Keith Urban is ready to elevate fans’ musical experience with his new album, HIGH, available now.
LISTEN NOW: Keith Urban details new album, ‘HIGH’
The project arrives following more than two years of blood, sweat and actual tears from Urban who believed he had completed the album in February 2023 only to hit a major roadblock causing him to take things back to the drawing board.
“I had a very clear idea of what I wanted to do. I went about recording all these songs and I ended up with 13 songs and in February of 2023, I took that album in, very excited to play it for my team,” he said of the project — which he titled 615, representing Nashville’s area code. “About 4 or 5 songs in, I could feel all this air going out of my everything — deflated — because I knew it wasn’t finished... I knew it just wasn’t there.”
Overwhelmed with dissatisfaction, Urban knew he needed to regroup and get to work on a more authentic album, but first, he let the tears flow.
“It would have been so much easier to just go, ‘It’s fine,’ but I’ve got to be 100% in,” He told Audacy’s Rob + Holly. "I can’t be 99% in, otherwise it’s not gonna work. I hate saying this, but it’s so true — I left that meeting, went out and sat in my car and I bawled my eyes out. I literally did. I know that sounds pathetic to a lot of people, but after putting in that much work and knowing what was ahead of me work-wise, which I didn’t want to do, it just gutted me. It was like being kicked in the stomach.”
LISTEN NOW: Keith Urban put blood, sweat, and actual tears into new album: ‘I bawled my eyes out’
Now, a year and a half later, the tears are long gone and Urban is proud to present a new album born from pure dedication, his love for music, and commitment to providing his fans with his best. With newfound energy and several fresh tracks, Urban decided to drop the initial 615 name and go with the new title, HIGH, which he says revealed itself through the music.
“It’s a one-word title, and I think that kind of summed up the whole spirit and energy of the record. It ended up also being a word that started appearing in many songs on the record, unbeknownst to me,” he laughed. “When I started listening to the record, I went ‘Oh my God, there’s that word again, Oh, there’s that word again,”
He continued, “I love how many interpretations go through a person’s head when they hear that word [High], and they’re all spot on,” he said of the title. “It conjures up different things to different people from a mountain top to just feeling phenomenal, to a Willie Nelson concert, to whatever it is that you want to interpret that word to be. For me, they’re all spot on.”
Fans got their first hit of the new album with the release of “STRAIGHT LINE,” in February, which Urban believes set the tone perfectly for an album centered around enjoying life as much as possible.
“‘Straight Line’ is really [about] just coming alive,” Urban shared. “It’s saying, ‘Hey, why are we living every day in circles just burning out?' I don’t want to just go through the motions… No matter what my luck is in life, no matter how hard it is, I can choose to see it as negative and difficult or I can frame it differently and maybe try and put some color back in there any way I can. Even if it’s just for three minutes of a song where I can imagine my life as better than it is. That’s worth it for me.”
While Urban focused on moving forward after the disappointment from his first album attempt, the 56-year-old shared there were certain songs off the initial project that played a crucial role in the creative process of HIGH, one of those songs being, “Heart Like A Hometown.”
“‘Heart Like A Hometown’ is one of the four songs that I kept from my first record that didn’t work out,” he shared. “I loved it when we did it, and I didn’t want to lose that.” The song is a highly personal one for Urban, who spent his younger years moving from house to house resulting in about nine different homes by the time he was 10. “A hometown for me was my family, my guitar — that very much became my metaphoric hometown, the place where I felt at home, and really a place inside of me,” he shared. While the lyrics have literal meaning to Keith, he shares fans can interpret however they relate best.
“It could be literal, or hometown could be somebody, but some place that you can always go back to when you get lost,” he explained. “You want to have that place where you can recenter and remember who you are, and then you can go back out in the world again. And I love those kinds of songs.”
With many songs on the project hitting a personal note for Urban, none are quite as personal as the final track, “Break the Chain,” which was born from his own struggles with addiction. From growing up around it, to fighting it himself, and still facing its impact present day, Urban let the feelings flow from his heart to the lyrics.
“The truth about the song is that I was born in an alcoholic family — My dad was an alcoholic, and my journey is being raised in that family and whatever that carries with it as I go into adulthood,” Keith stated before explaining he’s still processing his father’s addiction well into adulthood. “I never, in a million years [would] have thought I’m still dealing with that or still processing it… But that song wanted to come.”
He continued, “It’s important because my own feeling on it is that we’re not responsible for where we came from. It’s not our fault… but it’s my responsibility to do something about that or to perpetuate it…. and I had done that long enough. I just went, ‘I would like to try and break the chain if I can and do things differently.’ And that song is far more hopeful than anything else, because it’s never too late to break the chain.”
Fans can hear the deeply personal, “BREAK THE CHAIN,” along with “STRAIGHT LINE,” “HEART LIKE A HOMETOWN,” current single, “MESSED UP AS ME,” and eight other new tracks from Urban by checking out his brand new album, HIGH, available now.
HIGH:
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