Keith Urban’s Hard Road
In Keith Urban‘s world, it had been going so well for so long that something was bound to happen, and it happened today, in Nashville, at his mansion-size home, while he was cutting his toenails. He’d woken up at 6:00, slid off his bed to the floor to say his morning prayers, which he’s done daily since getting sober 10 years ago, dressed and fed the kids (Eggo waffles for Faith Margaret, 5; Raisin Bran for Sunday Rose, 7), bundled them into the family Audi, dropped them off at school, returned home, worked out, toweled off, got the clippers and bent down. This is where everything went kaflooey. He was within minutes of heading out the door to the Bridgestone Arena downtown, where he and his band were practicing, getting ready for his upcoming world tour to showcase songs from Ripcord, his eighth true solo album since arriving in the U.S. nearly 20 years ago. Half country, half something else entirely, heavy on the electro-pop and drum loops, light on the twang, riddled through with the charged-up surreal pluckings of his beloved ganjo (a.k.a. a six-string banjo), its first single, “John Cougar, John Deere, John 3:16,” was already Number One on the country charts, bringing his total Top 10 hit count since his first solo release in 1999 to a record-setting 35. At the age of 48, he was on a roll. But then, toenail clippers still in hand, he straightened up and a sudden back spasm hit him so hard he doubled over and shouted, “Oh, motherfucker!”
It wasn’t anything that ice, a massage and a brace couldn’t patch up; nonetheless, over the next few hours, certain changes had to be made: a lunch date canceled, an upcoming pre-event ride in Mario Andretti’s two-seater Indy car at the Indianapolis 500 scotched. “I feel pummeled,” Urban says when he finally makes it to the arena, a brace forcing him to stand ramrod-straight. It could have been worse, of course, and certainly much worse has happened to Urban, including past problems with drugs and alcohol that nearly wrecked his marriage to actress Nicole Kidman, in 2006, when it was just four months old. In the main, however, Urban thinks that many of his fans believe he’s had an easy go of it, not so much the hardcore country ones but the vast number of newer ones who tune in because of his marriage and his four-year stint as the most affable of American Idol judges, signifying to them a happy cakewalk from Australia to Nashville.
“They know me now as being married to Nic,” he says. “They’ve seen me on TV. And they just sort of think, ‘He’s the luckiest guy in the world.'” Which it’s hard not to. Movie premieres with Kidman, four Grammys, 10 Country Music Awards, a Golden Globe nomination, a stable of cars that includes a Bugatti with paddle shifters. And yet, he says, “There’s just so much shit underneath all that that you didn’t see.” In truth, the hard times were harder than almost anyone except his wife knows, and more desperate, and more frightening, up to the point of should-I-live-or-should-I-die, with him favoring the latter. “No, man,” he says later on, “I didn’t just walk into this gig.” And then he proceeds to open up a little bit about some of the stuff that happened.
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