(The Big Country Radio network boasts that it plays “the greatest tracks from Tamworth to Nashville.”) He started performing at a very young age he recalled with a laugh how he would scoop up used tickets at a dog track near his home and use them for admission to the concerts he held in his bedroom. Urban grew up in a suburban area of Australia, which has a surprisingly strong country-music tradition. Brown, Kelly Lacy and Joseph Dennis Matkosky.)īorn in New Zealand, Mr. And I know somewhere there was a 35-year-old woman going through a divorce, listening to that same song, saying the same thing.
Swift wrote in an e-mail message, referring to a 2004 hit from Mr. “I remember sitting in my bedroom, listening to ‘You’ll Think of Me’ and thinking: ‘How does he know what I’m going through better than I do? This song is my life,’ " Ms. In the country-rock tradition, he’s a classic Sensitive Dude. He’s a girl’s guy and a musician’s musician, with ballads that are sweet but not sappy and rockers that actually rock but not too hard. Urban is a riveting entertainer who can pack a stadium, and he is also an accomplished songwriter. The genre still invests in creating career artists, and multiplatinum singers like Kenny Chesney, Tim McGraw and Toby Keith appeal to a much broader swath of music fans than singles-driven acts in the fractured worlds of rock, pop and hip-hop. With a new sophistication and a wide variety of influences, though, country stars are now the closest music has to a genuine mainstream. Keith Urban with Faith Hill, top, at the 2006 Grammy Awards. Urban will stay in the spotlight for much of the year. And between the album’s summery feel and a lengthy arena tour beginning in May, featuring opening acts like Taylor Swift, Sugarland and Dierks Bentley, it seems safe to assume that Mr. The latest single, the candy-coated “Kiss a Girl,” has already shot to No. 1 singles in the last six months (“You Look Good in My Shirt,” a remake of his own 2002 song “Start a Band,” a duet with Brad Paisley and “Sweet Thing,” the first breezy advance from “Defying Gravity”) without the release of a new album. “Simple odes to love, loss, longing that’s the stuff I naturally do, and instead of second-guessing it this time, I just went with it.”ĭann Huff, his longtime producer, said in a telephone interview that “this time he really knew who he was and who he was trying to speak to.” “I wanted to get back to the core of my earlier music,” he said. From the rhythmic nuance of “If I Could Ever Love” to the rave-up “Hit the Ground Runnin’,” each track has an individual feel, yet all of them would fit comfortably on country radio. Urban’s signature blend of the modern (drum machines) and the traditional (banjos and fiddles). Judging from “Defying Gravity,” his first album since “Love, Pain,” the break served him well. “Had that record done the expected stuff, I have no clue where I’d be today,” he said. Lounging on a studio couch, he said that after his disappointment passed, he could see the benefits of that difficult time. Urban addresses the troubles of his recent past, which included some time in rehab. With lines like “It was hard to keep believing in myself/When all I felt was so much pain and guilt and shame,” it’s the one place on the album where Mr. That song, “Thank You,” is a spare, gospel-inflected offering of gratitude to Ms.
It mostly tells tales of new love, courtship or yearning for lost romance, but the album’s final song reveals more humbling emotions. Urban, 41, has a new album, “Defying Gravity,” out on Tuesday on Capitol Nashville. “How about if you handle the rest of the interview?” Mr. Dressed simply in a sweater, jeans and rain boots, she mixed easily with the band and crew and chatted with a reporter about the future of the newspaper industry and a documentary about rodeos in prison. Urban’s offstage life when his wife, Nicole Kidman, stopped by after attending a class with the couple’s 8-month-old daughter, Sunday Rose. The day’s lunch break offered a glimpse into Mr. Urban took a swaggering guitar solo on “You Look Good in My Shirt,” and the drummer Chris McHugh called across the room, “Sounds like you’re having fun over there.”
Urban’s biggest hits, like “Stupid Boy” and “Better Life,” the chilly, cramped room began to feel more like an arena. It was a miserable, sleeting day in March, and the six guys were sitting around in T-shirts and jeans, laughing about a bird that got loose in the studio and made a mess of the drum kit.Īs they warmed up, though, and ripped through some of Mr. KEITH URBAN may be one of country music’s biggest stars, but he and his band didn’t look like much as they settled in for rehearsal in a homey, log cabin-style studio here, not far from his home in the farmlands outside of Nashville.