Keith Urban will soon be part of a new TV show on CBS. Urban is joining Blake Shelton and Gretchen Wilson on The Road, a reality TV talent show, airing his fall. The show gave Urban a new appreciation for Wilson, who he says was the ideal person for her role as a tour manager.
“She’s hilarious,” Urban tells Apple Music’s Zane Lowe. “She’s the tour manager on the whole show. So her job is getting them in and out of hotels, and getting them to rehearsals.”
“She’s honest and tough as nails,” he continues. “She’s no bullsh– … Doesn’t care. Unfiltered. Perfect. That’s what you need in that role. And you live and die by their choices. No one’s telling them what to sing. They don’t have a stylist. They choose the cover. They have to do an original, and they gotta wow the crowd every night. It’s a lot of fun.”
The idea for the show began with Shelton, who is executive producing The Road with Taylor Sheridan.
“[Sheridan] loves music. He’s got a great ear for music,” Urban says, revealing it was Shelton who pitched the idea to Sheridan.
“Blake went to him with the idea of the show,” Urban reveals. “He said, ‘We just want to make it much more gritty and documentary authentic.”
Photo Credit: Courtesy of CBS
Both Shelton and Urban have been part of The Voice, where Shelton served as a coach for the first 23 seasons of the series. The Road is a new take on finding talent, without all of the glitz and glamour.
“Blake and a producing partner of his from his previous job came up with this idea,” the “Straight Line” singer shares. “Like, what happens to these artists out of these singing TV shows? What happens when it’s all finished? Where do they go and what do they do? Most of them just go to the clubs, and then have to figure out who they are. And some of them have never had any life experience, so they have to figure out how to get an audience.”
Most reality TV talent shows only show the polished version of performances, but not The Road, which Urban says is very true to life, and authentic to what aspiring artists go through all over the country.
“They’re real clubs,” Urban reveals. “They’re not TV studios. We go to a club in Oklahoma and Texas and Arkansas, Nashville. We go to these clubs and basically, I’m the headliner for the night. I’m going to do half an hour with the house band, by the way. And all of these people competing are going to get to do two songs each with the house band. A cover, and then they have to do an original. And then they live or die that night by the audience’s vote.”
“Someone’s kicked off every night,” he adds. “And it’s amazing, because you can be winning the crowd over, night after night. And then you go to another state, and those people just don’t like you, and you’re off. It’s crazy.”
Nothing about being on The Road is easy, which is why Urban believes the show makes so much sense.
“It’s tough,” he acknowledges. “The audience is not cast. They live locally. They’ve come down to the club to see me play. And they watch all these people basically opening for me, and then they’re voting on them. And then Taylor Sheridan is filming this whole thing and making it documentary-style. It’s crazy. It looks amazing. I saw some of the footage, but it’s crazy. It looks like a film.”
Urban might be a bigger fan of Wilson after being on The Road, but the admiration goes both ways.
“Keith performed at every one of these shows,” Wilson tells Taste of Country. “Just aces. This guy is just — he’s got it together. All I could think every time I was watching him on stage was, ‘I wanna be Keith when I grow up.’”
A premiere date for The Road has yet to be announced. Urban is currently headlining his High and Alive World Tour. Find all of his music and upcoming shows at KeithUrban.com.
Photo Credit: Courtesy of the CMA