It may have been 11 years since she’s put out an album (2009’s Amanda Leigh), but Mandy Moore is ready to make her big return to music—with a veritable dream team to boot. The This Is Us star recently sat down with Ellen DeGeneres to chat about her new album, Silver Landings, which just released earlier this month, and revealed that her husband, Taylor Goldsmith, had a huge hand in helping her put the record together.
“I wrote all the songs,” Moore told DeGeneres. “I started in the last year. I wrote the whole record with my husband Taylor and my best friend, Mike. Both of whom are in my band and will be here later. But yeah, we wrote the whole record together over the course of the last year, and then here we are.”
Silver Landings marks Moore’s seventh studio album, and her first since getting married to Goldsmith, himself the lead singer of band Dawes, back in November 2018. The pair, who met in the most modern of ways—via Instagram—dated for two years before Goldsmith proposed to Moore in September 2017.
The pair have since settled into a cozy, musical life together in Los Angeles, with their two dogs and three cats. Moore explained that one cat in particular, Figaro (or Fig for short), enjoys the couple’s musical company a bit more than the others.
Taylor Goldsmith and Mandy Moore attend Communities in Schools Annual Celebration on May 1, 2018 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Vivien Killilea/Getty Images for Communities in Schools of Los Angeles)
“Truly, anytime I start singing or Taylor sings—especially when we harmonize—[Fig] could be on the other side of the house, fast asleep, and suddenly he’s up on the piano with us, and he sings,” Moore told DeGeneres. “I mean, he meows. … We have a little vocal trio.”
Living with Goldsmith, Moore added, is “dreamy.” The singer is “always playing the piano or playing a guitar,” she said.
The couple’s musical connection runs deep. In an interview with People in October 2017, Moore opened up about how the pair connected through music before they even met. “I took a picture of their [Dawes’] album and posted it on Instagram,” she said at the time. “Somehow, Taylor saw it and sent a note to me. We started emailing back and forth, then we went on a date and the rest is history. Thanks, Instagram, for helping me meet my fiance!”
Moore added that the couple’s courtship largely took place over FaceTime, too, given their busy schedules. “We spent hours FaceTiming each other,” she said. “We fell in love before we’d even really held hands or kissed or anything. It was great.”
Since they’ve been together, the pair have continued to collaborate musically in the sweetest of ways. Goldsmith co-wrote and helped record Moore’s song “Invisible Ink,” which was featured on an episode of This Is Us. (Bonus points: Goldsmith used the same Instagram post to share his love for Moore, who he called his “favorite human.”)
The pair wed in November 2018 in the backyard of Moore’s Los Angeles home, and then celebrated their new status as husband and wife with a reception at Fig House, a private event club in Highland Park. The couple even surprised their family and friends with an impromptu, joint performance.
Moore captioned a sweet black-and-white shot from the wedding with the date (Nov. 18, 2018), and Goldsmith added in the comments, “Well, that was fun.”