Keith Urban gets experimental on new album Ripcord, records with Pitbull and Nile Rodgers

COUNTRY superstar Keith Urban is pushing the boundaries with his latest album. And the thought of collaborating with one rap star had him quaking in his boots.

Reinvented: Keith Urban has stopped second guessing himself on his new album (Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images)

THERE are some names you do not expect to hear on a Keith Urban album.

Not John Deere or John Cougar, who are both namechecked on Urban’s new album Ripcord, FYI.

It’s “Mr Worldwide” — the audio-calling card of Miami’s party rapper Pitbull.

On Ripcord Urban has got Pitbull to rap on new song Sun Don’t Let Me Down.

Pitbull helpfully not only provided his 16 bars on the song, but also his trademark introduction — ‘Keith Urban; Mr Worldwide.”

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Yes, Ripcord is Keith Urban pushing your perception — and his own — of what a Keith Urban album can be.

His ninth album, Urban spent longer on Ripcord than any previous record, giving him time to experiment.

“I feel like I’ve got my own style and my own sound,” Urban says. “It felt like I wanted to explore where my sound could go and where I could take it. I recorded over 25 songs for this album, I got some songs that went way out to the edges but they didn’t sound like me.

“It’s like going clothes shopping, you try stuff on because they’re the hip thing but they don’t suit you. But I knew there were places to go sonically I hadn’t been without losing myself. That was the whole exploration for me.”

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Pitbull’s name came into the mix after another surprise collaboration — Nile Rodgers. The disco pioneer found fame with Chic, writing hits for Sister Sledge and Diana Ross before a stellar production career that stretches from David Bowie to Duran Duran, Madonna to INXS, B-52s to Tina Arena and one reborn after his Daft Punk hook-up, Get Lucky.

“I’ve been a lifelong fan of Nile, firstly as a guitar player but equally as a producer and songwriter,” Urban says.

“The more my playing progressed I started to look at the fact I’m a real rhythm guy. I thought we’d hit it off if we got a chance to be in the studio together.”

That finally happened in New York last year when both men’s schedules collided. Urban came in with his ‘gango’ — his six string banjo/guitar hybrid.

“My sole focus was to get a drum loop beat groove going, get Nile to play his badass rhythm guitar and for me to slap gango on the whole thing, get a rhythmical soup going and sing melodies over the top,” Urban says. “It was amazing how fast it clicked. Nile was grinning from ear to ear, we must have jammed for six hours non-stop that night.”

That spawned ideas for future songs, but the one they finished was Sun Don’t Let Me Down.

Shortly after Urban heard Pitbull’s digital radio station in the US and thought Mr Worldwide could bring something to the song, which has Rodgers’ funk DNA.

“He was that inherent swagger and Miami feel,” Urban says. “Lyrically it’s this sexy, playful, tongue-in-cheek thing so he’d be a no-brainer.”

Urban only had to turn to his American Idol buddy Jennifer Lopez to get a contact for Pitbull and sent him the song. He admits to concern when the Mr Worldwide-heavy version arrived.

“I was sh---ing myself, mate,” Urban says. “I’ve never done anything like that on a song before. Pitbull just does his thing and he emails you the track. When I saw it in my inbox it was the weirdest feeling, I was freaking out hitting play. Never in a million years did I think he’d say my name at the beginning of the song.

“I have to admit at first I thought ‘Oh sh--, we’ve completely lost our marbles’ but the more I listened to it I realised the whole thing was super fun and it’s just a playful track, let’s not take it too seriously. Every time I listened to it I loved it more. I was as shocked as anybody it would work, but in hindsight it worked perfectly.”

In more conversative country circles, Pitbull and Nile Rodgers on your song is a risk.

“In the past I may have worried about country radio or second-guessed things,” Urban admits. “This time I didn’t want to second guess anything. Someone said to me ‘Oh you wanted a rap on that song?’ No, I wanted Pitbull on that song. If he didn’t like the track, it wouldn’t have anything on it, I wanted his flow and his tone and his voice.

“I’d like to think I was smart and picked all these people for various reasons but they were just ideas that came into my head and I acted on them. This record more than any was so reactionary to ideas that came to me that I didn’t question. I just follow the muse. Even if I had a really set idea of what I want I’m a big believer that the muse, the energy of it all, just flows in a certain direction and I just go there.”

Jeff Bhasker is another unforeseen name in Ripcord’s credits — Bhasker’s CV includes Kanye West, Beyonce, Eminem, Mark Ronson and Lana Del Rey. He produces and co-writes Ripcord’s opener Gone Tomorrow (Here Today) where Urban’s “ganjo” sounds like a sitar.

“I felt like I could work with these people because rhythmically everything would have synergy,” Urban says. “It’s a very rhythmical record. My dad was a drummer his whole life, my grandad was a piano player, rhythm’s really in my blood.”

Urban wrote the Gone Tomorrow’s outro lyrics, the closest he’s come to rapping, shortly after the death of his father Robert last December.

“I’d actually lost a few people — my dad, my father-in-law, a few friends of mine who’d committed suicide too early in life,” Urban says. “Where do people go? Something happens when you start losing people around you, some from natural causes, some gone too soon. So those words spilled out and I tried to squeeze them into that section of the song, so I rapid fired it.”

Bhasker worked on Taylor Swift’s Red album, her first flirtation with pop music. Ripcord features producer Busbee, whose credits include Pink’s Try and hits for Kelly Clarkson and 5SOS as well as country acts including Garth Brooks.

“I was spoonfed on Top 40 from the last umpteen decades, that’s what I listened to as a kid. I’m a sucker for hooks and catchy choruses.” Urban says.

One of their collaborations, Your Body, recalls Taylor Swift’s Style with a similar feel to Don Henley’s The Boys Of Summer.

Swift got Urban onstage in Toronto last year on her 1989 tour to perform his 2002 song Somebody Like You with the superstar.

Urban was impressed how Swift fully committed to pop on her 1989 album, working with Swedish pop maestro Max Martin.

“I really believe historically Taylor will be recognised as one of the great pop songwriters of our generation. Every record she’s made gets stronger and she’s only in her 20s, she’s got decades ahead of her. She’s a phenomenal fricking songwriter.

“It doesn't matter who she’s writing with, she just writes great songs. All those roads go back to Swedish pop songwriters like Abba and Roxette. Abba are still the classic pop song architects alongside the Beatles. Abba even more so because they were way more commercial.”

As ever, there’s a few references to wife Nicole Kidman on the album. Sun Don’t Let Me Down lyrically re-enacts a scene from her film To Die For, including using the movie’s title.

“I thought I’d sneak that in,” he says. “It’s a definite shout out to the film, but it also works on its own — anyone could be dancing in front of the headlights in that to die for moment, you don’t have to have seen the film.”

The Fighter, a duet with Carrie Underwood, lyrically references the way Urban felt when he met Kidman in 2005.

“It’s that simple thing at the beginning of a relationship where the girl wants to put faith in this guy,” Urban says. “Maybe it’s oversimplifying it, but there’s something pure about getting that reassurance. I wanted it to be more of a conversation than a duet, I’ve always loved the way Meatloaf’s Paradise By the Dashboard Light did that. I was more intrigued by that than just two people singing at the same time.”

The Fighter is also, arguably, the least country song either Urban or Underwood has song — it’s a straight up pop song that could easily crossover to Top 40 radio.

Urban played his daughters Sunday Rose (7) and Faith (5) Ripcord tracks as he was making them.

“They did love the energy of some of the songs,” Urban says.

“At the same time I’m not going to go on the way they react to one of my songs, they might go just as nuts for a Carly Rae Jepsen or Wiggles song! It’s great they move and groove to it. I find the melodies are interesting, the way they react to that. If I find them walking around the house singing a new song that’s a good sign it’s got a bit of an earworm factor to it”

Underwood is touring with Urban in December, meaning she’ll be in the house to perform The Fighter live. In the past he’s had competition winners sing Miranda Lambert’s part in their duet We Were Us.

“Playing the Pitbull song live will be more of a challenge, I’ll probably have to get him to film his part on video and use that,” Urban says. “I probably won’t pull people out of the audience to try and do his rap.”

And in case you’re confused, this week Urban and Kidman are not getting divorced, not getting remarried and not having another child.

“It’s just part of the deal, I guess,” Urban says of speculation about their lives. “At times you do think ‘Where do these magazines get this sh — from?’ They just make random stuff up. We tend to get on with living. The reality is if everything is made of bullsh — t it never gets any traction and it dissipates. The following week the story is a complete 180. Meanwhile we have paid no mind to any of it and have continued on living our lives. That’s the way we have to be.”

Ripcord (EMI) out tomorrow

Keith Urban, Deni Ute Muster, Deniliquin September 30 with James Reyne, Adam Brand and The Outlaws, John Williamson, Troy Cassar-Daley, Shannon Noll, Busby Marou and more. Tickets from deniutemuster.com.au

Keith Urban, with Carrie Underwood, Adelaide Entertainment Centre December 6, Rod Laver Arena Melbourne December 8, GIO Stadium Canberra December 10, Allphones Arena Sydney December 12, Brisbane Entertainment Centre December 16-17. Tickets, Ticketek

Originally published as Keith Urban gets experimental on new album Ripcord, records with Pitbull and Nile Rodgers