Mandy Moore, Benji Madden join Ben Lee album

NEW YORK (Billboard) - Australian singer/songwriter

Ben Lee has drafted

Mandy Moore and Good Charlotte guitarist Benji Madden for his next album.

"Ripe," the follow-up to 2005's "Awake Is the New Asleep," is due out September via indie label New West.

Moore, who is gearing up for the release of her own album in June, guests on the track "Birds and Bees," which Lee likens on his blog (http://www.ben-lee.com) to "Summer Lovin"' from the musical "Grease." "Mandy was very sweet and did her best

Olivia Newton-John for me," he writes.

Madden, meanwhile, co-wrote the tune "Love." Other contributors include Nickel Creek's Sara Watkins (who played fiddle and sang on a number of cuts), keyboardist Benmont Tench of

Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, and members of Rooney.

Reuters/Billboard