Keith Urban is opening up about a particularly challenging time in his life. The 57-year-old recalls a career shift, in the best way possible, with the release of his 2013 album, Fuse.
“I had vocal surgery probably a year and a half before this record,” Urban reveals on World Cafe. “I’d made a whole bunch of albums with Dann Huff. And my vocal cords were getting damaged from a previous way of living life that was not good for my vocal cords, eventually caught up with me. I needed really serious vocal cord surgery. Had that, and when I came out of the surgery, this crazy big range opened up in my cords, and I could experiment with writing songs and working with people in a way that I hadn’t been able to before, because my confidence was going down.
“As my cords were inconsistent in their performance, so was my confidence,” he remarks. “I could feel my records getting a bit smaller and a bit smaller, and the vocal surgery opened up this feeling of experimentation.”
Urban recalls the moment as one of the more pivotal moments in his life and career. But ultimately, it was the beginning of an exhilarating new chapter for Urban, one he could have never predicted at the time.
“It was scary and exciting all at the same time,” Urban admits. “But it opened up a lot of desire to work with a lot of new people. I was working with different players, and trying to put different sounds together. I love Achtung Baby by U2. I love U2, and I obviously love Joshua Tree and all of those records. But Achtung Baby was such a great record because it was a 180 of everything they’d ever done. I remember reading something that Bono said, ‘It was intended to be the sound of chopping down the Joshua Tree.’ And I love everything about that road that they took, and the calling that they answered.
“I felt in a similar place, where I needed to dismantle the ‘Somebody Like Yous’ and these sort of things,” he adds, “and bring in machinery more to the front, bring quanti-synthy stuff to the front. Put my banjo in there, electrics, just fuse a lot of stuff together.”
Fuse was in many ways the beginning of a path that ultimately led Urban to release HIGH last September. The record, a final product from a former project hat he scrapped and started over again, became a bit of a celebration for his almost three decades in country music.
“I have genuine gratitude for where I’ve gotten to, where I get to be, the music I get to make, and the people I get to make it with, my family, touring, my health,” Urban says of the positivity that shines through on HIGH. “I don’t take any of it for granted. And it’s gratitude that I think you feel through this record. I genuinely have gratitude for what I get to do. That’s not BS, it’s real. And if that came through on this record, then that’s what you’re feeling.”
Urban will embark on his High and Alive World Tour on May 22, joined by Chase Matthew, Alana Springsteen and Karley Scott Collins. Find all of Urban’s music and tour dates at KeithUrban.com.