Keith Urban has never been bound by styles of music, and with good reason. The New Zealand-born singer works hard to combine all the kinds of music he likes, from country to pop to electronic and more, revealing that he hopes people begin to associate his unique sound as its own genre.
“I think what I’ve been just slowly doing really since the first album, was trying to make my own sound and create my own sound, so that my name becomes a genre,” Keith said on BRELAND’s Land of the BRE Radio on Apple Music Country. And then, if you like that sort of thing, you come to my name to find songs. And you know what you’re expecting.”
Keith has earned plenty of trophies and acknowledgement for his own style of music, but he doesn’t keep any of them in his house.
“No awards, no accolades anywhere,” Keith revealed. “It’s always a blank slate. I love walking in the studio and it’s just completely blank. And I was talking to a friend of mine about that the other day and he goes, ‘Oh, you’ve got beginner’s mind.’ And I said, ‘I’ve never heard that term before.’ And he goes, ‘Yeah, you’ve got beginner’s mind.’It’s a great thing to have. You should hang on to that.’
“‘You either have it or you don’t,” he added. “‘You’ve got it. You’ve got beginner’s mind.’I guarantee you can write songs for the next 50 years and you’ll still be excited to write songs.'”
Keith may not keep his trophies, but they at least stay in the family.
“My mom has a few of them,” Keith revealed to ET Canada. ” “I wouldn’t be here without my mom driving me around all the gigs, and all of that back in the day. She was fantastic.”
Keith’s mom might get a few more this year. The 52-year-old is nominated for three CMA Awards, including for Entertainer of the Year.
“I heard about it by waking up to about 26 texts from everybody,” Keith recalled. “It’s a strange feeling when you turn your phone on and you have a flurry of texts. You’re like this is either really bad news or really good news!”
Keith’s latest album, The Speed of Now Part 1, is available via his website.
