Minnie Driver details new album 'Ask Me to Dance'

LOS ANGELES, Oct. 2 (UPI) -- Minnie Driver will release new album Ask Me to Dance on Oct. 7.

The record is the 44-year-old actress' third studio album, and a followup to 2007's Seastories. Ask Me to Dance features covers of songs Driver obsessed over during her life, and she told the Wall Street Journal the effort was a long time in the making.

"[Motherhood] is good for writing, but it's not good for touring and putting a record out," she admitted. "I've got like four other records ready to go."

Ask Me to Dance was recorded over two weeks in February 2013, and includes covers of songs by Elliott Smith, The Killers, The Cure, Frank Sinatra, Neil Young, John Prine and Stevie Wonder. Driver said she "didn't want to make an empty record," or for the songs to come off as karaoke, and plans to perform live when she can.

"The nature of music as a whole, it moves you at different times in your life," she related. "As a recording artist, you have to be able to metabolize all that. You're not reinventing the wheel, but staying completely grounded and finding yourself in it. And everybody does that with music."

Driver currently stars as Fiona Bowa on NBC series About a Boy. The sitcom premiered in February, and will return for a second season Oct. 14.