Who does Keith Urban credit for helping him get through his addiction?
Who was the inspiration for one of the most important tracks on his 2016 album Ripcord?
Keep watching to find out the answers to those questions and more.
You might think of Keith Urban as purely Australian, but he was actually born in New
Zealand in 1967 and then raised in Australia, where he developed a love for the guitar and
country music. He attributes his success to his father Bob's influence, but, as he admitted in
a 2016 interview with Rolling Stone, he grew up in a home with "no intimacy," as his father never
told him that he loved him. He also noted that his father struggled with alcohol abuse and explained,
"My recollection is that he was a physical disciplinarian. Ten years ago, I would have said,
'He never did anything I didn’t deserve.' Now I realize it’s not about deserving it."
Despite the abuse, Keith and his dad bonded over their mutual love of country music and America.
The musician even went so far as to jokingly comment to Rolling Stone,
"I feel very sure if he’d been into African music, I’d be living in Zimbabwe, having the
same talk about 'Wow, they must have thought you were strange when you got to this town.'"
Urban's struggles with his dad weren't his only childhood trauma.
During a 2015 interview with Extra, he revealed that his family's house burned down when he was
ten years old. Fortunately, everyone was fine, as Urban was at school at the time.
"And I remember thinking, 'I was just in here this morning getting ready for school,
and now it's just… it gives me chills.'"
After Urban's parents instilled in him a love of country music from a young age, he learned to play
guitar, and in 1979 he joined the musical group Kids Country. Even then, his talent was obvious.
That's especially clear in a rendition of Buddy Holly and the Crickets' "It's So Easy" that Kids
Country performed on the TV show Reg Lindsay's Country Homestead. And thanks to YouTube,
you can easily find even more video evidence of Urban showing off his talents from a young age.
But even though he picked up his guitar and started strumming so early in life,
Urban didn't always see himself taking center stage. Initially, he wanted to be a DJ,
and he even worked as an intern at a radio station in his hometown of
Brisbane. Unfortunately for him, but fortunately for the rest of the world,
he was fired after messing up his practice set on his first solo show.
As he admitted to Taste of Country in 2017, the radio station had two booths,
and while he was putting together his set in one booth, there was a serious announcement happening
in the other one. He hit a button trying to play the theme song to The Dukes of Hazzard,
but nothing happened, or so he thought. As it turned out, he'd hit the wrong button,
which resulted in the song playing in the other booth during the news report.
Nashville, Tennessee, is considered by many to be the hometown of country music.
In fact, it even goes by the nickname "Music City." So it's no surprise that it's also
exactly where Keith Urban set out to begin his music career. He began playing guitar for
popular country music artists such as Brooks and Dunn, The Chicks, and Alan Jackson. He can even
be seen playing the guitar in the music video for the latter's 1993 single "Mercury Blues."
While in Nashville, Urban became the lead singer and guitarist for The Ranch,
a country music trio that earned a record deal with Capitol Records and released an album in
1997. Alas, Urban doesn't look back on these days very fondly. It was so bad that during a
2014 interview with Rolling Stone he described his days in the band as "soul sucking to the
ultimate degree," so he quit the band after only about a year to try to make it on his own.
Despite the setbacks, Urban refused to give up. In 1999, he landed a solo record deal with Capitol,
where he released the second self-titled album of his career. It features some of his most memorable
songs, such as "Your Everything," "Where the Blacktop Ends," "It's a Love Thing," and the song
that earned him his first number one hit: "But for the Grace of God." The album went platinum a mere
two months after its release. By the start of the new millennium, Urban had officially
made his mark in country music, but there were still plenty of accomplishments left to come.
After Keith Urban went solo, it wasn't long before he started receiving industry recognition.
In 2001, he won the Country Music Association's Horizon Award, which
is now known as New Artist of the Year. Upon receiving the trophy, he declared,
"Well, what do you know? Prayers do work. Thank you, God. I prayed so much for this."
He went on to thank his mom and his then-fiancée, model Niki Taylor. Since this monumental night for
Urban, he's made it a bit of a habit of racking up CMA trophies. This has included winning
Entertainer of the Year three times, in 2005, and then again back-to-back in 2018 and 2019. Over
his impressive career of more than two decades, he's also won many other awards, including four
Grammys and a star on the Music City Walk of Fame. After much hard work and dedication, it was clear
at the turn of the new millennium that Urban's career was finally shooting towards the stars.
Urban was in a serious relationship with model Niki Taylor when he first made it big,
and she was even in his music video for "Somebody Like You" in 2002. But he's only ever been married
once, and it wasn't to Taylor. He and his now-wife Nicole Kidman are both originally from Australia,
but they didn't meet until 2005 when they both attended the G'Day USA Gala,
an event for Australian celebrities in Los Angeles.
While most people would probably be dripping in confidence if they were
a massively successful country music star, Urban actually seems a bit shy and less than confident.
It actually took him a whole four months of holding onto Kidman's phone number before
working up the courage to call her. But he did call eventually, and it's a good thing
he did. During a 2018 appearance on the Australian show Interview, he admitted,
"I thought she was way out of my league."
But fortunately, he discovered that talking to Kidman was "effortless." On June 25, 2006,
they walked down the aisle together in Manly, Australia, and they're still going strong.
Keith Urban has been open about his struggles with addiction,
which explains why he doesn't have too many happy memories of his time with the band The Ranch in
the '90s. As he revealed in his 2014 Rolling Stone interview, the experience was so bad
that it drove him to drinking. Nevertheless, he was still committed during these times,
as he avoided playing while high, but as he put it, once he got home after the gigs, he "liked
to get crazy." He eventually entered rehab in 1998, a year before landing his solo record deal.
But alas, that unfortunately wasn't the end of his addiction struggles. In 2006, four months
after getting married, Urban checked himself into rehab again with his wife by his side, releasing
a statement saying how he regretted hurting his wife and other loved ones. As he put it,
"One can never let one's guard down on recovery and I'm afraid that I have."
In 2021, Urban told NBC's Today that he credits his wife for his sobriety
and revealed that he's been sober ever since she set up an intervention for him in 2006.
"I felt surrendered, and that was what I needed to be."
On July 7, 2008, Urban and Kidman welcomed a daughter named Sunday Rose.
The couple told People Magazine,
"We feel immensely blessed and grateful to be given this beautiful baby girl.
She's an absolute delight."
A couple years later, they had another daughter, Faith Margaret,
who was born in December 2010 via surrogate. Motherhood was particularly special for Kidman.
As she revealed to Good Morning America in 2008, she never expected to be able to carry biological
children due to doctors telling her she only had a two percent chance of actually conceiving a child.
"They're just really, really special, special people."
In the years since, Urban has fully embraced fatherhood. Of course,
though,there have been some bumps along the way, like during the COVID-19 lockdown when
he admitted on an Australian radio show that he wasn't a fan of homeschooling.
With his personal life in a better place, in 2012 Keith Urban was ready
to be inducted into the Grand Ole Opry , a huge honor for any country musician.
Not only was he the first person from Australia to be inducted into the institution,
he was also the first ever from anywhere outside of North America to receive the honor.
The ceremony occurred on April 21, with Trace Adkins performing welcoming duties.
In keeping with the country music spirit, Urban shouted upon receiving his induction,
"Thank you very much! Yee haw! That is awesome!"
He also declared,
"It's a long way from Caboolture to the stage here
at the Grand Ole Opry ... and to stand in this circle is the most phenomenal thing.
This is a responsibility that I take deep to the heart of me."
In 2012, Urban joined the judging panel of American Idol, where he lasted for four
seasons. When he was officially signed on as a judge for the twelfth season, he told CNN,
"It's really an honor to have been invited to be a part of the American Idol family.
I'm looking forward to working with everyone and
to seeing the same passion that I have for music in all of the participants."
Fox cancelled American Idol after Season 15, but there has been speculation that
Urban may return in the future since ABC picked it up in 2017. That year,
he fueled speculation among fans that he might be willing to return when he told CMT,
"I've got a lot of things I want to do, but for me, it's got to be music-centric."
Even when he's not performing, music has always been important to Urban. In 2017,
he was honored at the Recording Academy’s Grammys on the Hill Awards in Washington,
D.C. for donating musical instruments to various underserved programs in the
United States so that he can ensure that music is part of every child's education.
In 2015, Urban lost his father to cancer. This happened soon after he
revealed a display of his memorabilia at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum
entitled "Keith Urban So Far ..." Shortly before making his appearance at the opening,
he learned that his father had entered hospice care. He commented at the time,
"He’s probably only got a few weeks, if that. I’ve just been dealing with that the last couple
of days. This has all come at a very strange time where it’s typical of a career that has extreme
highs and extreme lows all often at the exact same time. So [the exhibit] is bittersweet a little bit
because [my dad] is the catalyst for all of this. My dad is the catalyst for me living in America."
After his dad's passing,
Urban made an announcement on his website that ended with the sentiment,
"He is finally at peace."
With the release of his 2016 album Ripcord, Urban may have finally found the catharsis
he was searching for, especially through the leadoff track "Gone Tomorrow (Here
Today)," which he was inspired to write while processing his emotions after his father's death.
"I wanted that to be the opening statement for the record."
After all that he's experienced personally and professionally,
it's clear that Urban is far from done making his mark on the music industry.
In 2020, in the midst of a global pandemic, he released an album called The Speed of Now Part
One. He also has plans for a world tour in 2022, and it's safe to say that we can still
expect big things from even beyond that, like maybe even a Speed of Now Part Two.
If you or anyone you know is struggling with addiction issues,
help is available. Visit the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration
website or contact SAMHSA's National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357).