August 3, 2020 • 12 mins
You know you have “made it,” when country superstar Keith Urban is texting you.
On this Cody Cast podcast, Keith texts Cody and calls to discuss his studio space, how the ACM Awards are transforming award shows, and how he has been stockpiling recorded music since recording his latest single “God Whispered Your Name.”
PLUS: How is Keith feeling about his “tweenage” daughter growing up?
It is all revealed on this Cody Cast podcast. Listen now.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is Cody Ellen's podcast. This is Cody Cast. He's
actually one of my favorite people in the world. I
love Keith Urban. I love his music. His performances are
always amazing, such a great entertainer, and I always feel
great after I talked to him, like everything feels better
after Keith has spoken um. And so that's one of
(00:20):
the things I got out of this particular conversation. So
I hope you enjoy Keith Urban on this Cody cast podcast.
Cody is Keith, and the crowd goes wild, the crowd
of one. It's I know, it's me in the dog
and that's as good as it gets right now here
(00:42):
better than being in the dog house, that's true. Where
are you not in the doghouse? Good? That is good.
I'm in my studio, which may be the dog house. No,
I'm in my studio here in Nashville, n nice. Are
you finishing up the album right now, because we've got
just a little while here to wait before. Yes, I'm
(01:05):
finishing it up as as I speak. I love the
title of this by the way, It's called The Speed
of Now Part one. So what exactly is the Speed
of Now? Because I can't figure it out at this moment. Um.
I love to sort of play on this moment really
kind of it is an odd time. So I just
sent you a picture of the studio so you know
(01:25):
where I'm sitting. Um. This title actually came to me
September October last year, really strangely enough, um and and
even Stranger is the reason for that title. And it
was really due to the fact that I was traveling
(01:46):
around quite a bit. We played over in Europe in
my in uh the earlier part of last year maybe
September is sure, and everywhere I went I found I
felt like people were just going faster and faster, and
life was going faster, and people were busier, and there
was just way it was just insane. Airports were packed,
(02:08):
and threo was were packed. Everything's packed. And I remember
thinking to myself, I'm one of those trips. Where is
this all heading? Like this is unsustainable, This just feels
absolutely out of control. I wonder where this is all heading.
And so the title came to me because it was
(02:28):
almost a I wouldn't say ironic, but sort of a
social commentary dig at the fact that even the present moment,
but now, which is meant to be free of time.
Even that feels like it's going quicker than it used to.
And so it was a sort of a dig at
the whole absurdity of everything, the speed of now. Uh.
(02:51):
And then all this hit in February March, and I
was like, good lord, it was it was just I
could I couldn't comprehend it, you know. And then I
and there I am sitting with this title and I
looked at it, well, I got to change the name
of the album. This is who would have thought that
this doesn't make any sense now? And I had several
(03:12):
good friends of mine who said, no, I actually think
the title takes on a whole new, whole new meaning,
so you should keep it. And that's that's how we've
ended up with this title. It came last year. It's
it's almost kind of prophetic how it all came together. Then, um,
and it obviously is part one, you say by the
name of the album. So is there a part two? Yeah?
So I because I've been recording for the better part
(03:34):
of it. Actually it will be. It'll be coming up
on almost two years. I started recording towards the end
of H and all the way through nineteen so I
ended up with lots and lots of songs, and I thought,
I'm not a fan of huge albums. I'm not a
fan of double albums. Ah, I'll piece together the ones
(03:58):
that feel like they're right now. And so the speed
of Now Part one is it's a full album. I'm
not sure that the final track listing, but it's it's
not an EP. It's a full album. And the next
one will be too, whenever that comes out sometime next year.
When it comes to this moment, a lot of inspiration
I would imagine as a songwriter going into this time
and sort of feeling different things. We're all feeling different emotions.
(04:20):
Has that played in it all to the album the songwriting.
Have you switched things up a little bit based on
where we're at? Yeah, it has played into it, even
so much as new material has come that I've now
had the time to turn into a record and put
onto this album. One song in particular, called out the Cage,
(04:42):
which I wrote with It's a really cool artist in Atlanta,
Georgian and Brelan you're probably familiar with. He has a
song called My Truck and a few of the songs
and anyway I got I was interested in him. So
I cold called him out of the blue gotties number
called them out of the blue, and we talked. We
talked for like an hour on the phone, and I'm like, man,
(05:05):
we should we should right and see what happens if
we write, not you know, not for any particular reason,
just just create. Let's just see what happens. And we
wrote a song, and then we wrote another song, and
then we wrote a third song. And the third song
we wrote was one where I just had this wild,
wacky drum groove and I said, let's just write something
(05:27):
crazy to this thing. And what was weighing on our
mind the most was a sense of sort of not
just oppression, but it really inspired from lockdown, quarantining, not
being able to go anywhere and wanting to be released
from that, and then both realizing that metaphor applies to
(05:48):
so many people in so many different situations of all
kinds of oppression and just dead end jobs, unfulfilled lives,
just stuck, you know, for all kinds of reasons, and
you just want to take off running and be released
from it all. And so he wrote this song called
Out the Cage, and that that would be on the
record totally and fully inspired by this this period. There's
(06:10):
my dog. He wants out the cage, he wants out
the dog house in the case. Um, when it comes
to touring and playing for people, UM, I know you
love the road life and you love performing, So how
are you coping with that? I've been lucky to also
love being in the studio. I know. I know a
(06:32):
lot of artists that being in the studio is just
like going to the dentist for them. I think they
just they want to get in sing and then get
the heck out and you know, go fishing. I love
being in the studio, so it's been the other I
guess it's the other stage for me. You know, when
I don't have the real one, I get to come
in here. But I've missed playing live terribly because it's
(06:55):
a huge part of what I do. I love your
Lady song. We're all hearing God whispered your name these days?
And Um, you didn't write this one. I'm always interested
in so because you didn't write because again, all your
stuff seems to always come from um, your genius. But
when it comes to this song, it must have spoken
to you in some way. UM. And and how was
it when you first heard it? Yeah, Chris, four guys
(07:18):
Chris August, Shay Carter, Micah Carter, and James Slayter with
the four writers on this song, and they send it
to me. And you know, obviously I write a lot
of songs, but every now and then I hear a
song that it just it just speaks to me, you know.
And I heard that opening line, I was so cold
(07:39):
and lost. Nothing seemed to ring true. I couldn't bear
the cross of everything I've been through, and I just
I knew that I know that place, I know that guy.
It felt so much about my my own life and
my own journey that I just knew I had to
cut it. Your real spiritual guy too? In what ways
is sort of you had light bulb moments where you've
felt spoken to or guy spoke to you and said, hey,
(08:01):
this is where you should go, or do this? Do that?
I mean, I think we all have sort of crossroads sometimes,
we and moments where we have to make decisions and
we sort of lean on that spiritual sense. I'm a
work in progress, Cody, you know, um headful of knowledge
(08:21):
and a life full of mistakes. I I am always
trying to apply the things I know that I should
be doing, and it's things are much easier said than
done a lot of the time. So but I do
feel very grateful to have learned a lot of the
things that I've gotten to learn the hard way and
(08:43):
get to apply those in my life today. So I
think I've got any amount of those kind of experiences
of all kinds of natures. I guess people have different
names for those moments, but uh, you know, let me
let me phrase it this way. When my my father
(09:03):
passed away back four years ago, and I feel closer
to him now than I ever did when he was alive.
So you know that that's that's where I that's my
my relationship with that Sunday Rose is about twelve years old.
You'll need some probably some spiritual guidance whenever she turns
(09:25):
into a team, because you know, it's a different phase
when you have a teenager. So are you ready? Are
you excited? Were you out in that sort of mental process.
I wouldn't sound excited. I want to make sure I
know what I'm doing, and I guess that just I
just have to come back down to the moment, and really, boy,
it takes a village never has this saying being so
(09:48):
true when it comes to that, Thank goodness, nothing I'm
about to enter into with our kids is unshouted waters
others have been through it. I can call other people throughout, uh,
and I know some really good dads for all that
sort of stuff. But I feel grateful that I get
to do it, that I get to be you know,
that I had that journey with these girls. Well, having
(10:10):
been there, I mean, I gotta say that it's not
as bad as people make it out to be. And
I found my kids when they were teens, like those
teenage years were really fun. They become like these young
adults you who you could have like real conversations with.
So it is something to be very you know, excited about.
And I am, ultimately, of course, you know, it's uh,
(10:31):
it's just I just obviously I want to do a
good job. Right right, Speaking of good jobs, we're excited
about your hosting the A c M. As this sort
of pandemic maybe sort of is in a different phase
by then, we hope. Um, so where is that right now?
And I guess every everything's rolling forward with that, right
it is at the stage. Yeah, I don't still don't
(10:51):
know all the intricacies of how we're going to pull
it off, but I will be live. I know that
much somewhere here in Nashville. I will be there. And
I don't know if we're going to do I know
there's been a lot of talk about utilizing some different
venues around town to do live crosses over to people
performing at different places, So I'm not sure. I'm not
(11:14):
sure if there's going to be any audience involved in
any way, shape or form. I guess it's still a
little ways off. So we'll see how the rest of
the phases in openings go and how this how this
unforeseen future unfolved in the next few months. The fingers crossed,
let's hope it all comes yeah, man, absolutely, and real quick.
(11:34):
Are you going to trickle out any new music here
in the next little while. We've got the single, We've
got Polaroid. What else is coming? Yeah, I do have
another song coming soon that we're trying to shoot a
video for right now. That's proving difficult. Actually, We're trying
to shoot two different videos, so I gotta I got
a few things happening here. I'm just I'm actually, I'm
(11:58):
just anxious to have more music amount so that if
you can start to get more of a sense of
the breadth of this first album, because one or two
songs definitely don't give you an idea of what else
is coming. Okay, I got your text of the studio.
You're in. Beautiful set up. I mean, yeah, it's a
good space. It's not big, but it's it's it's super cozy. Keith,
(12:20):
thank you for the time. I really appreciate it. You know.
I love you to take care. I love you too.
Cody always good to talk to you. Man. We'll see
you soon. I hope you got your dad. Yeah, me too.
Thanks for listening to Cody Cast. Follow Cody right now
at Cody Allen on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. Care Cody
on hundreds of radio stations every day, and watch Cody
on twenty this weekend, Saturday and Sunday at ny M
(12:42):
It's Central on CMT by for now
This is Cody Ellen's podcast. This is Cody Cast. He's
actually one of my favorite people in the world. I
love Keith Urban. I love his music. His performances are
always amazing, such a great entertainer, and I always feel
great after I talked to him, like everything feels better
after Keith has spoken um. And so that's one of
(00:20):
the things I got out of this particular conversation. So
I hope you enjoy Keith Urban on this Cody cast podcast.
Cody is Keith, and the crowd goes wild, the crowd
of one. It's I know, it's me in the dog
and that's as good as it gets right now here
(00:42):
better than being in the dog house, that's true. Where
are you not in the doghouse? Good? That is good.
I'm in my studio, which may be the dog house. No,
I'm in my studio here in Nashville, n nice. Are
you finishing up the album right now, because we've got
just a little while here to wait before. Yes, I'm
(01:05):
finishing it up as as I speak. I love the
title of this by the way, It's called The Speed
of Now Part one. So what exactly is the Speed
of Now? Because I can't figure it out at this moment. Um.
I love to sort of play on this moment really
kind of it is an odd time. So I just
sent you a picture of the studio so you know
(01:25):
where I'm sitting. Um. This title actually came to me
September October last year, really strangely enough, um and and
even Stranger is the reason for that title. And it
was really due to the fact that I was traveling
(01:46):
around quite a bit. We played over in Europe in
my in uh the earlier part of last year maybe
September is sure, and everywhere I went I found I
felt like people were just going faster and faster, and
life was going faster, and people were busier, and there
was just way it was just insane. Airports were packed,
(02:08):
and threo was were packed. Everything's packed. And I remember
thinking to myself, I'm one of those trips. Where is
this all heading? Like this is unsustainable, This just feels
absolutely out of control. I wonder where this is all heading.
And so the title came to me because it was
(02:28):
almost a I wouldn't say ironic, but sort of a
social commentary dig at the fact that even the present moment,
but now, which is meant to be free of time.
Even that feels like it's going quicker than it used to.
And so it was a sort of a dig at
the whole absurdity of everything, the speed of now. Uh.
(02:51):
And then all this hit in February March, and I
was like, good lord, it was it was just I
could I couldn't comprehend it, you know. And then I
and there I am sitting with this title and I
looked at it, well, I got to change the name
of the album. This is who would have thought that
this doesn't make any sense now? And I had several
(03:12):
good friends of mine who said, no, I actually think
the title takes on a whole new, whole new meaning,
so you should keep it. And that's that's how we've
ended up with this title. It came last year. It's
it's almost kind of prophetic how it all came together. Then, um,
and it obviously is part one, you say by the
name of the album. So is there a part two? Yeah?
So I because I've been recording for the better part
(03:34):
of it. Actually it will be. It'll be coming up
on almost two years. I started recording towards the end
of H and all the way through nineteen so I
ended up with lots and lots of songs, and I thought,
I'm not a fan of huge albums. I'm not a
fan of double albums. Ah, I'll piece together the ones
(03:58):
that feel like they're right now. And so the speed
of Now Part one is it's a full album. I'm
not sure that the final track listing, but it's it's
not an EP. It's a full album. And the next
one will be too, whenever that comes out sometime next year.
When it comes to this moment, a lot of inspiration
I would imagine as a songwriter going into this time
and sort of feeling different things. We're all feeling different emotions.
(04:20):
Has that played in it all to the album the songwriting.
Have you switched things up a little bit based on
where we're at? Yeah, it has played into it, even
so much as new material has come that I've now
had the time to turn into a record and put
onto this album. One song in particular, called out the Cage,
(04:42):
which I wrote with It's a really cool artist in Atlanta,
Georgian and Brelan you're probably familiar with. He has a
song called My Truck and a few of the songs
and anyway I got I was interested in him. So
I cold called him out of the blue gotties number
called them out of the blue, and we talked. We
talked for like an hour on the phone, and I'm like, man,
(05:05):
we should we should right and see what happens if
we write, not you know, not for any particular reason,
just just create. Let's just see what happens. And we
wrote a song, and then we wrote another song, and
then we wrote a third song. And the third song
we wrote was one where I just had this wild,
wacky drum groove and I said, let's just write something
(05:27):
crazy to this thing. And what was weighing on our
mind the most was a sense of sort of not
just oppression, but it really inspired from lockdown, quarantining, not
being able to go anywhere and wanting to be released
from that, and then both realizing that metaphor applies to
(05:48):
so many people in so many different situations of all
kinds of oppression and just dead end jobs, unfulfilled lives,
just stuck, you know, for all kinds of reasons, and
you just want to take off running and be released
from it all. And so he wrote this song called
Out the Cage, and that that would be on the
record totally and fully inspired by this this period. There's
(06:10):
my dog. He wants out the cage, he wants out
the dog house in the case. Um, when it comes
to touring and playing for people, UM, I know you
love the road life and you love performing, So how
are you coping with that? I've been lucky to also
love being in the studio. I know. I know a
(06:32):
lot of artists that being in the studio is just
like going to the dentist for them. I think they
just they want to get in sing and then get
the heck out and you know, go fishing. I love
being in the studio, so it's been the other I
guess it's the other stage for me. You know, when
I don't have the real one, I get to come
in here. But I've missed playing live terribly because it's
(06:55):
a huge part of what I do. I love your
Lady song. We're all hearing God whispered your name these days?
And Um, you didn't write this one. I'm always interested
in so because you didn't write because again, all your
stuff seems to always come from um, your genius. But
when it comes to this song, it must have spoken
to you in some way. UM. And and how was
it when you first heard it? Yeah, Chris, four guys
(07:18):
Chris August, Shay Carter, Micah Carter, and James Slayter with
the four writers on this song, and they send it
to me. And you know, obviously I write a lot
of songs, but every now and then I hear a
song that it just it just speaks to me, you know.
And I heard that opening line, I was so cold
(07:39):
and lost. Nothing seemed to ring true. I couldn't bear
the cross of everything I've been through, and I just
I knew that I know that place, I know that guy.
It felt so much about my my own life and
my own journey that I just knew I had to
cut it. Your real spiritual guy too? In what ways
is sort of you had light bulb moments where you've
felt spoken to or guy spoke to you and said, hey,
(08:01):
this is where you should go, or do this? Do that?
I mean, I think we all have sort of crossroads sometimes,
we and moments where we have to make decisions and
we sort of lean on that spiritual sense. I'm a
work in progress, Cody, you know, um headful of knowledge
(08:21):
and a life full of mistakes. I I am always
trying to apply the things I know that I should
be doing, and it's things are much easier said than
done a lot of the time. So but I do
feel very grateful to have learned a lot of the
things that I've gotten to learn the hard way and
(08:43):
get to apply those in my life today. So I
think I've got any amount of those kind of experiences
of all kinds of natures. I guess people have different
names for those moments, but uh, you know, let me
let me phrase it this way. When my my father
(09:03):
passed away back four years ago, and I feel closer
to him now than I ever did when he was alive.
So you know that that's that's where I that's my
my relationship with that Sunday Rose is about twelve years old.
You'll need some probably some spiritual guidance whenever she turns
(09:25):
into a team, because you know, it's a different phase
when you have a teenager. So are you ready? Are
you excited? Were you out in that sort of mental process.
I wouldn't sound excited. I want to make sure I
know what I'm doing, and I guess that just I
just have to come back down to the moment, and really, boy,
it takes a village never has this saying being so
(09:48):
true when it comes to that, Thank goodness, nothing I'm
about to enter into with our kids is unshouted waters
others have been through it. I can call other people throughout, uh,
and I know some really good dads for all that
sort of stuff. But I feel grateful that I get
to do it, that I get to be you know,
that I had that journey with these girls. Well, having
(10:10):
been there, I mean, I gotta say that it's not
as bad as people make it out to be. And
I found my kids when they were teens, like those
teenage years were really fun. They become like these young
adults you who you could have like real conversations with.
So it is something to be very you know, excited about.
And I am, ultimately, of course, you know, it's uh,
(10:31):
it's just I just obviously I want to do a
good job. Right right, Speaking of good jobs, we're excited
about your hosting the A c M. As this sort
of pandemic maybe sort of is in a different phase
by then, we hope. Um, so where is that right now?
And I guess every everything's rolling forward with that, right
it is at the stage. Yeah, I don't still don't
(10:51):
know all the intricacies of how we're going to pull
it off, but I will be live. I know that
much somewhere here in Nashville. I will be there. And
I don't know if we're going to do I know
there's been a lot of talk about utilizing some different
venues around town to do live crosses over to people
performing at different places, So I'm not sure. I'm not
(11:14):
sure if there's going to be any audience involved in
any way, shape or form. I guess it's still a
little ways off. So we'll see how the rest of
the phases in openings go and how this how this
unforeseen future unfolved in the next few months. The fingers crossed,
let's hope it all comes yeah, man, absolutely, and real quick.
(11:34):
Are you going to trickle out any new music here
in the next little while. We've got the single, We've
got Polaroid. What else is coming? Yeah, I do have
another song coming soon that we're trying to shoot a
video for right now. That's proving difficult. Actually, We're trying
to shoot two different videos, so I gotta I got
a few things happening here. I'm just I'm actually, I'm
(11:58):
just anxious to have more music amount so that if
you can start to get more of a sense of
the breadth of this first album, because one or two
songs definitely don't give you an idea of what else
is coming. Okay, I got your text of the studio.
You're in. Beautiful set up. I mean, yeah, it's a
good space. It's not big, but it's it's it's super cozy. Keith,
(12:20):
thank you for the time. I really appreciate it. You know.
I love you to take care. I love you too.
Cody always good to talk to you. Man. We'll see
you soon. I hope you got your dad. Yeah, me too.
Thanks for listening to Cody Cast. Follow Cody right now
at Cody Allen on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. Care Cody
on hundreds of radio stations every day, and watch Cody
on twenty this weekend, Saturday and Sunday at ny M
(12:42):
It's Central on CMT by for now
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