Keith Urban is sharing details about his forthcoming new album, Flow State. The record, full of yacht rock covers and one original song, features Little Big Town, John Mayer, and Michael McDonald. Flow State is Urban’s 13th record. A fan of yacht rock, he admits Flow State may not have happened, if not for a big purchase he made a couple of years ago.
“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. Urban spent about nine months getting the studio in working order, and wanted to make use of it before he went back on tour.
“By the time it was ready to record in, I was hitting the road,” Urban 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.”
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How Keith Urban’s ‘Flow State’ Happened
Urban is, by his own admission, a big fan of yacht rock. But when he went in with Huff to record some songs in that genre, he had no idea he was creating Flow State.
“There was no big preconceived idea,” Urban says. “We recorded two songs, and the session band came in, and we all looked at each other, and we went, ‘These sound really good.’ And Dann Huff looks at me, he goes, ‘You got any more?’ And I’m like, ‘There’s a lot of them. I mean, let’s do a couple more.’ So I went on tour, and a few weeks later, we reassembled the band. We did a couple more, and I thought, ‘Well, maybe we’ve got an EP. That’d be fun. Just something fun.’ And then it just kept growing and growing over the course of four, five, six months, and we ended up with a whole album.”
What Keith Urban Said About a New Musical Direction
With 12 albums to his credit already, Urban has been hinting that he might be heading in a new musical direction.
“I’ve sort of rediscovered a big love for songs that would fit into the yacht rock category,” Urban shared on Apple Music 1. “All that music I really, really love. That might be a little precursor to something I’ve got coming out down the track – just FYI. Some of my own music might have something to do with that.”
Still, even when Urban was working on what became Flow State, he had no idea it would end up being a record that he would share with the world.
“I had no intention of releasing it,” Urban tells People. “It was just something to do that we really loved playing that kind of music.”
Keith Urban’s ‘Flow State’ Track Listing
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)