Fifteen years after he rose to prominence as one-half of the Grammy-winning pop duo A Great Big World, musician Chad King is back with a new project that doesn’t shy away from his recent health issues.

On Friday, King unveiled “The Road Ahead,” a four-song solo EP. The lyrics of the new tracks, he said, were drawn from a series of journal entries he wrote in which he reflects on his experience living with multiple sclerosis.

“A lot of it came to me at a time when my body was physically doing things that I couldn’t ignore anymore,” King, 40, told HuffPost. “For the longest time, I’d been hiding as much as I could from the public, but I couldn’t ignore these physical changes. I had strength in my right hand and my left was losing strength, so I could still write.”

“And then I was on the phone with a friend a few years back, and I said, ‘Change is hard.’ And she said, ‘Well, being stuck is harder,’” he continued. “And when I heard her say those words, I knew I needed to write a song because they spoke to me so much.”

The EP’s first single, “Change Is Hard,” is an acoustic ballad with empowering lyrics to which anyone at a personal crossroads can relate. Other tracks, like “Days Gone By” and “Golden Door,” wistfully allude to the fleeting passage of time, with King singing in harmonies that recall early Joni Mitchell and Simon & Garfunkel.

MS attacks the central nervous system and impairs communication between the body and the brain, with symptoms including tremors, vision loss, slurred speech and weakness in the limbs.

While King has been outspoken about living with MS in recent interviews and on social media, he received his diagnosis in 2007, roughly four years before he and his A Great Big World bandmate, Ian Axel, released their breakout hit, “This Is the New Year.”

A Great Big World reached even greater heights in 2013 when “Say Something” ― a track off their debut album, “Is There Anybody Out There?” ― caught the attention of Christina Aguilera. The pop diva teamed up with Axel and King for a reimagined take on the song, which won the 2015 Grammy for Best Pop Duo/Group Performance.

Though grateful as he is for that mainstream success, King now acknowledges it distracted him from addressing some of his MS-related health concerns.

“I was having symptoms come and go, and MS felt like something I didn’t have the time or the space for,” he said. Everything began to shift around the time of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020: “I started getting fatigued throughout the day. I couldn’t walk without a walking aid.”

Though King has had to curtail plans to tour extensively because of his health, fans will get a chance to see him take the stage Monday when he performs on “The Kelly Clarkson Show.”

He’s also found a kindred spirit in Christina Applegate, who went public with her MS diagnosis in 2021 and has since become an outspoken advocate for those living with the disease.

“I’ve had some pretty intimate talks with her when I’ve felt incredibly alone,” he said of the “Dead to Me” actor. “She’s been such a guiding light for me in how I go about this journey. Her symptoms are completely different than mine, and the way she is figuring out how to navigate with this disease is inspiring. I feel like I’m learning with her, too.”

Lately, King has been turning his attention to the theatrical stage. He and Axel collaborated on a musical adaptation of R.J. Palacio’s 2012 children’s novel, “Wonder,” which follows a 10-year-old boy, August “Auggie” Pullman, with significant facial differences. In December, the show premiered at Boston’s American Repertory Theater to positive reviews.

Together, both “The Road Ahead” and “Wonder” have reminded King that “the spirit is so much stronger than the physical body.”

“Yes, my physical body might look different, and I might sound different, but I’m still here,” he said. “My spirit is still here and still doing great.”

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