As Carly Pearce sits at the top of the charts with her single, “What He Didn’t Do,” from her album 29, the 32-year-old says it’s the perfect time to “close the book” and start a new one with new music.

“It is time to close the book,” Carly told Audacy’s Katie Neal. “I’m very happy, obviously 29 was the most successful album of my career and will probably be forever one of the biggest things that I do… It has really motivated me to continue to just write what I want to write, write how I see the world and make records that sound the way that I want them to, not what I think people want me to do.”

Carly has already channeled that motivation into new music that she says will arrive a lot sooner than fans think. Additionally, she teases that the subject matter might not be what we expect from her either.

“You’re going to get new music sooner than you think,” she said, while also confirming “What He Didn’t Do,” was the last single from 29. “I have to say this next single, I think I am the most excited than I’ve ever been to put out a new song.”

She continued, “I think a lot of people think that just because I’m happy [and in] a relationship that I’m just going to come out with a bunch of love songs and that’s just not my vibe… it’s not sunshine and rainbows.”

Between the pressure of following up her most-successful album and trying to dig for inspiration in an “uneventful” time in her life, Pearce says the creativity stemmed from several different places, including nightmares.

“I felt a lot of pressure to top 29 and I was like, ‘Well, I don’t have a lot of chaos in my life right now. Things are pretty stable.’ I would look at my boyfriend sometimes and be like, ‘Can you just yell at me?’” She laughed.

Continuing, “There is a song, I haven’t cut it, but I definitely will cut it. I had a dream, a very vivid dream, about my current relationship that was very negative. I woke up and [told him] ‘I just had a dream that you left me and he was like, ‘That’s not a dream, that’s awful. I would not call that a dream, I would call that a nightmare.’”

Pearce decided to lean into the emotion rather than run from it and says it resulted in one of her favorite songs for her upcoming project.

“I went to this writing session and I wrote this whole song about what if he really did leave me?” She said. “It ended up being one of my favorite songs and it has elements in there that sound like him and he was like, ‘What is THIS?’ I was like, ‘Sorry, welcome to dating a songwriter.”

While we still have some time before receiving this new music, it promises to be well worth the wait.

Hear more about what’s to come as well as Carly’s new live album, what it’s like being on tour with Blake Shelton and much more by checking out her conversation with Katie Neal above.

Words by Monica Rivera Interview by Katie Neal