Urban Has New Music Coming
It’s been two years since Keith Urban released his last album Fuse. He has a new single out called “John Cougar, John Deere, John 3:16.” So what’s the status of his next album? He told Country Countdown USA’s Lon Helton:
“I’m swimming in lots of songs, and trying to figure out how to birth them all. I’ve got a lot of songs to pick from. It’s about taking them into the studio, and seeing if they come to life. If they don’t come to life, maybe it’s because the song isn’t right, or maybe it’s because it’s the wrong environment. Maybe it’s the wrong studio or the wrong players. Sometimes you have to scrap the song, sometimes you have to take the song someplace else, and that’s a bit of a process.”
It doesn’t sound like the album is following the single very soon: “Well I think I’ve got a good handful of songs that are done. I’m not panicking.”
What’s the direction of the new album? “I don’t know. I thought this would be an easier record to make, because making Fuse was such a research and development project. I was working with people I never worked with before. I thought this time around would be so easy. I’d reach out to the people I know now, there won’t be any guesswork. For whatever reason, I found myself not gravitating towards that. It’s always organic with me. It’s either interesting me and inspiring me, or it isn’t. So making this record, I did a couple of songs, and I thought they sounded like leftover songs from Fuse. I thought that would be great, and it didn’t interest me. Therein started the unraveling of the way I thought I was going to make the record, and it liberated me to whatever the process is meant to be this time around.”
So it sounds like you want to do something completely different: “Well it had to be organic. It can’t be like ‘I already did that, so I have to do this.’ It has to be natural. I may do something like Fuse, and if it feels right, I’m not going to stop it just because I’ve done it before. I have an issue with people making a ‘different record.’ It’s not about making a different record. It’s about making an honest record. It may be exactly the same, but if it’s honest and true, people will respond to it.”
It’s funny how people know when it’s honest and true: “It’s a feeling they have. It’s not about being a musician. I play songs for Nic, and she says, ‘I like it but I’m not a musician.’ But I tell her. ‘Nobody is who buys records. Your opinion is really important because of that.”
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