Bobby sat down with Keith Urban. In Part 1 of the interview, Bobby and Keith dive into where his love of music started and how he discovered country music in Australia. Keith explains how his dad got him into country music and how their relationship led to him wanting to pursue it as a career. Keith talks about his early days starting out, his biggest inspiration as an artist, why he strives to make his live show so BIG and he also breaks down the day he wrote “Somebody Like You”.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
All right, and with Keith Urban, which is Caitlin sends
her best my wife. She just said Keith's coming over
and said, yeah. She said, tell him, first of all,
thank you for the wedding gifts. And it's the nicest
sheets we've ever owned in our entire life. You should
stay in more often, you know. I she got onto
me a little bit, because you probably don't do this,
but I still have two At times I have to
spray tan yeah, okay. And I got into the sheets
(00:28):
and spray tan once, and she reminded me how nice
of sheets they were, and then I should never do
that again. And then you reminded her how much expensive
tanning was and it didn't work. The tanning does not
really hold a candle to she should but they weren't
destroyed and they all came out wonderfully. But she said,
tell him thank you. And she had even and you
(00:50):
tell me because we had written you and your lovely
wife and thank you card, but we thought we would
just mail it instead of handing it to you, which
would have been more awkward to hand it to you
in person, or just to get it in like a
normal in the mail. Either way, both of mine. Yeah,
and you could have even not send it, but told
me that you did, and the thought that they counts.
I said that to to people, and I said, hey,
(01:11):
what if I just send people a message for a
wedding gift like a video method? Felt human? Yeah? And
with that and I said, but everybody just roasted me
like it was the dumbest thing they had ever heard,
because they just love the tradition of the if someone
sent to me a thank you card for something I
expect to thank you card for, I don't feel like
(01:31):
it means as much. If I get a thank you
card for something I don't expect to thank you, that's awesome,
I hear you. Yeah, it's it's a complicated etiquette, isn't it?
Is this back home? Is it so? Etiquette back in
like Australia, New Zealand is a dumb American thing where
we have this, you know, this is this a thing
(01:51):
there with after if someone gets married. Back in New Zealand,
I had to learn the whole thing about thank you gods.
And because I didn't grow out with any of that,
think my family was not that etiquette at all. Etiquette
they were not at all. I I had to learn
the hard way here that you're right, thank you notes
to people. That was that was completely fore into me.
(02:11):
I remember once you were kind enough to invite me
over to your place. It was a Christmas and we
were in Australia. He said, hey, you should come over
and I was talking to you about music in Australia
New Zealand and country music in particular, and I was like,
what is country music like here? And you you had
kind of expressed to me that country music there is
(02:34):
kind of am like, it's a different kind of homebred,
folksy country in Australia. That's some of the the American
version is getting over there, but it's hard to find
country music on the radio in Australia. Well, the struggle
for Australian country artists is there isn't the big mainstream
infrastructure that there is here in America. You know, here
(02:56):
we have FM country stations everywhere, get satellite radio, you've
got uh multiple video platforms. This is even preceding YouTube
with CMT and g C. None of that existed in Australia.
So there was a lot of country out us wanting
to make more mainstream sounding country music, but there wasn't
the platforms for it, and to some degree that's still
(03:17):
a struggle there. So how growing up there did you
attach yourself to the thought of country music and that
that's the kind of music you wanted to make or
were you naturally just making it and it was the
most organic place for you to fit musically? Here? It well,
I mean Nashville was just the destination because why why
(03:38):
why was it the destination? It was written on the
back of all the records that my dad had, um
Don Williams mostly and Glenn Campbell, Charlie Pride, merl Hagged.
All of those records all sit on the back of
them recorded Nahville, Tennessee. So as a kid, I'm like, oh,
that's where you go to make records period. I just
thought that's where you go if you want to make
a record. But how did your dad get so involved
(03:59):
in music for Nashville, because not not at all was
from Nashville. You're talking about country music, like other than
Bob Dylan, Nashville Skyline, you know, there's there weren't a
lot of I don't know if pop would be the
word or Nashville wasn't big unless it was country American.
How did your dad get involved in that scene musically,
so in the fifties he was playing in a band.
In the fifties he was a drummer and he played
(04:20):
in band called the Ricochets in New Zealand and in
the fifties. Rock and roll happened in the mid fifties right,
so made its way down to New Zealand. My dad
got obsessed with rock and roll and consequently American movies,
American cars. We always had American cars growing up, which
is crazy in Australia, and he was just in love
with America and he loved rock and roll in the fifties,
(04:43):
all through the sixties, and then in the late sixties
when rock and roll kind of went in a in
a bigger, kind of different direction than I mean, the
origins of rock and roll is really rockabilly, you know.
There was there was a country element in early rock
and roll. So when rock then became more rock as
we knew it through the sixties seventies, my dad went,
(05:05):
that's kind of a little too hard for me. And
here's the connection. There was a group called O Poso
Sako Singers, which was a folk group in the sixties,
and one of the members of that group was a
guy called Donald Williams, and then he broke away from
that group, dropped that Donald became Dom Williams and went
country and my dad just followed him. That was really it.
(05:26):
And so you growing up listening to that music, that
was your music in the house. Yeah. Yeah, well, and
my mom loved Neil Diamond everly brothers. Um my brother
was into E l O and Super Tramp and Eagles
and Fleet with Mac so that was old the fusion.
How proficient was your dad with a guitar? Terrible with guitar,
great with drums, but terrible anguitar. So for you, was
(05:49):
it drums at first? Or were other people playing a
guitar around you and you're like, think that that's it
for me? No, they said that mom and dad brought
me a ukulele when I was five, and I guess
it's a toy and and and my dad said I
could strum it in time with songs on the radio.
I wasn't playing any cool with but the rhythm was there,
so um rhythm, which I mean possibly from him, definitely. Yeah.
(06:10):
And my grandfather played piano, so all of my dad's
brother's role musical trumpet, piano, guitar, drums, four brothers, so
it was all musical and and I just took the guitar,
I guess because of the ukulele. Was he the dad
that wanted you to follow in his few footsteps of Hey,
if I'm musical, I think it's called that your musical
or like so many people in the creative world, that's
(06:30):
I've seen what a beast this can be. Like I
would like to push you away from it, unless you
push so hard back that you want to get in it. Yeah,
that that was it, definitely because I I I hated
I wasn't very disciplined as a kid. I don't know
if you can relate to that, Bobby, But were you
disciplined as a kid, because are you discipline now? Yes?
(06:51):
Because of the addiction that my mom had and my
dad left, you know, because I was by myself with
my dad bailing out when I was sick, my mom
being a drug addict her entire life. I was so
disciplined that I couldn't go down that path or I
was going to just go down the path and live
in that path. Um. So you know, even today, I've
(07:12):
never had a drink of alcohol because I feel the
addict in me with other things I do. So I
am extremely disciplined until I'm not, and then I'm off
the end and I have to find and I don't
know if you have to do this at times, well,
I have to find my healthy addictions. And I don't
know if that's a if that's a safe thing to say,
(07:33):
but I need to be addicted to something, So I
have to find the healthiest thing for me to be
addicted to. Because my natural gravity is to go to
something and and and invest myself all the way in
it so much so that it is unhealthy. So I
gotta find the healthiest version of that, because it's just
in me intrinsically. Like I I yes, I am so
(07:53):
disciplined to a fault because I know I had one
instance where I really felt it and I do want
to get back to, you know, talking about your parents.
But at one instance when now I was UM, I
got jumped and got a gun to my head and
I had a bunch of like trauma in that way
where I got held at gunpoint, I had UM, I
(08:15):
have a house broken into. It was like a lot
of things happening when my career was just starting to
take off. And I didn't take it seriously yet, and
I was having some some threats from the outside and
I couldn't sleep, and so my doctor was like, hey,
you should if you can't sleep and you're sick, you
should take sleeping pills. Took them, had trouble with them,
couldn't get off of them, and I was like, oh
my god, are you him and staying up doing that
(08:36):
side of them? Well, yeah, I don't remember. I don't right,
I don't remember. And so I would take these sleeping pills,
and I remember the day where I went, oh, I'm stuck.
I'm stuck. And it was the only time because I
remember my mom, because you couldn't sleep without them, couldn't sleep,
but couldn't sleep without them. I felt like they were
tethered to me. Anywhere I went at any point, I
(08:57):
had to have them with me because if I needed
to sleep, that was the only way I could go.
And I remember thinking, oh, I'm I can't I can't
beat this right now, like this has got a hold
of me. And it was the only time that I
ever related to my mom because she had been in
rehabit and now and I always thought, why can't you
just beat it, but I just had a smidgen of it,
(09:18):
and I was like, oh God, this is it. And
so because of that and how I grew up, I
am extremely disciplined. So did to answer your easy question
about life and music? You know, I do have that
discipline in me from I gotta be or I'm gonna
go off. That makes sense and not be completely Yeah,
so I was disciplined as a child. You were not disciplined. No,
(09:42):
I wasn't. Um. I think just being an oddest comes
with a sense of being able to create, and there's
so there's a sense of just freedom and liberation. Also
as the youngest, you know, I had an older brother,
and I think it's not uncommon for the youngest sibling
two potential be a little more like, well, everyone else
takes care of everything. I'm fine, I'm just floating along.
(10:05):
So my older brother played music. How come you didn't
get stuck with the bass. Yeah, he didn't play. We
started playing guitar at the exact same time I was six,
he was eight, and he started on a steel string
acoustic and I started one with nylon strings, and he
just couldn't hack it and gave up pretty quick. And
to your point about my dad. I went into my
dad one time and said these strengths, these hate playing guitar,
(10:29):
and my dad is all right, but then don't do it.
And I was like, that's not what I wanted. I
wanted him to tell me I have to do it
and get into a fight. So it was kind of
reverse psychology that worked really well. What was the relationship
like with your dad and you as you became twelve, fourteen,
sixteen years old? My dad's alcoholic was, um, he's not
(10:49):
here anymore. Um, but he was an alcoholic his whole
life and never just never dealt with it, you know.
So my brother and I classic adult children of alcoholic
raised and uh, I got the same genetic disposition as
my dad, and my brother didn't have that really just
doesn't have it. It's wild because I feel it. I
(11:09):
have it, and luckily I saw it early. But it's
crazy that you would have it and your brother doesn't. Yeah,
but then he has no hair and I have hair,
so it's a fair trade. Did you feel like as
you tried to achieve musically, you were doing it for
you or you were doing it somewhat to create a
(11:30):
bond to your dad? Maybe wasn't there because of other circumstances,
probably both, you know both, and you know, I think
um in the song we Have Wild Hearts, you know,
there's a song about it opens with Johnny Cash, you know,
sort of man in Black, because when I was five, dad,
mom and dad took us to see Johnny Cash, and
(11:50):
I remember so much about that concert. But the thing
I think that is subconsciously in me was I was
really taken by how my dad was staring at this
on stage and probably thinking how do I get my
dad to look at me like that? Right? Isn't that wild? Yeah? Yeah,
so I don't I don't know if I saw it.
(12:10):
It's hard to know. Right was that Did I recognize
in that person on stage with the guitar? Did I
recognize something that I was going to do was something
that I wanted to do with something that I should do?
I don't know. It doesn't really matter in the end.
When did it start to be And I'm not going
to say the word easy, I don't think that's fair
to you, but when did it start to be that
you had an understanding that you could actually create and
(12:32):
manipulate with that instrument? Tuesday this week, this week. You've
been missing, You've been missing a lot. You've been doing
pretty good up until Tuesday. You've had us all full.
Was it was it fourteen fifteen? Was it earlier than that,
where you're like, Okay, I can actually do this at
(12:52):
a higher level than like my peers who are doing this. Uh.
I don't know if I've ever felt that way. No,
I think because you know, in Australia, yeah, because I've
always been around people way better than me always, And
in Australia there's like the local guy playing in the
cover band, because people go, who your influences? I'm like
the guy in the local cover band Barried Clough and
(13:13):
then Dallas Seldom and then Ridge Grant and all these
guys playing in cover bands. I'm twelve years old, thirteen
years old watching them gone, I wish you could play
that good. And then at some point you play that
good and so you're already looking to the next guy.
I wish you could play as good as him, and
you just your your influences, keep moving. Who was it
for you that was your favorite your first favorite artist
(13:34):
where you really clicked and you're like, that's my favorite
your own. It's a good question. Gosh, I don't know.
For me. I'll vamp a bit as you think about
that so you can have a good answer for me.
You know, it was it was John Mayer whenever he
was starting, because I felt someone writing the things that
I was thinking and I never had had experienced that before.
He's a couple of years older than I am. But
(13:56):
I was like, wow, this guy one. I liked his tone,
I liked the style, but he was saying things. It
was like a really good comedian, you know how you go? Oh.
I always thought that I just didn't know what to
say it like that. It was the first time I've
ever heard that in song, and I thought, wow, he's
he's kind of speaking for me musically. Is the first
time that had ever happened. So he became my first
ever like, that's my favorite artist. There have been others
(14:19):
that that since I've done that. I'm a big Counting
Crows guy too, you know. Um, but John Mayer was
it for me. Now that I've given you a little time,
who do you think it is? Well, what I actually
think about is John Mellencamp is the is the guy
that's coming to mind. Um. The reason is I grew
up playing list country music right, going to all these
(14:41):
talent quests and different competitions playing country music. But then
I got to be twelve, thirteen, fourteen. I left school
at fifteen. I was playing in a cover band at fifteen,
so we just don't Top forty. And I'm playing in
all the pubs in Australia, and the pubs are rough places,
you know, just concrete floor, will hose it out the
end of the night. Rough crowd, no holes barred. If
(15:03):
you suck, they will let you know you suck. And
I grew up playing in that very rock environment, and
so I loved country. I loved rock. I love Top forty.
I'm like, what the hell do I do? Who am I? Musically?
And then John put out Loans from Jubilee, which is
an album that had songs like paper and Fire check
it out, Cherry Bomb Dada, and it was rock but
(15:26):
it had like fiddle and it had accordion and everything.
So we went to see him in concert. On that tour,
I was playing in a cover band. The band got tickets.
We went to see him and were way up in
the nosebleeds in this arena. Him and the band comes
out and they play and it was. It was so
insanely great and it was rock, country something whatever the
(15:51):
hell was going on. It was literally an epiphany. And
I saw what John was doing and I went, Oh,
that's the answer. You don't think about labels. Just take
all the things you love, figure out how to put
them together and make it be like this. And I
was very lucky to meet John many many years later
and tell him that story, and he said, it's so
great that that that's what you took away from that concert,
(16:13):
because most people leave the concert and go, I'm going
to do that. I'm gonna have fiddle in my bed
and you know, and just rip off Joe Mellencamp. But
what I took from it was just do your own thing.
Take all the things you love, and the original John Mellencamp,
obviously a Middle American guy who had country and rock
roots at the same time, incorporated the mall. How do
you see that affecting your show that you do now? Like,
what are the surroundings that you've taken from your life
(16:36):
because you have a different kind of show. Yeah, of
really anyone, I mean, and I say that in the
most complimentary way. And I've told you this off on
microphone too, Like you do the best live show I've
ever seen. You need to get out. I've seen a
lot of live shows. I'm jaded at this point too.
I'm extremely jaded. That's a higher compliment than thing it is.
Yeah it is. I've seen it all and I don't
care to see anymore because it's just part of the
(16:57):
life we live right until. But when you're moved, you're
moved so hard when you're jaded, and to watch you perform,
I I leave and I'm like, God, dang, I just
I thought i'd seen it all. So because of that,
your it is so so what do you take? What
are your influences that have created what is your project?
In the same way that he had taken fiddle and
(17:18):
he had taken you know, a different kind of percussion, yeah, um,
and the different services of me as I play guitar.
So that becomes a strong point of the of what
I do. I love guitar riffs. I love catchy songs,
you know, unapologetically energy too, and energy yeah, and fiercely
in the moment presence absolutely and really giving a ship,
(17:40):
like really really, like this is the last gig I'll
ever play. Every gig is the last gig you'll ever play.
That's what I think I want to talk about your
shows is not only is it musically wonderful and sonically
just the greatest, but there's so much energy there that
doesn't feel forced energy. It feels like pure energy. And
there's a difference. Sometimes you go out and you really
do I'm like, I'm gonna really work for this show,
(18:01):
but it doesn't feel like work. It feels like that's
who you are as an artist, Like that's the most
genuine version of you. And again, if you if you
haven't seen Keith's show, and honestly this wasn't leading up
to the promo of your tour yet your tickets are
until today, which works in great into this um and
it's the it's the greatest live show I think I've
seen because and I don't know why you keep going
into the audience. He may not not do that with COVID.
(18:23):
Now what I've just seen you do it so many times,
like stop, like I'm worried for your own hell yeah,
like people, Um, we were talking to Jerry uh Flower.
Yeah yeah, yeah, he was Jerry Clower. Jerry Clowers one
of my favorites too. By the way, Jerry, Jerry Clower's
(18:45):
only one time and he is just a pistol. Yeah.
So but the other Jerry, who you were in the
ranch with and who is your musical leader band director,
I don't know. He said that you guys were doing
a private function and you ran into the crowd and
they were so high they started biting you. Oh yeah,
(19:06):
It's like wait, what, Like I knew that was going
to happen, but it's already happened. Like they pulled your
shirt off and they were biting you, and you kind
of give off that door, like you you accept that.
So we try and feed people before this dame now
very passionate passion. Let me say this. The new American
tour The Speed of Now World to fifty three shows
(19:30):
between June sevente and November five of two. There was
a full list of dates and tickets right now at
keith Urban dot com. Let's go back whenever you're playing
in these cover bands, what was the ceiling for you
as far as for your career when you're fifteen, sixteen
years old? What's the ceiling in your mind? How far
you can get in your career. I never thought of
(19:52):
I don't know. It's so weird. I was never one
of these kids with a plan at all, none, just
let's try and get better. I was playing in this
cover band that I talked about so many camp yah
yah yeah, and I wasn't the lead singer. Was guitar playing? Uh?
We were, Well, it was for a cover band. We
(20:12):
were doing a couple of thousand people on it on
a Sunday afternoon, which was a lot of people to
come and see this cover band. But it was a
really good band. What was your role in the cover
band guitar and lead singer? Uh, well, we had a
lead singer that wasn't you. It wasn't me. Um. And
the only reason I joined this band was I had
a manager who was also managing this band. It's a
(20:33):
long story, but I had been in I've done duo,
as I've done bands. I've always had my own thing, right.
It was always me was whatever. I was always doing
my thing. My manager thought I really need some frontman experience,
how to handle a crowd, how to put a set
list together, how to put on a show, how to
just lead. And so he said, I've got this band.
I think you should join the band and watch this
front man, because he's amazing and you'll learn so much.
(20:54):
So I was with that band for about a year
and he was right. I learned so much from that
lead singer. But the but one of the things was
I wanted to do some original songs. We're doing all
these covers, and so I started writing a song and
he loved it, and the band learned it, and he
was going to even sing it, and it would be
on the set list and I'll be looking at the
(21:15):
guys in the band, I'm like, here comes that song.
He comes a song, We're gonna get to do a song,
and he would bail on it every time. He'd be like, no,
I skip that one. Let's do money Money, And I'm
like yeah. And after a while of that, I just
went and I'm not this is going nowhere. What are
you gonna do with covers? I want to want to
play original music. So I left the band and the
(21:37):
drummer and bass play I quit at the same time
and came and joined me. And so then what do
you do? Is it a new name band? Is it
are you? It was just me, It was just solo. Um.
But then of course I couldn't get any work playing
original songs, and so we resorted to being another cover band,
(22:00):
but slipping in my own songs in between the covers
at least. And so as you're doing your own music,
are you in Australia at this point? Yeah, that's all
in Australia. Was the plan to get to the States
at some point? Yeah, but I didn't know how when
nothing knew nothing about that? Then how did you? So?
Nine my manager got some tickets for us to come
(22:22):
over to America, and we came to Nashville and has
been played down at the shownees which was on to
Monbrian and pitched my crappy demo to all the labels,
met with complete silence. Is it now? It was met
with complete silence because that's your big, famous and successful
or was it really met with complete silence? Oh? No,
(22:43):
it was terrible. First of all, was a terrible demo, which,
of course, when you come from if you're not from here,
you think it's pretty pretty good, because it's pretty good
from where you come from, but it's pretty crap when
you get here compared everything else. And I was just
out of out of step, out of place, out of
my music didn't fit at all, So what made you
think that you could stay and thrive? Because Nashville was
(23:07):
like sixteenth and seventeen to have. And I got here
and I went, this is it? Is this it this
is the legendary iconic music row, Like that's it, my god,
this is this is fantastic. It's not New York City.
It's not like this is I'm at home. I love
it here. It's great, and I didn't want to leave.
And I also foolishly thought we'll get I'll get here
(23:29):
and I'll start writing songs and I'll record and boom,
we'll be often running in no time. And man, the
years just went by and by what were you doing?
And could you make money though at the time, Like
if you're coming from Australia and you're just visiting, were
you able to make money? So I signed a publishing
deal with a company in Australia that had an office
in Nashville. It's very small, little wage to where it's
not even a wage. What is it like money that
(23:50):
you're gonna have to pay him back? Right? So I'd
come over for a couple of weeks on my own,
stay with crash with somebody at their house. Gone right,
songs every day with whoever they've put me with. You
know that thing that we do here in Nashville professional songwriters.
Whenever the new kid in town is, they throw them
in with the pro songwriters and see if something happens.
(24:11):
Was that weird for you, by the way, because that
was the culture and you've been writing probably by yourself. Yeah,
but yeah, it was really difficult. I also was nowhere,
you're good enough yet, and so I'm getting with really
great pro writers and I just I sucked. I just
had so much to learn that was excruciating. And are
you learning or are you overwhelmed? I think? And also
(24:33):
frustrated the way in which I would write with my
drum machine and my bass or a banjo or something,
and always with a groove. Always. I would never sit
with a guitar in a legal pad in a windowless room.
So were you an early track guy? Yeah, definitely, because
I like I like them well, because I write from
the music out. The music is trying to tell a story,
(24:54):
and then I extrapolate the story from the music. Will
you write songs with melody? First? Um, just straight melody?
Will you write a melody and that's what you have?
Then you create around the melody. Are you more prone
to do that when writing if you're starting from scratch
or an idea a lyric, like where do you like
(25:16):
to start? If you get to choose, If I get
to choose, I like a groove. A beat doesn't have
to be fast, just any kind of beat that I
can then play along with, whether it's bass, guitar, guitar, piano, something, banjo,
whatever the matter, just something that you pick up and
just respond to. And then a melody comes, A melody
comes of some sort, and then you I think the
(25:37):
music has an emotion about it's trying to say something.
I'm like, somebody like you. You know. That song started
from flying out to l A meeting this guy John Shanks.
So I didn't know. Um, I was so nervous to
meet with some l A guy, you know, And I'm like,
what do I know. I've showed up with my banjo
and everything. And before I went to the session, I
went to this Irish pub and I had a pint
(26:00):
of guinness and it was like ten in the morning
and it was really good sad. Another one and that
was a really good sad, Like a third one. I
get in my car, drive over to the student know
where he is and by and by then I walked
in and I felt pretty pretty just not bulletproof, but
I felt very relaxed, very confident, you know. And he
(26:20):
had this little drum machine and it was going, that's
all it was doing. And I pulled my banjo out
of the case and go dang, the dang, the dan, dang,
dang and dang, and no idea why, just it just
came out and we're like, oh, it feels good. What
do we do with that? You know? It's in Then
the sound and nothing, sundown and suders something, gotta find
(26:45):
some words and that's that's it, and then you just
the rest comes. You're creating that vocal melody too, without
putting the words on. Yeah yeah, so blah blah blah.
So that that that, and then you'll go would you
record that? You go back over and go, okay, you
know what's down here? Yeah? Well a lot of times
it Gibberish is actually trying to say something like you'll
listen to the tape which way had a tape then
(27:06):
and it would be and then you're like, oh, there's
a never there was that a new win something right,
there now and never never known. Sounds like it's like screw,
it's all in there. I think Mick Jagger calls it
making foul movements. Great. So as you're here and you're
(27:33):
learning to write, when does the ranch start to be
a thing? Uh? Well? Um, this three piece band that
I mentioned, I had drummer and bass playoff that I
took from this cover band. I thought, well, let's let's
head over at the Nashville and New some shows. You know,
all I can bring is base play and drums. I've
got no money, I can't afford anything. Um. By right
(27:56):
around that time, I actually had built out a five
piece band. I signed a rec deal in Australia, did
did an album. Put two more guys in my band,
keyboard and guitar. So I drums, bass, keyboard, guitar and
me and we're touring around playing these songs off my album.
So it was starting to happen. In Stay. It was popping,
had a song on the radio and I was like,
here we go. It's great, you know, but all I
(28:18):
wanted to do is come to Nashville. I couldn't bring
the whole band, so I could bring bass and drums
at least I could bring and make a sound out
of it. My bass plan Drama were the two guys
that didn't sing, so I had no harmony, no nothing.
So my bass player went back to Australia and I
found a singing bass player from Florida and we played
for a year or so, and then he went back
(28:39):
to Florida and we found Jerry who came in and
took over. So we were free piece because of no money.
It was not my preference. That just couldn't afford anymore players,
and that eventually became the Ranch. What's interesting about that
if we were playing back some of the Ranch stuff
with Jerry, and it feels like it was just ahead
of its time like that, that music, and we were
listening to some demos and some old some more you know,
(29:01):
Ranch cuts, it feels like seven years later that probably hits.
Do you feel like it was a bit advanced musically
and that's why it didn't work at the time. Yeah,
it certainly didn't sound like anything on radio, and that
that's always the thing, you know with the record we
made in just didn't sound like anything on the radio.
(29:26):
It was hell making that record because we were signed
to Warner brothers, and we went in with every quarter
pointed producer in town. Ah, every one of those situations
didn't work because what happens is we would either sound
like us, which didn't sound like the radio, or we
would sound like something that could go on the radio.
(29:47):
It didn't sound like us, and we were just in
hell and just no matter what we did, we just
couldn't make it, couldn't make it work. Was there someone
that was betting on you though, as Keith Urban, Like Okay,
the ranch didn't work, but we still have faith in you.
And so many times in this town, once you don't
make it, people are like, well, you're just not gonna
make it. I see it all the time, like, well
you didn't make it, probably not for you. Was there
(30:08):
anyone that was like, hey, I know that didn't work
and maybe it was just you. Was there anyone that
was like, hey, you have that star, like let's keep
going and try to figure out who Keith Urban is
instead of this three piece? I think that was me.
I mean I just had that burning belief. I know
wise because I was I'd grown up on all this music.
(30:28):
I knew how to make the music, but I didn't
know how to make it with this band. This band
had a unique sound about it, and the band wasn't
I wasn't trying to get the band signed, you know.
The van wasn't in the plan. Originally it morphed into that.
So it was originally you, it was me. It was
me and my most player and drummer. We didn't have
a name. It was just my name. But we got
(30:51):
messed around with so much by the record company, and
the tipping point was over at that label, at Warner
Brothers at the time. They just signed me, not the
other two guys, and we made the record, and they said, oh,
we're gonna send you guys out maybe to play some
of these songs. But actually we're not sending you guys out.
We're just gonna put a house band together, and I'm
going to send out you, Keith, and about four other
(31:12):
artists on our label, and you guys will all share
the same band. And I went, no, I won't. You're like,
what do you mean. I go, I'm not, I'm not.
I'm not playing with just I got a band, take
my band with me. And they're like, yeah, but we
didn't sign your band, And I go, no, I know,
but I mean they're my band. It doesn't make sense
when I play with someone else. And uh, when we
got dropped from that label and went over to Capital,
(31:34):
I said, you have to sign everybody, and I'm I'm
going to get rid of my name. To the hell
with it, getting rid of my name. We're doing it,
you know. And I had so many people around me saying,
don't do that, don't don't drop your name and just
lose yourself in the band. But that's what I did.
All right, and with Keith Urban, which is Caitlin sends
her best my wife. She just said Keith's coming over
and said, yeah. She said, tell him, first of all,
thank you for the wedding gifts. And it's the nicest
sheets we've ever owned in our entire life. You should
stay in more often, you know. I she got onto
me a little bit, because you probably don't do this,
but I still have two At times I have to
spray tan yeah, okay. And I got into the sheets
(00:28):
and spray tan once, and she reminded me how nice
of sheets they were, and then I should never do
that again. And then you reminded her how much expensive
tanning was and it didn't work. The tanning does not
really hold a candle to she should but they weren't
destroyed and they all came out wonderfully. But she said,
tell him thank you. And she had even and you
(00:50):
tell me because we had written you and your lovely
wife and thank you card, but we thought we would
just mail it instead of handing it to you, which
would have been more awkward to hand it to you
in person, or just to get it in like a
normal in the mail. Either way, both of mine. Yeah,
and you could have even not send it, but told
me that you did, and the thought that they counts.
I said that to to people, and I said, hey,
(01:11):
what if I just send people a message for a
wedding gift like a video method? Felt human? Yeah? And
with that and I said, but everybody just roasted me
like it was the dumbest thing they had ever heard,
because they just love the tradition of the if someone
sent to me a thank you card for something I
expect to thank you card for, I don't feel like
(01:31):
it means as much. If I get a thank you
card for something I don't expect to thank you, that's awesome,
I hear you. Yeah, it's it's a complicated etiquette, isn't it?
Is this back home? Is it so? Etiquette back in
like Australia, New Zealand is a dumb American thing where
we have this, you know, this is this a thing
(01:51):
there with after if someone gets married. Back in New Zealand,
I had to learn the whole thing about thank you gods.
And because I didn't grow out with any of that,
think my family was not that etiquette at all. Etiquette
they were not at all. I I had to learn
the hard way here that you're right, thank you notes
to people. That was that was completely fore into me.
(02:11):
I remember once you were kind enough to invite me
over to your place. It was a Christmas and we
were in Australia. He said, hey, you should come over
and I was talking to you about music in Australia
New Zealand and country music in particular, and I was like,
what is country music like here? And you you had
kind of expressed to me that country music there is
(02:34):
kind of am like, it's a different kind of homebred,
folksy country in Australia. That's some of the the American
version is getting over there, but it's hard to find
country music on the radio in Australia. Well, the struggle
for Australian country artists is there isn't the big mainstream
infrastructure that there is here in America. You know, here
(02:56):
we have FM country stations everywhere, get satellite radio, you've
got uh multiple video platforms. This is even preceding YouTube
with CMT and g C. None of that existed in Australia.
So there was a lot of country out us wanting
to make more mainstream sounding country music, but there wasn't
the platforms for it, and to some degree that's still
(03:17):
a struggle there. So how growing up there did you
attach yourself to the thought of country music and that
that's the kind of music you wanted to make or
were you naturally just making it and it was the
most organic place for you to fit musically? Here? It well,
I mean Nashville was just the destination because why why
(03:38):
why was it the destination? It was written on the
back of all the records that my dad had, um
Don Williams mostly and Glenn Campbell, Charlie Pride, merl Hagged.
All of those records all sit on the back of
them recorded Nahville, Tennessee. So as a kid, I'm like, oh,
that's where you go to make records period. I just
thought that's where you go if you want to make
a record. But how did your dad get so involved
(03:59):
in music for Nashville, because not not at all was
from Nashville. You're talking about country music, like other than
Bob Dylan, Nashville Skyline, you know, there's there weren't a
lot of I don't know if pop would be the
word or Nashville wasn't big unless it was country American.
How did your dad get involved in that scene musically,
so in the fifties he was playing in a band.
In the fifties he was a drummer and he played
(04:20):
in band called the Ricochets in New Zealand and in
the fifties. Rock and roll happened in the mid fifties right,
so made its way down to New Zealand. My dad
got obsessed with rock and roll and consequently American movies,
American cars. We always had American cars growing up, which
is crazy in Australia, and he was just in love
with America and he loved rock and roll in the fifties,
(04:43):
all through the sixties, and then in the late sixties
when rock and roll kind of went in a in
a bigger, kind of different direction than I mean, the
origins of rock and roll is really rockabilly, you know.
There was there was a country element in early rock
and roll. So when rock then became more rock as
we knew it through the sixties seventies, my dad went,
(05:05):
that's kind of a little too hard for me. And
here's the connection. There was a group called O Poso
Sako Singers, which was a folk group in the sixties,
and one of the members of that group was a
guy called Donald Williams, and then he broke away from
that group, dropped that Donald became Dom Williams and went
country and my dad just followed him. That was really it.
(05:26):
And so you growing up listening to that music, that
was your music in the house. Yeah. Yeah, well, and
my mom loved Neil Diamond everly brothers. Um my brother
was into E l O and Super Tramp and Eagles
and Fleet with Mac so that was old the fusion.
How proficient was your dad with a guitar? Terrible with guitar,
great with drums, but terrible anguitar. So for you, was
(05:49):
it drums at first? Or were other people playing a
guitar around you and you're like, think that that's it
for me? No, they said that mom and dad brought
me a ukulele when I was five, and I guess
it's a toy and and and my dad said I
could strum it in time with songs on the radio.
I wasn't playing any cool with but the rhythm was there,
so um rhythm, which I mean possibly from him, definitely. Yeah.
(06:10):
And my grandfather played piano, so all of my dad's
brother's role musical trumpet, piano, guitar, drums, four brothers, so
it was all musical and and I just took the guitar,
I guess because of the ukulele. Was he the dad
that wanted you to follow in his few footsteps of Hey,
if I'm musical, I think it's called that your musical
or like so many people in the creative world, that's
(06:30):
I've seen what a beast this can be. Like I
would like to push you away from it, unless you
push so hard back that you want to get in it. Yeah,
that that was it, definitely because I I I hated
I wasn't very disciplined as a kid. I don't know
if you can relate to that, Bobby, But were you
disciplined as a kid, because are you discipline now? Yes?
(06:51):
Because of the addiction that my mom had and my
dad left, you know, because I was by myself with
my dad bailing out when I was sick, my mom
being a drug addict her entire life. I was so
disciplined that I couldn't go down that path or I
was going to just go down the path and live
in that path. Um. So you know, even today, I've
(07:12):
never had a drink of alcohol because I feel the
addict in me with other things I do. So I
am extremely disciplined until I'm not, and then I'm off
the end and I have to find and I don't
know if you have to do this at times, well,
I have to find my healthy addictions. And I don't
know if that's a if that's a safe thing to say,
(07:33):
but I need to be addicted to something, So I
have to find the healthiest thing for me to be
addicted to. Because my natural gravity is to go to
something and and and invest myself all the way in
it so much so that it is unhealthy. So I
gotta find the healthiest version of that, because it's just
in me intrinsically. Like I I yes, I am so
(07:53):
disciplined to a fault because I know I had one
instance where I really felt it and I do want
to get back to, you know, talking about your parents.
But at one instance when now I was UM, I
got jumped and got a gun to my head and
I had a bunch of like trauma in that way
where I got held at gunpoint, I had UM, I
(08:15):
have a house broken into. It was like a lot
of things happening when my career was just starting to
take off. And I didn't take it seriously yet, and
I was having some some threats from the outside and
I couldn't sleep, and so my doctor was like, hey,
you should if you can't sleep and you're sick, you
should take sleeping pills. Took them, had trouble with them,
couldn't get off of them, and I was like, oh
my god, are you him and staying up doing that
(08:36):
side of them? Well, yeah, I don't remember. I don't right,
I don't remember. And so I would take these sleeping pills,
and I remember the day where I went, oh, I'm stuck.
I'm stuck. And it was the only time because I
remember my mom, because you couldn't sleep without them, couldn't sleep,
but couldn't sleep without them. I felt like they were
tethered to me. Anywhere I went at any point, I
(08:57):
had to have them with me because if I needed
to sleep, that was the only way I could go.
And I remember thinking, oh, I'm I can't I can't
beat this right now, like this has got a hold
of me. And it was the only time that I
ever related to my mom because she had been in
rehabit and now and I always thought, why can't you
just beat it, but I just had a smidgen of it,
(09:18):
and I was like, oh God, this is it. And
so because of that and how I grew up, I
am extremely disciplined. So did to answer your easy question
about life and music? You know, I do have that
discipline in me from I gotta be or I'm gonna
go off. That makes sense and not be completely Yeah,
so I was disciplined as a child. You were not disciplined. No,
(09:42):
I wasn't. Um. I think just being an oddest comes
with a sense of being able to create, and there's
so there's a sense of just freedom and liberation. Also
as the youngest, you know, I had an older brother,
and I think it's not uncommon for the youngest sibling
two potential be a little more like, well, everyone else
takes care of everything. I'm fine, I'm just floating along.
(10:05):
So my older brother played music. How come you didn't
get stuck with the bass. Yeah, he didn't play. We
started playing guitar at the exact same time I was six,
he was eight, and he started on a steel string
acoustic and I started one with nylon strings, and he
just couldn't hack it and gave up pretty quick. And
to your point about my dad. I went into my
dad one time and said these strengths, these hate playing guitar,
(10:29):
and my dad is all right, but then don't do it.
And I was like, that's not what I wanted. I
wanted him to tell me I have to do it
and get into a fight. So it was kind of
reverse psychology that worked really well. What was the relationship
like with your dad and you as you became twelve, fourteen,
sixteen years old? My dad's alcoholic was, um, he's not
(10:49):
here anymore. Um, but he was an alcoholic his whole
life and never just never dealt with it, you know.
So my brother and I classic adult children of alcoholic
raised and uh, I got the same genetic disposition as
my dad, and my brother didn't have that really just
doesn't have it. It's wild because I feel it. I
(11:09):
have it, and luckily I saw it early. But it's
crazy that you would have it and your brother doesn't. Yeah,
but then he has no hair and I have hair,
so it's a fair trade. Did you feel like as
you tried to achieve musically, you were doing it for
you or you were doing it somewhat to create a
(11:30):
bond to your dad? Maybe wasn't there because of other circumstances,
probably both, you know both, and you know, I think
um in the song we Have Wild Hearts, you know,
there's a song about it opens with Johnny Cash, you know,
sort of man in Black, because when I was five, dad,
mom and dad took us to see Johnny Cash, and
(11:50):
I remember so much about that concert. But the thing
I think that is subconsciously in me was I was
really taken by how my dad was staring at this
on stage and probably thinking how do I get my
dad to look at me like that? Right? Isn't that wild? Yeah? Yeah,
so I don't I don't know if I saw it.
(12:10):
It's hard to know. Right was that Did I recognize
in that person on stage with the guitar? Did I
recognize something that I was going to do was something
that I wanted to do with something that I should do?
I don't know. It doesn't really matter in the end.
When did it start to be And I'm not going
to say the word easy, I don't think that's fair
to you, but when did it start to be that
you had an understanding that you could actually create and
(12:32):
manipulate with that instrument? Tuesday this week, this week. You've
been missing, You've been missing a lot. You've been doing
pretty good up until Tuesday. You've had us all full.
Was it was it fourteen fifteen? Was it earlier than that,
where you're like, Okay, I can actually do this at
(12:52):
a higher level than like my peers who are doing this. Uh.
I don't know if I've ever felt that way. No,
I think because you know, in Australia, yeah, because I've
always been around people way better than me always, And
in Australia there's like the local guy playing in the
cover band, because people go, who your influences? I'm like
the guy in the local cover band Barried Clough and
(13:13):
then Dallas Seldom and then Ridge Grant and all these
guys playing in cover bands. I'm twelve years old, thirteen
years old watching them gone, I wish you could play
that good. And then at some point you play that
good and so you're already looking to the next guy.
I wish you could play as good as him, and
you just your your influences, keep moving. Who was it
for you that was your favorite your first favorite artist
(13:34):
where you really clicked and you're like, that's my favorite
your own. It's a good question. Gosh, I don't know.
For me. I'll vamp a bit as you think about
that so you can have a good answer for me.
You know, it was it was John Mayer whenever he
was starting, because I felt someone writing the things that
I was thinking and I never had had experienced that before.
He's a couple of years older than I am. But
(13:56):
I was like, wow, this guy one. I liked his tone,
I liked the style, but he was saying things. It
was like a really good comedian, you know how you go? Oh.
I always thought that I just didn't know what to
say it like that. It was the first time I've
ever heard that in song, and I thought, wow, he's
he's kind of speaking for me musically. Is the first
time that had ever happened. So he became my first
ever like, that's my favorite artist. There have been others
(14:19):
that that since I've done that. I'm a big Counting
Crows guy too, you know. Um, but John Mayer was
it for me. Now that I've given you a little time,
who do you think it is? Well, what I actually
think about is John Mellencamp is the is the guy
that's coming to mind. Um. The reason is I grew
up playing list country music right, going to all these
(14:41):
talent quests and different competitions playing country music. But then
I got to be twelve, thirteen, fourteen. I left school
at fifteen. I was playing in a cover band at fifteen,
so we just don't Top forty. And I'm playing in
all the pubs in Australia, and the pubs are rough places,
you know, just concrete floor, will hose it out the
end of the night. Rough crowd, no holes barred. If
(15:03):
you suck, they will let you know you suck. And
I grew up playing in that very rock environment, and
so I loved country. I loved rock. I love Top forty.
I'm like, what the hell do I do? Who am I? Musically?
And then John put out Loans from Jubilee, which is
an album that had songs like paper and Fire check
it out, Cherry Bomb Dada, and it was rock but
(15:26):
it had like fiddle and it had accordion and everything.
So we went to see him in concert. On that tour,
I was playing in a cover band. The band got tickets.
We went to see him and were way up in
the nosebleeds in this arena. Him and the band comes
out and they play and it was. It was so
insanely great and it was rock, country something whatever the
(15:51):
hell was going on. It was literally an epiphany. And
I saw what John was doing and I went, Oh,
that's the answer. You don't think about labels. Just take
all the things you love, figure out how to put
them together and make it be like this. And I
was very lucky to meet John many many years later
and tell him that story, and he said, it's so
great that that that's what you took away from that concert,
(16:13):
because most people leave the concert and go, I'm going
to do that. I'm gonna have fiddle in my bed
and you know, and just rip off Joe Mellencamp. But
what I took from it was just do your own thing.
Take all the things you love, and the original John Mellencamp,
obviously a Middle American guy who had country and rock
roots at the same time, incorporated the mall. How do
you see that affecting your show that you do now? Like,
what are the surroundings that you've taken from your life
(16:36):
because you have a different kind of show. Yeah, of
really anyone, I mean, and I say that in the
most complimentary way. And I've told you this off on
microphone too, Like you do the best live show I've
ever seen. You need to get out. I've seen a
lot of live shows. I'm jaded at this point too.
I'm extremely jaded. That's a higher compliment than thing it is.
Yeah it is. I've seen it all and I don't
care to see anymore because it's just part of the
(16:57):
life we live right until. But when you're moved, you're
moved so hard when you're jaded, and to watch you perform,
I I leave and I'm like, God, dang, I just
I thought i'd seen it all. So because of that,
your it is so so what do you take? What
are your influences that have created what is your project?
In the same way that he had taken fiddle and
(17:18):
he had taken you know, a different kind of percussion, yeah, um,
and the different services of me as I play guitar.
So that becomes a strong point of the of what
I do. I love guitar riffs. I love catchy songs,
you know, unapologetically energy too, and energy yeah, and fiercely
in the moment presence absolutely and really giving a ship,
(17:40):
like really really, like this is the last gig I'll
ever play. Every gig is the last gig you'll ever play.
That's what I think I want to talk about your
shows is not only is it musically wonderful and sonically
just the greatest, but there's so much energy there that
doesn't feel forced energy. It feels like pure energy. And
there's a difference. Sometimes you go out and you really
do I'm like, I'm gonna really work for this show,
(18:01):
but it doesn't feel like work. It feels like that's
who you are as an artist, Like that's the most
genuine version of you. And again, if you if you
haven't seen Keith's show, and honestly this wasn't leading up
to the promo of your tour yet your tickets are
until today, which works in great into this um and
it's the it's the greatest live show I think I've
seen because and I don't know why you keep going
into the audience. He may not not do that with COVID.
(18:23):
Now what I've just seen you do it so many times,
like stop, like I'm worried for your own hell yeah,
like people, Um, we were talking to Jerry uh Flower.
Yeah yeah, yeah, he was Jerry Clower. Jerry Clowers one
of my favorites too. By the way, Jerry, Jerry Clower's
(18:45):
only one time and he is just a pistol. Yeah.
So but the other Jerry, who you were in the
ranch with and who is your musical leader band director,
I don't know. He said that you guys were doing
a private function and you ran into the crowd and
they were so high they started biting you. Oh yeah,
(19:06):
It's like wait, what, Like I knew that was going
to happen, but it's already happened. Like they pulled your
shirt off and they were biting you, and you kind
of give off that door, like you you accept that.
So we try and feed people before this dame now
very passionate passion. Let me say this. The new American
tour The Speed of Now World to fifty three shows
(19:30):
between June sevente and November five of two. There was
a full list of dates and tickets right now at
keith Urban dot com. Let's go back whenever you're playing
in these cover bands, what was the ceiling for you
as far as for your career when you're fifteen, sixteen
years old? What's the ceiling in your mind? How far
you can get in your career. I never thought of
(19:52):
I don't know. It's so weird. I was never one
of these kids with a plan at all, none, just
let's try and get better. I was playing in this
cover band that I talked about so many camp yah
yah yeah, and I wasn't the lead singer. Was guitar playing? Uh?
We were, Well, it was for a cover band. We
(20:12):
were doing a couple of thousand people on it on
a Sunday afternoon, which was a lot of people to
come and see this cover band. But it was a
really good band. What was your role in the cover
band guitar and lead singer? Uh, well, we had a
lead singer that wasn't you. It wasn't me. Um. And
the only reason I joined this band was I had
a manager who was also managing this band. It's a
(20:33):
long story, but I had been in I've done duo,
as I've done bands. I've always had my own thing, right.
It was always me was whatever. I was always doing
my thing. My manager thought I really need some frontman experience,
how to handle a crowd, how to put a set
list together, how to put on a show, how to
just lead. And so he said, I've got this band.
I think you should join the band and watch this
front man, because he's amazing and you'll learn so much.
(20:54):
So I was with that band for about a year
and he was right. I learned so much from that
lead singer. But the but one of the things was
I wanted to do some original songs. We're doing all
these covers, and so I started writing a song and
he loved it, and the band learned it, and he
was going to even sing it, and it would be
on the set list and I'll be looking at the
(21:15):
guys in the band, I'm like, here comes that song.
He comes a song, We're gonna get to do a song,
and he would bail on it every time. He'd be like, no,
I skip that one. Let's do money Money, And I'm
like yeah. And after a while of that, I just
went and I'm not this is going nowhere. What are
you gonna do with covers? I want to want to
play original music. So I left the band and the
(21:37):
drummer and bass play I quit at the same time
and came and joined me. And so then what do
you do? Is it a new name band? Is it
are you? It was just me, It was just solo. Um.
But then of course I couldn't get any work playing
original songs, and so we resorted to being another cover band,
(22:00):
but slipping in my own songs in between the covers
at least. And so as you're doing your own music,
are you in Australia at this point? Yeah, that's all
in Australia. Was the plan to get to the States
at some point? Yeah, but I didn't know how when
nothing knew nothing about that? Then how did you? So?
Nine my manager got some tickets for us to come
(22:22):
over to America, and we came to Nashville and has
been played down at the shownees which was on to
Monbrian and pitched my crappy demo to all the labels,
met with complete silence. Is it now? It was met
with complete silence because that's your big, famous and successful
or was it really met with complete silence? Oh? No,
(22:43):
it was terrible. First of all, was a terrible demo, which,
of course, when you come from if you're not from here,
you think it's pretty pretty good, because it's pretty good
from where you come from, but it's pretty crap when
you get here compared everything else. And I was just
out of out of step, out of place, out of
my music didn't fit at all, So what made you
think that you could stay and thrive? Because Nashville was
(23:07):
like sixteenth and seventeen to have. And I got here
and I went, this is it? Is this it this
is the legendary iconic music row, Like that's it, my god,
this is this is fantastic. It's not New York City.
It's not like this is I'm at home. I love
it here. It's great, and I didn't want to leave.
And I also foolishly thought we'll get I'll get here
(23:29):
and I'll start writing songs and I'll record and boom,
we'll be often running in no time. And man, the
years just went by and by what were you doing?
And could you make money though at the time, Like
if you're coming from Australia and you're just visiting, were
you able to make money? So I signed a publishing
deal with a company in Australia that had an office
in Nashville. It's very small, little wage to where it's
not even a wage. What is it like money that
(23:50):
you're gonna have to pay him back? Right? So I'd
come over for a couple of weeks on my own,
stay with crash with somebody at their house. Gone right,
songs every day with whoever they've put me with. You
know that thing that we do here in Nashville professional songwriters.
Whenever the new kid in town is, they throw them
in with the pro songwriters and see if something happens.
(24:11):
Was that weird for you, by the way, because that
was the culture and you've been writing probably by yourself. Yeah,
but yeah, it was really difficult. I also was nowhere,
you're good enough yet, and so I'm getting with really
great pro writers and I just I sucked. I just
had so much to learn that was excruciating. And are
you learning or are you overwhelmed? I think? And also
(24:33):
frustrated the way in which I would write with my
drum machine and my bass or a banjo or something,
and always with a groove. Always. I would never sit
with a guitar in a legal pad in a windowless room.
So were you an early track guy? Yeah, definitely, because
I like I like them well, because I write from
the music out. The music is trying to tell a story,
(24:54):
and then I extrapolate the story from the music. Will
you write songs with melody? First? Um, just straight melody?
Will you write a melody and that's what you have?
Then you create around the melody. Are you more prone
to do that when writing if you're starting from scratch
or an idea a lyric, like where do you like
(25:16):
to start? If you get to choose, If I get
to choose, I like a groove. A beat doesn't have
to be fast, just any kind of beat that I
can then play along with, whether it's bass, guitar, guitar, piano, something, banjo,
whatever the matter, just something that you pick up and
just respond to. And then a melody comes, A melody
comes of some sort, and then you I think the
(25:37):
music has an emotion about it's trying to say something.
I'm like, somebody like you. You know. That song started
from flying out to l A meeting this guy John Shanks.
So I didn't know. Um, I was so nervous to
meet with some l A guy, you know, And I'm like,
what do I know. I've showed up with my banjo
and everything. And before I went to the session, I
went to this Irish pub and I had a pint
(26:00):
of guinness and it was like ten in the morning
and it was really good sad. Another one and that
was a really good sad, Like a third one. I
get in my car, drive over to the student know
where he is and by and by then I walked
in and I felt pretty pretty just not bulletproof, but
I felt very relaxed, very confident, you know. And he
(26:20):
had this little drum machine and it was going, that's
all it was doing. And I pulled my banjo out
of the case and go dang, the dang, the dan, dang,
dang and dang, and no idea why, just it just
came out and we're like, oh, it feels good. What
do we do with that? You know? It's in Then
the sound and nothing, sundown and suders something, gotta find
(26:45):
some words and that's that's it, and then you just
the rest comes. You're creating that vocal melody too, without
putting the words on. Yeah yeah, so blah blah blah.
So that that that, and then you'll go would you
record that? You go back over and go, okay, you
know what's down here? Yeah? Well a lot of times
it Gibberish is actually trying to say something like you'll
listen to the tape which way had a tape then
(27:06):
and it would be and then you're like, oh, there's
a never there was that a new win something right,
there now and never never known. Sounds like it's like screw,
it's all in there. I think Mick Jagger calls it
making foul movements. Great. So as you're here and you're
(27:33):
learning to write, when does the ranch start to be
a thing? Uh? Well? Um, this three piece band that
I mentioned, I had drummer and bass playoff that I
took from this cover band. I thought, well, let's let's
head over at the Nashville and New some shows. You know,
all I can bring is base play and drums. I've
got no money, I can't afford anything. Um. By right
(27:56):
around that time, I actually had built out a five
piece band. I signed a rec deal in Australia, did
did an album. Put two more guys in my band,
keyboard and guitar. So I drums, bass, keyboard, guitar and
me and we're touring around playing these songs off my album.
So it was starting to happen. In Stay. It was popping,
had a song on the radio and I was like,
here we go. It's great, you know, but all I
(28:18):
wanted to do is come to Nashville. I couldn't bring
the whole band, so I could bring bass and drums
at least I could bring and make a sound out
of it. My bass plan Drama were the two guys
that didn't sing, so I had no harmony, no nothing.
So my bass player went back to Australia and I
found a singing bass player from Florida and we played
for a year or so, and then he went back
(28:39):
to Florida and we found Jerry who came in and
took over. So we were free piece because of no money.
It was not my preference. That just couldn't afford anymore players,
and that eventually became the Ranch. What's interesting about that
if we were playing back some of the Ranch stuff
with Jerry, and it feels like it was just ahead
of its time like that, that music, and we were
listening to some demos and some old some more you know,
(29:01):
Ranch cuts, it feels like seven years later that probably hits.
Do you feel like it was a bit advanced musically
and that's why it didn't work at the time. Yeah,
it certainly didn't sound like anything on radio, and that
that's always the thing, you know with the record we
made in just didn't sound like anything on the radio.
(29:26):
It was hell making that record because we were signed
to Warner brothers, and we went in with every quarter
pointed producer in town. Ah, every one of those situations
didn't work because what happens is we would either sound
like us, which didn't sound like the radio, or we
would sound like something that could go on the radio.
(29:47):
It didn't sound like us, and we were just in
hell and just no matter what we did, we just
couldn't make it, couldn't make it work. Was there someone
that was betting on you though, as Keith Urban, Like Okay,
the ranch didn't work, but we still have faith in you.
And so many times in this town, once you don't
make it, people are like, well, you're just not gonna
make it. I see it all the time, like, well
you didn't make it, probably not for you. Was there
(30:08):
anyone that was like, hey, I know that didn't work
and maybe it was just you. Was there anyone that
was like, hey, you have that star, like let's keep
going and try to figure out who Keith Urban is
instead of this three piece? I think that was me.
I mean I just had that burning belief. I know
wise because I was I'd grown up on all this music.
(30:28):
I knew how to make the music, but I didn't
know how to make it with this band. This band
had a unique sound about it, and the band wasn't
I wasn't trying to get the band signed, you know.
The van wasn't in the plan. Originally it morphed into that.
So it was originally you, it was me. It was
me and my most player and drummer. We didn't have
a name. It was just my name. But we got
(30:51):
messed around with so much by the record company, and
the tipping point was over at that label, at Warner
Brothers at the time. They just signed me, not the
other two guys, and we made the record, and they said, oh,
we're gonna send you guys out maybe to play some
of these songs. But actually we're not sending you guys out.
We're just gonna put a house band together, and I'm
going to send out you, Keith, and about four other
(31:12):
artists on our label, and you guys will all share
the same band. And I went, no, I won't. You're like,
what do you mean. I go, I'm not, I'm not.
I'm not playing with just I got a band, take
my band with me. And they're like, yeah, but we
didn't sign your band, And I go, no, I know,
but I mean they're my band. It doesn't make sense
when I play with someone else. And uh, when we
got dropped from that label and went over to Capital,
(31:34):
I said, you have to sign everybody, and I'm I'm
going to get rid of my name. To the hell
with it, getting rid of my name. We're doing it,
you know. And I had so many people around me saying,
don't do that, don't don't drop your name and just
lose yourself in the band. But that's what I did.
Host
Bobby Bones
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