Keith Urban wants ‘The Voice’ to keep door open for him amid Aussie leg of world tour
Keith Urban is finally bringing his Speed of Now World Tour to Australia, and while he won’t be back in the big red chair next year, he “would jump back in a heartbeat”.
Confidential
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Keith Urban will sit out the next season of reality TV juggernaut The Voice but hopes the door remains open to come back as a coach.
The multiple Grammy Award winner has appeared in the red chairs alongside Jessica Mauboy, Guy Sebastian and Rita Ora for the past two seasons.
He was a big part of the rejuvenation of the format and booming ratings when the show switched stations to the Seven Network.
“I actually don’t think of it as the end of a chapter at all because I love doing the show,” Urban told The Sunday Telegraph.
“I love the fact that those last two seasons happened and were able to happen for me because I had a blast doing it. I feel very close to everybody on the set and hopefully the door can stay open because I would jump back in a heartbeat.
“Much like The Voice in America has x amount of coaches come and go depending what their schedules are, I would love to hope that The Voice might afford me that opportunity as well.”
Urban will finally bring his The Speed of Now World Tour to Australia next month after it was initially scheduled for December 2020.
He will play a series of shows in the lead up to Christmas Down Under with actor wife Nicole Kidman and their daughters.
It will then be straight into working on his 12th studio album and is planning for a release early to mid 2023.
“Unfortunately the timing of it means that I won’t be able to come back for this next season of The Voice,” he said.
“I will be finishing this album, put it out and then we will be resuming our Vegas residency, which we hadn’t been able to do through the pandemic.”
Urban’s most recent stint on The Voice wasn’t his first. He appeared on the panel alongside Seal, Joel Madden and Delta Goodrem for the first season in 2011.
He also previously appeared on several seasons of American Idol in the US.
KEITH URBAN TO KICK OFF AUSSIE LEG OF WORLD TOUR
It isn’t a coincidence that Keith Urban has planned his past few tours to play Australia around Christmas.
The chart topping singer and actor wife Nicole Kidman try to balance their schedule so they can bring their daughters to spend the festive period and New Year with family in Sydney.
“It is great to be able to stay for Chrissy and New Year’s and to see all of the extended family, Nic’s mum, my mum, my brother and Nic’s sister and all of their extended families as well,” Urban told Insider.
“I am really looking forward to it and it is summer, a beautiful time to be there. My mum just turned 80 and Nic’s mum, who knows how many Christmases we get with anybody ever but particularly with our mums, I really cherish that chance to spend Chrissy with them and our family in Aus.”
He added: “Having the kids in there is great but the extended family as well because we don’t have any family in Nashville so it is incredible to have all of the cousins and aunts and uncles and everybody, it is just amazing.”
Urban will bring his The Speed of Now World Tour Down Under in December after Europe and the US.
Initially the tour was to kick off around the same time in 2020 although dates were successively pushed back due to the pandemic.
“It was meant to be the beginning of the world tour,” Urban said on the phone from the US ahead of playing shows in Kentucky and Nashville this week.
“That didn’t quite work out.”
The dates see Urban play shows across the US through to November 4 and his Australian dates to kick off at the Gold Coast Convention and Exhibition Centre on December 1.
“It feels so good,” he said. “It has been just a banger of a year. This year already feels like two years rolled into one, probably just for how much we have been touring and the fact that the contrast was a-year-and-a-half of a very slow dormant touring period and then just suddenly everything wide open.”
The tour will see Urban play two shows at Sydney’s Qudos Bank Arena on December 5 and 6 and will wrap in Melbourne on the 17th of the month.
He will be joined by Birds of Tokyo as support with GRAACE and Dallas Woods also playing the Deniliquin show on December 10.
Urban’s 2019 Graffiti U World Tour played Sydney through January that year and his Ripcord World Tour shows in Australia were in December 2016.
He noted the pandemic had impacted people in different ways.
“The last era that we went through … the portal that we all crawled through had various affects on people but I think it did a rearranging of a lot of people’s ways of being,” he said. “I think for me, because of my own personal journey, I had been through that kind of portal of life rearrangement already and was very grateful for what I get to do and how to spend my time as wisely as possible. A friend of mine said since the pandemic they had no problem saying no, whereas they used to have a really hard time saying that. I don’t think I ever suffered from saying that.”
He continued: “I have never really had a hard time saying no but I am grateful that people want to come out and see us playing live, that is something that I really missed in that time away, I really did.”
Performing live, Urban explained, “is the place where I give my songs context”.
“That stage is where I get to put together a set list so that all of these songs, all of the new ones and all of the old ones, all hopefully go together,” he said.
“When that wasn’t an opportunity and all I got to do was put out an album but not tour, it felt like half the painting for me. I have just always been all in when I walk on stage, it is like everything in that moment, I am not anywhere else. I am 100 per cent there and I give it every bit of stick I’ve got.”
Urbans eleventh studio album – The Speed of Now Part 1 – was released in September 2020. He has a bunch of new music slated for release next year, meaning that he will not be returning as a coach on the next season of The Voice Australia alongside Rita Ora, Guy Sebastian and Jessica Mauboy.
“I may do Part 2 some other time down the track but before then I have got another album I have been working on for the last year and a bit,” he said.
“A song called Wild Hearts is officially the first single, this new single we’ve just filmed the video clip for called Brown Eyes Baby is the second single.”
Urban has of course has delivered some impressive collaborations over the years, including Carrie Underwood, Taylor Swift, Nelly Furtado and Dolly Parton. And he has some ideas for the new album too.
“I have got a couple of things in mind,” he said. “I hope they happen … fingers crossed.”
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