Russ Harrington
“If there was a buzzword for 2020, I am sure it would be ‘remote,’” says Keith Urban, calling from Sydney, Australia, where his wife, actress Nicole Kidman, is filming a movie.
“Everybody now rattles that term off effortlessly without thinking about it, whether it’s remote learning or remote performance.”
Or, right now, a remote interview. On Sept. 16, the singer will host the 55th Annual Academy of Country Music Awards remotely from Nashville. Not only is this the first time the awards won’t be held in Las Vegas, it marks their first broadcast from Music City—and, in this case, from three of its most beloved music venues.
“It’s a first on every level, isn’t it? First time in Nashville in the ACM history, and we’ll be at the Grand Ole Opry House, and Ryman Auditorium, and Bluebird Café,” says Urban, the ACM’s reigning Entertainer of the Year.
“I’m really glad that it’s going ahead because I think it’s going to be a great year. It’s always a great show, and we will definitely be making sure it is this time around, too.”
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He’s looking forward to celebrating the work of his contemporaries at the ACMs.
“I love that our genre continues to have artists that make real, distinct records like Miranda Lambert, like Eric Church, like Brothers Osborne,” he says.
Urban will offer up a new distinct record of his own when he drops his 11th studio album, The Speed of Now Part 1, on Sept. 18.
“All [my] albums are photographs—snapshots—of where I am musically, emotionally, where my curiosity is. I make records the same way I’ve always made them, even though they sound different and feel different every time. I’ve always gone in with a sense of songs that I love, styles that I like to try and blend together, and really just harness all of my diverse musical curiosity into, hopefully, a cohesive album.”
The Speed of Now Part 1 opens with a bang—“Out the Cage” features the legendary co-founder of Chic, Nile Rodgers, and “My Truck” newcomer Breland, who co-wrote the track with Urban, Sean Small and Sam Sumser. The song is a rapid-fire, banjo-heavy ode to breaking free from whatever is weighing you down.
“It’s about the human experience—oppression and confinement of any kind,” Urban says. “That could be a dead-end job that you’re sick of. You’re sick of this relationship that you’re in. You may find your life very confined, and I’ve been in that situation myself many, many years ago, wanting to just break out and take off running.”
Unlike most of the album, which Urban completed last year, “Out the Cage” was written during the pandemic, and its message clearly applies.
“We’ve all been in varying degrees of stay-at-home orders and lockdowns,” he says. “The sense of confinement we’ve all been experiencing is the theme of the song. It feels like you just want to break out.”
And while “Out the Cage” brings a raucous, in-your-face vibe, true to Urban’s musical tastes, each of the album’s 16 tracks has its own unique flavor. The drank-too-much mea culpa “One Too Many” is a radio-ready up-tempo duet with Pink, while the introspective “Better Than I Am” is a bluesy ballad that closes out the album.
“I wrote that song in London in 2015 on the same trip that I wrote ‘The Fighter,’” he says. “I intended to put it on the Ripcord album, but it just didn’t feel like it worked. And then I was going to put it on the Graffiti U album, and I still didn’t feel like it worked. For some reason it felt absolutely right to officially end this record.”
Since the release of Fuse in 2013, Urban’s albums have increasingly embraced more modern, electronic sounds and styles that keep his listeners on their toes. But he continues to embrace country’s long history of storytelling, especially on The Speed of Now Part 1.
“There’s a lot of humanity on this record; there’s a lot of hope on this record; there’s a lot of bridge-building on this record,” he says. “I love finding the common threads between things. I think because I grew up in a musical family, my dad was a drummer and my grandfather played piano, rhythm has played such a strong, strong role in my entire life. I think if something brings all these genres and styles together, it’s almost always a sense of rhythm and melody, and the sort of shared human experience.”
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Urban performing at his May 14 drive-in concert.
In these trying times, Urban is finding new ways to bring people together. On May 14 he took the stage at the Stardust Drive-In Movie Theater in Watertown, Tennessee, for more than an hour to celebrate the work of 200 doctors, nurses, emergency medical technicians, and staff from Vanderbilt Health, part of Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Nearly 125 vehicles filled with frontline workers and first responders honked their horns and flashed their lights throughout the free performance, which Urban calls a no-brainer.
“The decision to want to do it was immediate,” he says. “I called my manager at the beginning of April and I said, ‘What about we play a drive-in? The screen is already prebuilt, all we’ve got to do is put a stage in front of it. Let’s do this!’”
But the no-brainer idea proved to be a tricky puzzle to solve thanks to red tape issues including ticketing and insurance concerns.
“It was starting to look like it was going to be a no—we can’t make this work,” he says. “I said, ‘What about we just make it for first responders and healthcare workers and give away every ticket?’ I’m so glad that it came together, and Vanderbilt Medical Center was great. All the people in attendance—it was just a blast.”
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The drive-in show served as a test run of sorts. Urban, who is known for his electrifying live performances and sold-out arena tours, was anxious to find a way to return to the stage safely.
“It was a way to say thank you to everybody, and it was a way to see if the concept worked,” he says.
While the concert was a success, Urban isn’t considering a multi-date drive-in tour.
“I felt like I was playing the movie Cars. I was looking for [the character] Mater out in the crowd,” he says. “I’m just so looking forward to whatever day it is that we get to play in front of people all packed down the front row again, because there’s no substitute for that cohesive energy that comes from real people right at the foot of the stage. My eyes are so singularly focused on the day that we get to do that again.”
In the meantime, he’ll return to his adopted hometown of Nashville to prepare for the ACMs and album promotion.
“Nashville has been my home longer than anywhere I’ve ever lived in the world. My two girls are both born and raised in Nashville. It holds such a strong place in my heart,” he says. “There’s a big combination of all sorts of ideologies, and that’s what makes the city so vibrant.”
In typical Keith Urban fashion, he’s optimistic about Music City’s triumphant return to “normal” life.
“I’m so looking forward to Nashville being able to return to what it does best, which is to be this big, live, wide awake, colorful, vibrant throbbing music and entertainment center,” he says. “Nashville is full of so much everything, and the potential for it is just beginning. I think this is the start of a whole new era and we’re going to see a new Nashville emerging out of all of this.”