Nashville’s New Year’s Eve celebration just got a lot more star power. New Year’s Eve Live: Nashville’s Big Bash, a five-hour celebration filled with live music, surprise guests, collaborations and more, will now include Keith Urban as a headliner, along with Jelly Roll and Kane Brown. In addition, Urban has been announced as a co-host of the event, joining Entertainment Tonight‘s Rachel Smith.
Urban will likely perform songs from his latest HIGH album, an 11-track project that shows Urban’s profound thankfulness for his life and career right now.
“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 reflects. “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.”
HIGH is filled with feel-good songs that were an intentional decision from Urban to include on HIGH, his first since The Speed of Now Part 1 came out in 2020, even if he didn’t always feel the sentiment behind some of the songs.
“I realized that I need them,” Urban explains. “I need them to keep me from the negativity, the darkness, the insecurity, the depression, all of it. I’ve got to stay in motion. And I think those songs can sometimes be whistling in the dark songs for me. They’re a way to keep me company in the midst of all the darkness, and keep me moving. That may not be who I am, but they’re who I need to be to keep moving.”
Included on HIGH is “Break the Chain,” the final song on the record. It’s Urban’s honest look at his father’s battle with alcoholism, which he was unable to conquer before he passed away in 2015. Urban wrote the song with Marc Scibilia, a songwriter he had never met until the day they wrote “Break the Chain.”
“I went and sat on his couch, and I got a legal pad out ’cause I like to write, and I’m writing,” Urban remembers. “I get to this second verse, and I just start weeping on this guy’s couch, just crying on this guy’s couch, who I’ve just met. He looks over at me and he goes, ‘Must be true.’ And then went right back to work. And it was the perfect reaction, because it let me stay in the place I was at with no judgment, and I could finish the song. And then I got on the mic and I sang it top to bottom and then did some harmonies and everything just went quickly.
“I didn’t second guess it,” he continues. “I just did it. He sent me the track the next day, pieced together, and I just said, ‘I think we should leave this one alone. I think this is real. I’m not going to go and track it with the band on a proper session and all this BS. We’re just going to leave it like that.’”
New Year’s Eve Live: Nashville’s Big Bash will air on CBS on December 31, from 8:00 to 10:00 PM ET and 10:30 PM to 1:30 AM ET, and stream on Paramount+. The free show will take place at Nashville’s Bicentennial Capitol Mall State Park.
Find HIGH and all of Urban’s music and upcoming shows at KeithUrban.com.