With the new album being his 12th full-length, Urban reflects on the challenges of keeping his music fresh after decades of success. He reveals he even scrapped a concept project called 615 before working on High, explaining, "I thought I'd give myself some sort of framework... but I discovered that it gave me limitation." The fix? Toss it. "I took four songs off it and started again."
Urban's influences might run deeper than you'd expect from a country icon; he credits Jeff Lynne's ELO as a major influence on his songwriting. "ELO was like my Beatles," he says, sharing how his parents didn't have any records by the Fab Four, so he turned to Lynne for his crash course in melodic pop.
One of the new LP's standout tracks, "Laughing All the Way to the Drink," came from a jam session with his drummer and producer Mike Elizondo, with Urban crediting the live energy with bringing the song to life: "That song is a three-piece band just jamming their ass off."
He regularly chases that "live" vibe, even when diving into unexpected covers on his social outlets - like Ariana Grande's "we can't be friends (wait for your love)." Urban says, "I heard her song, and I didn't even know what she was saying, but I got chills," referencing the magic of a perfect pop song.
[
Collection
]
[
|
...
]