Keith Urban has never really taken much time off, at least until 2020. The New Zealand native grew up singing, which is why this year, when he has been forced to be away from his fans because of COVID-19, has been challenging for him, in ways he never expected.

“I’ve always played, since I joined this sort of singing group when I was seven and performed at the shopping centers, on school holidays at the mall, and joined a band at twelve and then quit school at fifteen and was playing five nights a week,” Keith told ABC Audio. “I’ve always, always played on stages.”

Keith’s love of playing frequently had him showing up in small Nashville clubs just to perform — a luxury he once took for granted.

“It’s a very strange feeling, not only having not been on a stage in a long time, but truly not knowing when we’re gonna get to get back on one again, or how it’s gonna be, where it’s gonna be,” Keith shared.

Not that the singer has been idle. He did finish his upcoming The Speed of Now, Part One album while at home, even though he admitted at first he felt “artistically paralyzed” at the first part of the pandemic.

“I just dived into the studio, which is, in a lot of ways my other stage,” he added.

Keith previously conceded that he almost changed his new record’s title, when so much of life came to a standstill because of the coronavirus pandemic.

“I guess the title of the album has been the most asked question I’ve gotten, and that’s one of those crazy art-imitating-life, life-imitating-art moments,” Keith told Variety. “The title The Speed of Now came to me last year for multitudes of reasons, mostly just because I felt like everything was just careening almost out of control. Everywhere I went, it seemed like people were going faster, everything was moving faster, life was going faster. So it was a bit of a commentary about the absurdity of where I felt like we were at.“

“Fast forward to March and April of this year, where everything just ground to a halt,” he continued. “I was shell-shocked. And I’d said to a couple of friends of mine, ‘I’m going to have to come up with a different album title.’ And they said, ‘Why?’ I said, ‘Well, this made sense last year.’ They said, ‘Yeah, but the speed of now is very different to what it was last year.’ So I think people will have a different relationship with that title, which took on a whole new meaning.”

Keith just released “Tumbleweed” from his upcoming new record. He will host the 2020 ACM Awards, virtually, on Wednesday, September 16, at 8:00 PM ET on CBS.