Keith Urban‘s long-awaited new album is out. The New Zealand native just released HIGH, 11 songs that encapsulate where he is in life right now, which is better than ever before.
“Of all the things that have changed in my life, one has been a constant. I love making music,” Urban says. “It’s the mystery and the energy of it. I’ve never surfed, but I have a feeling that when I’m writing a song, or when I’m in the studio recording it, or even when it’s coming to life on stage, it’s the same feeling of being ‘in the flow’. It’s timeless, it’s weightless – and I feel HIGH. These songs flowed very much like that.”
In a now well-known story, Urban created an entirely different project, 615, which he scrapped and started over again, with the end result being HIGH. The record is Urban’s first since The Speed of Now Part 1 came out in 2020.
“I was gutted because I knew that it wasn’t gonna be a quick time between that moment and whatever the record was gonna be to finish,” Urban admits. “I knew that was gonna take a long time. Sure enough, it took another year of writing and recording. This is the weirdest thing: I’ve made a lot of records. I usually have a very clear idea of what I wanted to do. And I had that with this other start. It didn’t pan out, and so I was sort of thrown. I’m like, ‘Well, I don’t know what to do.'”
Urban kept a few songs from his former record, including his Top 15 hit with “Messed Up As Me.” The Grand Ole Opry member trusted that the songs would find a home, and his instincts fortunately proved correct.
“I know this sounds weird,” Urban admits. “It may not sound weird to certain people, but some people might think I’m completely loopy. But there were several songs, ‘Messed Up As Me’ was one of them. And there were a few other songs that felt like they were saying to me, ‘We don’t belong here. We belong on this other record, so take us with you, have faith in us, and get back in the studio and write. You’ll see this new record will happen with us in there, and it will be the record we belong to, because we don’t belong with this record.’ And I did it, I trusted the songs.
“I moved them over, went back to the drawing board, and built outwards from those songs,” he adds. “And man, this record came together. 40 minutes running time, top to bottom, and it was absolutely the record that I was meant to make but wasn’t the one I set out to make.”
As with most of his previous albums, Urban was intentional about releasing positive, feel-good songs. While some may think it was for his fans — and it was — Urban acknowledges that it was also for himself.
“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.”
Urban puts as much thought into the titles of his projects as he does the songs and sequencing. It’s important to him, as important as any other part of the album.
“I love how many interpretations go through a person’s head when they hear that word,” Urban says of “HIGH.” “And they’re all spot-on. It conjures up different things for different people, from a mountaintop, just feeling phenomenal, to a Willie Nelson concert, to whatever it is that you want to interpret that word. To me, they’re all spot-on. They’re all spot-on. I’ve never named an album after a song, ’cause I always feel like that’s disrespectful to the other songs on the record. So far I’ve never done it. I wanted a good, strong, simple word that captured the energy and the spirit of the record.
“And that word, I started hearing it in all these songs … it kept happening all through the record,” he continues. “And I thought, the one thing we agree on is that it is apparently the destination. That’s where we all want to go to, or get to. And how we get there is individual. That’s different for everyone of us, how we get there. But we do want to get there. And I thought, ‘Well, that’s it. That’s what this record is. It’s ‘HIGH.'”
The songs on HIGH, including his “Go Home W U” duet with Lainey Wilson, “Wildside” and more, are all clear indicators of where Urban is now, in his own life.
“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.”
See a track list for HIGH below. Urban will kick off his HIGH in Vegas residency in October. Find HIGH and all of Urban’s music and upcoming shows at KeithUrban.com.
HIGH Track List:
1. BLUE SKY
2. STRAIGHT LINE
3. MESSED UP AS ME
4. WILDSIDE
5. GO HOME W U (WITH LAINEY WILSON)
6. CHUCK TAYLORS
7. DAYTONA
8. LOVE IS HARD
9. HEART LIKE A HOMETOWN
10. LAUGHIN’ ALL THE WAY TO THE DRANK
11. DODGE IN A SILVERADO
12. BREAK THE CHAIN