Multiple ARIA and GRAMMY© Award winner Keith Urban releases HIGH, his first album in nearly four years – a musical journey, intentionally sequenced through themes of what it is to be alive, human connection, cutting loose, huge hook chorus’, hope, nostalgia, shredding solos, straight-up fun and some personal life revelations.
“I’ve always been drawn toward the subject of living in the moment, because it’s all there is, and it’s hard to do,” says Urban. “And these days with so much ‘content’ flying at us, it can feel like drinking from a fire hose.”
The ambiguity of the word ‘high’ peaked Urban’s curiosity and so the name of the album. “What makes you ‘high’ can mean whatever you want it to mean,” says Urban. “It might be physical, spiritual, herbal, meditative, chemical or musical, but it’s definitely a place of utopia”
Urban has spent much of the past several months releasing music from HIGH – ‘STRAIGHT LINE’, ‘GO HOME W U’ (with Lainey Wilson), ‘WILDSIDE’, ‘HEART LIKE A HOMETOWN’, and the album’s current single ‘MESSED UP AS ME’.
“Of all the things that have changed in my life, one has been a constant. I love making music,” said Urban. “It’s the mystery and the energy of it. I’ve never surfed, but I have a feeling that when I’m writing a song, or when I’m in the studio recording it, or even when it’s coming to life on stage, it’s the same feeling of being ‘in the flow’. It’s timeless, it’s weightless – and I feel HIGH. These songs flowed very much like that.”
In downtown Nashville in front of thousands of fans, Keith is currently playing a surprise pop up show to celebrate the release HIGH. The concert, another in a series of pop-up shows that have seen Urban surprise crowds in Dallas, Chicago, Minneapolis, BNA Airport (in Nashville), Sydney (OAF & The Bob Hawke Beer & Leisure Centre), Brisbane (Lefty’s Music Hall) and a Buc-ee’s parking lot in Alabama, lasted nearly 90-minutes and featured first-time performances of songs from HIGH.
Keith Urban will return to Australia in August 2025 as part of the HIGH AND ALIVE WORLD TOUR. Urban’s concerts are once in a lifetime events, that critics have referred to as, “ones not to be missed.” The 9 arena shows for August will feature opener Chase Matthew, one of country music’s boldest emerging voices, are Urban’s first Australian concerts since December 2022.