ENTERTAINMENT

Keith Urban talks ‘Idol,’ hit songs, new music

Cindy Watts
ciwatts@tennessean.com

Last week Keith Urban charted his 18th No. 1 song “Raise ‘Em Up,” helped crown Nick Fradiani the new “American Idol,” and still made it home to Nashville in time to catch a play at his daughter’s school.

Urban is a judge on “American Idol” alongside Harry Connick, Jr., and Jennifer Lopez. White House, Tenn., native Clark Beckham came in second on Fox’s singing competition that will be canceled at the end of its 15th season in 2016. Urban said, in his opinion, this year, Beckham was consistently the best singer on the show.

“Clark will find an audience,” Urban said. “I don’t know how close the voting was, but I think it was close.”

Now that he’s back in Middle Tennessee, Urban is enjoying his most recent chart success with “Raise ‘Em Up” while simultaneously planning his next trip to the top. The Australia native almost passed on recording “Raise ‘Em Up,” which he sang as a duet with Eric Church and included on his “Fuse” album. Although Urban has lived in the United States for more than 20 years, he was afraid fans wouldn’t buy into him singing the patriotic lyrics of the song.

“I thought, ‘Gosh, … I believe this song, but I’m a bit nervous about it,” Urban recalled. “I was on the fence, which was heartbreaking because I thought it was a phenomenal song.”

When producer Nathan Chapman suggested it as a duet, Urban said the stars aligned “in that one moment of suggestion.”

“It was just, ‘Eric Church, boom, this is it,’” Urban said. “This is the song we’ve been waiting for. I sent him the song and thank God he loved it. I felt like I heard it in my head as soon as Nathan said that about a duet. It was literally like lightning.”

“Raise Em Up” was the fifth and final single from “Fuse” and while Urban isn’t positive what his next song on country radio will be, he’s tenaciously working to figure it out.

Now that “American Idol” has wrapped, Urban plans to head into the recording studio full time. He said he had some “spare parts of songs” that didn’t make it onto “Fuse” that he thought he could use as inspiration for his new album. When he returned to the recording studio in January, he realized that what he thought he wanted for his new music, wasn’t what he wanted at all.

“I pulled back from everything and I think I’m back into the forest again where there’s no path,” Urban said. “It’s, ‘Here we go again.’ But I only respond to what I respond to. There’s other places to go, and I need to be brave enough to go there.”

-Cindy Watts, ciwatts@tennessean.com