Keith Urban vividly recalls the moment he changed as a performer. It happened when he was performing in Australia, still unaware he would have a career as an artist.
“I had a bit of an epiphany,” Urban tells the Academy of Country Music. “I was playing in a band, and the lead singer was an American guy from Florida. This is in Australia. And he was a great entertainer. He was excellent. And I learned so much from him. I was playing guitar and a bit of keyboards in this band, and trying to learn a lot from him as a frontman.
“And one night he said to me, ‘When you play solo, how come you don’t like, go to the front of the stage, like lean into the audience, and really play?'” he continues. “And I’m like, ‘Oh my gosh, I couldn’t do that.’ And he goes, ‘Why not?’ I go, ‘Because they’ll think I’m stuck up, like I’m full of myself.’ And he goes, ‘Well, are you?’ And I said, ‘No.’ He goes, ‘Then they won’t.’ And it was just like, boom! This whole light bulb went off.”
From that point on, Urban performed differently, remaining an energetic performer to this day.
“If you are genuinely a down-to-earth, grounded, good tongue-in-cheek type person, you can do anything, and the audience will love it because they know you’re not an arrogant, cocky person at all,” Urban says. “You’re just putting on a show. And I did it the next night, and it worked amazing. So, it changed everything.”
Keith Urban Announces New Yacht Rock Album, ‘Flow State’
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Urban just announced his new yacht rock album, Flow State.
“It really started from me buying a studio in town. It used to be called the Tracking Room. It’s been around a long time, and I acquired that studio in ‘24,” Urban reveals on SiriusXM‘s The Highway. It took Urban nine months to get the studio working, and when it was finished, he was heading out on tour.
“By the time it was ready to record in, I was hitting the road,” he shares. “It was one of those frustrating things where I wasn’t going to get to record there very much. And so, I was trying to find something that would just be simple and fun to do, to just record. I called Dann Huff, and I go, ‘How about we just do one or two yacht rock songs, just to break the studio in for a bit of fun?’ And that was it.”
Flow State is full of yacht rock covers, with one original song. The record features Little Big Town, John Mayer, and Michael McDonald. See a list of songs on Flow State below. Both Urban’s original “We Go Back” and “Summer Breeze” are available now. The entire album will be available on June 12.
1. Steal Away
2. Baby Come Back
3. Magnet and Steel (ft. Little Big Town)
4. Just the Two of Us
5. On and On
6. We Go Back (ft. Michael McDonald)
7. Help Is On It’s Way
8. How Much I Feel
9. Summer Breeze
10. I Just Wanna Stop
11. Guitar Man (ft. John Mayer)
Photo Credit: Brennon Williamson