state home, and is credited pinch inheritance vocals connected 3 songs. 

He says Tia "drew immoderate lines successful nan sand" erstwhile it came to definite aspects of his past (A speech he recounts connected nan azygous “Pickleball”), and made it clear what she wouldn’t guidelines for erstwhile it came to their early together.

"It was very clear that it was like, ‘Yeah I’m into you, but if X, Y and Z still remain, that’s benignant of a non-starter for me. It doesn’t matter really overmuch I’ve fallen successful emotion pinch you.’ And I was like, ‘Okay, alright. That’s personification that knows their worth.’ That’s a very charismatic quality," he says. "My aged aforesaid would’ve astir apt balked and been like, ‘I’m going to do immoderate I want.’ It inspired maine to proceed nan maturation process."

As for what’s next, Kelly says he’s already starting reasoning astir his adjacent chapter. For now, he feels that this era is mounting up nan measurement he plans to unrecorded nan remainder of his life.

"I cognize that life is not going to beryllium cleanable and there’s going to beryllium weaves successful and weaves retired and difficulties present and there," he says. "But I deliberation being capable to constitute from nan position of knowing who I americium and knowing who I beryllium to will really deepen that impulse of, erstwhile it is clip to constitute astir nan rainfall clouds, location will beryllium moreover much constituent and a guidelines to it. I cognize that life is life and I deliberation I’m excited to look done everything done this lens."

Pale, Through nan Window is retired now, and Kelly will began a nationwide circuit connected Oct. 2.