Keith Urban
USA Today, May 4, 2016
This was my second interview with country superstar Keith Urban. The first took place shortly before he began his show, under unpromising conditions: He was standing just offstage in some venue, maybe twenty minutes before he had to begin his performance. I was in my office at the Country Music Association, watching the clock to keep track of our very limited allotted time. Keith was distracted and I was a little flustered, though I was glad to speak with him at all, since we had had some difficulty trying to find even these few moments in his schedule.
Our meeting for USA Today was much more agreeable. This time we were face to face, in some office on Music Row. He greeted me warmly: big smile, firm handshake, a little small talk as we settled down. We sat surrounded by some of Keith’s acoustic and electric guitars, a banjo, and of course his ganjo, a kind of guitar/banjo hybrid. Though assigned to focus on his new album, Ripcord, the fact that these were within his reach indicated to me his willingness to dig a little deeper into and maybe beyond the substance of its music.
Willing? He was eager to grab them, one at a time, to illustrate how he had developed a melodic idea or otherwise let the music speak with its own eloquence. In fact, he’d set up this space with that in mind. I had listened to and taken detailed notes on his new album, so the setting was perfect for the conversation I hoped we would have.
Keith was in mid-sentence as I began recording …
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… answering a question of some sort, I wish I could reach for something to give it an explanation that’s a little better than I can articulate.
I guess that sometimes music speaks better than words.
Imagine that [laughs]!
What does this album mean to you as a part of your catalog?
Well, they all do. They’re all photographs. They capture where I am at any given time. My dad was a drummer his whole life. My grandfather was a piano teacher and player. So rhythm has always been at the core of who I am and what I do. That’s continuing to become a very dominant part of making records for me. The people I gravitate to — Jeff Bhasker, Nile Rogers, Dann Huff — are very rhythm-based musicians. Jeff’s background is really in jazz. Niles is into funk and jazz — obviously funk. So everybody is in that very musical, very rhythmic place. Those that produce I tend to seek out more than just a non-player. I love the players.
There’s a broad stylistic range on this album. You’re telling me that rhythm is what links them.
I think so. [He plays a bit on his Maton acoustic guitar, thumping out a churning rhythm for “Breaking Me.”] It’s all rhythm-based, even though it’s a ballad. That, to, me is almost a genre before anything else. The older I get, the more I think about all the music that influenced me when I was growing up. I’m really starting to see how it played a role in my foundation. Obviously, country has always been such a strong part of what I do. But I realize now that I was totally spoon-fed commercial radio. When I was driving around with my dad in the car, that’s what we listened to all the time. We had the radio on way more than television. So there was all this music in the house, and it was either my dad’s record collection or it was radio. And if you’re listening to radio, then you’re being spoon-fed commercial music — hooks, choruses, catchy songs, even jingles. I realize that those elements coming together is really the core of what I do.
“Rhythm has always been at the core of who I am and what I do.”
What you’d done previously was maybe eighty percent country, but Ripcord is more of a mixture. But you crossed a line here with Niles Rodgers, programmed drums, synthesizer bass and so on. You’ve opened a door that you hadn’t opened so fully before.
The way in which people are listening to and absorbing music is changing dramatically. Obviously, the way in which people discover new music has changed dramatically from streaming and Shazam and of course the Internet and YouTube. People are sending stuff to people. Everyone is getting hipped to music from all their friends. It’s such a massive highlight of music coming into people’s lives that they’re just responding much quicker than ever before to whether they like it or not without defining what it is so much. It’s like, ‘I like that song.’ You go, ‘Well, that’s Justin Bieber.” Or it’s Keith Urban or Thomas Rhett — who knows? I don’t know; I just love the song.
You see technology as returning the fan base to kind of a Sixties mentality of genres melting into each other.
Absolutely, I think that’s right. Probably not coincidentally, it’s coincided with the emergence again of singles, like it was before albums. People are very singles-driven. And touring is key. It’s crucial again.
It used to be a money loser; you made your profits on album sales.
That’s right, absolutely. And I love it because you’ve got to be able to [sounds like: live alive]. I like that [sounds like: should separate] a lot of people. I love this live [sounds like: basic inn]. It’s very cool. I like that it’s song-based. I saw this one recently about the importance of trying to up the audio quality of things: MP3s are so crap-sounding and we’ve got to keep making it better and better. But somebody was talking about, “That may be true. But did you ever, when you were growing up, hear a song on the radio where the station was slightly off? And you had a blown speaker in the car? And you were loving this song! What were you loving? Certainly not the sound quality! It was the spirit of the song!” Something permeated through all of that stuff and you still loved it. So where’s the sound quality in that conversation? I think the spirit of it is key.
“I put this album together like a set list: What’s the album’s name? How do I want to close? What are the things I want to say within the journey?
What do albums still mean to you? Do you record songs on an individual basis because each one appeals to you, or do you still select material based on how they fit into an album context?
It’s a bit of a mix of that, I think. I have done a record like Eric Church did, where it’s a very intentional album piece, or a bit of a song cycle thing, which is what I think A Sailor’s Guide To Earth is, that Sturgill [Simpson] is about to put out. I put this album together like a set list: What’s the album’s name? How do I want to close? What are the things I want to say within the journey? And how do I hold somebody’s attention, whether it’s a mix of thematic flow, ballads and uptempo — a good mix that will hold the listener with unexpected turns now and then?
You want to include a variety of keys?
A little bit. Or sometimes you flow in with the same key. But I want to hold people’s attention. Sometimes that involves a mix of unfamiliarity, like “I wouldn’t have expected that from that guy!” For me, you can’t assume that place too long; they want something familiar, so you can bring that back in and then take them on a bit of a journey.
“Gone Tomorrow, Here Today” opens the album, and the first thing you hear is that ganjo. In the context of the album, this is you saying, “That country thing is still going on.” Then, from there, you take off on your various excursions.
Right, except that it was intentional for this song to be first because it is ganjo but … [he picks up the instrument] … As someone pointed out to me, the first song on Fuse opened with a banjo. I like to think I was smart enough that it was intentional, but it was just sheer luck. But there probably was something about the familiarity of that sound, particularly in my world. That song is like [he picks the opening riff] as opposed to [he plays a faster, more traditional bluegrass pattern but with some exotic intervals — a perfect and then augmented fifth over that same perfect fifth in octaves]. That’s a different, almost atonal approach.
How did you come up with that pattern?
We had this hypnotic four-on-the-floor with just a single bass note. For me to move around that, it just came — thank God! The other thing was, what do you sing over that?
It sounds almost Eastern European.
A little bit. The first lyric I wrote down was “the wreckage of my wicked ways / flotsam and jetsam in the bay.” That was my opening line. That might be a little esoteric, but I liked getting “flotsam and jetsam” in there. I was hell-bent on that, but as we kept working on the song, I began thinking there was already enough weirdness at the beginning. What am I really trying to say? And the song became “a child held up in the sky [sounds like: a sunset] usually say goodbye.” Because the song was really about being in the moment, I didn’t want the focus to be on regrets of the past.
A few minutes after this intro, you’ve got analog synthesizers. So this first song says you’re still rooted in country music but he’s opened a door to all these other elements.
That’s not what I was thinking as I wrote the song. The song was trying to go somewhere and I just kept following where it wanted to go melodically. It’s probably the only song on the record that I heard fully formed in my head, particularly when Jeff [Bhasker, producer] played those chordal movements in the breakdown part of the song. That was very much his world. As that started to open up, I loved how free-flowing the creative process was. There were no parameters, no thoughts of anything but to let the song be born. When it was finished was when I felt like it was super-important to have that be the first song on the record, because it felt like I was planting a new flag. It also felt to me like, if that was the first song on the record — on anybody’s record — I would probably feel you could go anywhere you want after this. I don’t know what that song is, thematically, melodically, instrumentation-wise. It’s its own little world, so you can go anywhere you want after that. That was very liberating to me.
The Ganjo Groove
Ganjo turns up repeatedly, in “Wasted Time” or “Sun Don’t Let Me Down,” in a funk setting, “Worry ‘Bout Nothin’,” “Your Body” — it’s there a lot. Why was it important to get that sound into all these mixes? It strikes me mainly as a rhythm driver.
The ganjo has always felt to me like a sequencer. And I flat-pick. I don’t use finger picks. On a song like “Sun Don’t Let Me Down,” if it’s [he plays scratchy a rhythm pattern, which sounds similar to the guitar rhythm part in Big Country’s “Steeltown”], while that’s happening and the groove is playing away [he taps quarter-notes with his foot and falls into a more traditional banjo-style pattern], it starts to feel like it all goes together. The ganjo has always been there. I bought this in 1995. It’s just been such an important part of writing songs for me.
On one song, you take an eight-bar ganjo solo with just the kick drum. In a way, this album is a love letter to the ganjo in a variety of settings.
That’s true.
What are the challenges of developing a solo style on this instrument?
I bought this in ’95 so I’ve been playing this thing for 21 years, which is crazy, right? It only started because I was making The Ranch record in ’95. I wanted ganjo on a song, so I called in a session guy. I loved the sound of it and I was so frustrated that I couldn’t articulate my idea and I couldn’t play that thing! I remember so vividly thinking, “God, I wish they made a six-string banjo! That would change my life.” Then I went to Corner Music [in Nashville] that day, walked in and this actual thing was sitting there on a stand. I went, “Oh, my God,” picked it up and played it. It was $950, which was like $2,000 more than I had. So I bought it, took it to the studio and put it on the song. I was like the missing piece. The song went, “Click! There it is!” So I put it on another song and then another song. It’s been a part of my sound ever since.
Urban Structure
Even with these different formats, this is obviously a Keith Urban record, not only because of your voice but also the songs you write or choose to record. The tune is low on the verses and it jumps up on the choruses. What, in your opinion, is a Keith Urban song?
Melody is key. I mean, lyrics are obviously important, but how many songs do we sing along to where we don’t even know the words? Melody pulls us in. Rhythm pulls us in. We’re tapping our foot to the radio.
You use guitar in an interesting way with this album too, especially when you’re playing long, mournful tones behind the voices. How do you find the right tone in an arrangement?
The first thing to me is always to figure out what to drive the song with. I try to find something that’s just a little bit different, not a standard acoustic thing.
“Break On Me” is a good example of what I’m talking about, with a long, moaning guitar behind the vocals. It creates a feeling of distance.
I’m trying to paint with the guitar and use it as an atmospheric thing as well, choosing even effects that are going to be on it. I did some of “Break On Me” with Nathan Chapman. The track was done; it was acoustic. Then Tal Wilkenfeld played a line on bass guitar. The song was finished, but when I listened to it I thought it was just a little sweet. There should be a little disturbance in there. It’s so major in its chord structure that it needs a little dissonance. In this studio, way over there, well after we’d recorded the song, I got an engineer in one day, set up my guitar amp and just soaked it in reverb, distorted the hell out of it. I stood in front of the amps, getting howling feedback and weird things, and laid that all over the song. Then we chose where to bring it up and not to bring it up. It needed a little bit of that. It was too pretty.
“Boy Gets A Truck” is kind of similar. There’s another nice, long guitar beyond its vocals too.
I hoped that we could get that to an anthemic place in the vein of U2. I love the Edge. I love the guitar playing he’s always done. It’s influenced so many guitar players over the past 20 years, much more than Edge probably recognizes himself.
The Mandolin Reign
You play a lot of mandolin on this album, as well as E-Bow.
The first one I really used E-Bow on was “Something Like You.” It’s actually the opening sound. It’s such a quirky little thing. It’s great because you can add textural atmosphere in a keyboard-like way but because I’m a guitar player I’d much rather work in that place. And you can stack parts, do different notes and use the faders to make dissonant chords.
What role did the mandolin play?
I use it for a lift, particularly in a chorus. If you’ve got [He layers a “Listen to the Music” groove and a higher range complementary part], it’s a sonic sprinkling over the top of the chorus. I might use that and double-track it, so you feel elevated when the chorus kicks in.
“You’re trying to frame the picture — but it isn’t the picture, it’s just the frame.”
Two tracks seem conceived specifically as a vocal showcase for you: “That Could Still Be Us” has a simple piano accompaniment with your voice mixed a little higher. The other would be “Blue Ain’t Your Color.” On these tracks, it sounds like you were thinking about singing with a little more nuance and expression than on others where your voice is to a degree an element in the mix.
I remember Don Williams talking about this because I grew up listening so much to his records. I learned so much about making records from those records. The records that he and Garth Fundis made are some of the finest in country music from a craft standpoint. They’re exquisitely arranged and recorded. They’re really magnificent pieces. I marvel at their simplicity. Don has talked about that before; he’s said that minimalism is very hard to do. You’re trying to frame the picture — but it isn’t the picture, it’s just the frame. “Blue Ain’t Your Color” and “That Could Still Be Us” don’t require much frame because the vocal and the lyric are the film.
Was that your concept from the start, that the arrangement be so minimal?
“That Could Still Be Us” is the only song I don’t play on. I just sing. I got hipped to this kid Jonny Price through somebody here in Nashville. He’s a quirky, wonderfully talented kid from Brooklyn. He comes to town every now and then to write with people. He had written this song with some people; I heard it allowed it immediately. He had done the demo, which I loved. So I was like, “Let’s go in the studio and build out from your demo.” But he’s the only guy on the track; there’s nobody else. He pretty much built the track on his own.
You’ve got open fifths and suspensions on this song. How does that affect you as a singer?
It affects me a lot. We cut the vocal at Ocean Way Recording Studios in Nashville. I sat right at the desk; I didn’t go out into the vocal booth. We set the mic up right here. There were only three of us there: Johnny, the engineer and I. I wanted to balance things where I could sing the track intimately and honestly.
So you felt inspired as well as challenged by having this much room.
First of all is the fact that I passionately love the song. I didn’t cut it because I thought it would be a hit or that people would love the song. It was an immediately emotional response to the song. I love the fact that they went to such an obvious place of saying “that could still be us” and “when I close my eyes sometimes at night, it still is.” I was like, “Gosh, I’ve never heard that in a song before. But I know that feeling so well.”
Pitbull Unleashed
How did you find a common ground between your music and what Pitbull does?
The elements I bring in have to be very fluid and organic. I didn’t put Pitbull on there because rap is popular or anything like that in our genre. It went on there because it felt so right for the track. I specifically wanted Pitbull because of his vocal styling. I didn’t want a rap on there; I wanted Pitbull on there. The song was actually finished. This was a breakdown where we were just going to let it chill for a little bit. We had these backing vocals that sounded like the “Good Times” theme. We were just going to keep building it up and get back into the chorus. Everybody was cool with that. Then one day I had Pitbull’s Globalization XM station on. I heard his voice. I’ve always loved his tone and his delivery. He always says it with a smile, so it’s a bit tongue-in-cheek. He has such a strong style. I guess it’s his Cuban origins, being in Miami … He’s a little like Sinatra: His lifestyle is why his music sounds and feels like it does. Nile knew him, so I said, “Can you send him the track and see if he likes it?” Thankfully, he loved it.
As a producer, did you pick up anything you can apply to future projects from working with Nile?
Nile is the vibe king. Rick Rubin is a bit like that too: It’s their ability to recognize that something is either happening or it’s not quite happening. It’s impossible to describe it, but their presence in the studio has an impact on everything that’s going on. They just have a way about them and an energy about them. I played a particular way, when sitting this close to Nile, that I don’t play when he’s not there. The weird part was that I didn’t know what he was going on those sixteen bars three-quarters of the way through the song. I gave him no direction. When he sent back what he’d done, I opened up the file and hit Play. At the very beginning, he said my name and then his — “Mr. Worldwide” — and I went, “Okay, here we go!”
On “The Fighter,” you get a nice Seventies-era party vibe, with major seventh chords. It has kind of a Lionel Ritchie feel. Was that your intention when you began writing with [songwriter/producer] busbee?
It’s so funny. There’s a song called “Runnin’” by Naughty Boy that he does with Beyoncé. The rhythm of that song inspired me to write this song. But when busbee did the track, he took it to more of a Motown place, with the major sevens and so on. It started to become a little more like “You Get What You Give” by New Radicals. We just ran with it. I was really pleased that Carrie [Underwood] loved the song and wanted to sing on it. For the longest time, the version I had was busbee doing a female voice, which wasn’t quite what we needed.
You sing all the verses and she sings only the questions that you answer in the choruses.
My first thought was that this is a song of reassurance in a relationship. We [sounds like: guy port] stand at the window and profess our love at the window above. We’re supposed to do all the talking and reassurance. I simplistically wanted to write a song where the girl poses the questions. And they’re super-simple: “What if I fall?” “I won’t let you fall.” “And if I cry?” “I’ll never make you cry.” “And if I get scared?” “I’ll hold you tighter. When they’re trying to get to you, I’ll be the fighter.” That was really it. The idea to write a bridge came when I realized that if we’re gonna have Carrie, she needs to sing more because she’s an amazing singer. So I said, “Let’s have just a bit more of a story in the bridge, just a tiny bit.”
And that gave her a place to hit a couple of high notes.
I’ve been a fan of that song by Meat Loaf, “Paradise By The Dashboard Light.” I love that the guy and girl are talking to each other, as opposed to singing together.
Carrie is going to join you on the Australian leg of your upcoming tour. How do you pick people to go on tour with you?
First of all, are the crowd going to love them? That’s super-important to me. Brett [Eldredge] was a no-brainer because we toured a couple of years ago. He’s got great songs and he’s an amazing singer live. That’s another I want — people that really deliver. No trickery. Brett’s really got it. With Maren [Morris], I wanted to take a girl on the road. The last tour we did, all the acts were male, and the two before that were all male. There are so many great girl acts right now. I got sent all these records by lots of female artists. Maren’s record was in there, with just four songs she was working on. I heard “That’s My Church” and “Eighties Mercedes” and two other songs. I was like, “Who is this girl? Who wrote these songs? Oh, my gosh, we need her.” They told me her record may not be out on time for the tour, but I said, “It doesn’t matter. She’s so good!” People need to hear her.
Right Angles
Where did the title Ripcord come from?
I’ve made it a tradition to never name an album after a song because no song should be more special than any other. That’s just my own feeling. Ripcord is the name of a play that’s opened up in New York. I loved that when I heard it. It had a lot of energy. It made me feel something. Then when I thought about what a ripcord is, you grab it to save your life.
“If you fall, I’ll catch you.”
Right. What’s your ripcord? What do you reach for? It was also intentional to open the record with a song about being in the moment, which carries on a theme from “Days Go By” [brief unintelligible passage]. The original ending was “That Could Still Be Us,” but I didn’t want to end on that note. So it was “Worry ‘Bout Nothin’” because I wanted to end on an upswing as well. That was important to me because I try to maintain a sense of being in a moment, going through all the trials and tribulations but ending on a good note, “leaning into the light.” A friend of mine said, “You’ll never be able to walk in the light. Just try to lean into it. Walk on an angle!” I try to walk on an angle as best as I can.
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