Keith Urban received four nominations for this year’s CMA Awards, including Entertainer of the Year, which he won in 2005. Keith’s additional nominations include Male Vocalist and Album of the Year for Ripcord, which had several producers (Dann Huff, Jeff Bhasker, Tyler Johnson, Greg Wills, Nile Rodgers, busbee, K-Kov, Nathan Chapman, Jonny Price and Keith), as well as Musical Event of the Year for “The Fighter” featuring Carrie Underwood. Keith could receive an additional trophy as producer of his album.
A SIDENOTE: Keith has won the Musical Event category four times including “Start A Band” with Paisley (2009); “Highway Don’t Care” with McGraw and Taylor Swift (2013); “We Were Us” with Miranda Lambert (2014); and “Raise ‘Em Up,” featuring Church (2015).
With eight CMA Awards already under his belt, he realizes how much has already accomplished. But he also feels like there’s still a lot of gas left in the tank.
“I feel an immense amount of satisfaction for what I’ve gotten to do so far,” he tells Rolling Stone Country. “But right now, Ripcord and the way it’s been received, it feels like the start of the next chapter. It’s a great feeling.”
The 50th Annual CMA Awards will be broadcast live from Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena November 2nd at 8pm ET on ABC.
Audio / Keith Urban reacts to his CMA Nominations.
DownloadKeith Urban (CMA 2016 reaction) OC: …this morning. :13
“Elated. I feel elated that we got these nominations this morning. And I just want to thank everybody who’s involved in my team and behind-the-scenes, the songwriters and producers, everybody who made this possible this morning.”
Audio / Keith Urban talks about working with different producers on his new album, Ripcord, as well as how songs may end up differently than what they had first thought.
DownloadKeith Urban (working with multiple producers) OC: …always worth it. 1:10
“I know when we did a lot of songs on this record and worked with people like Jeff Asker and Dan Huff and Nathan Chapman- people I’ve worked with- particularly Nate and Dan- people I’ve worked with before. There’s a lot of familiarity and comfort level working with them, but you also gotta keep pushing each other to go beyond. Really squeeze everything out of the orange is the goal in the studio. You know, certainly on a song like ‘John Cougar, John Deer, John 3:16’ I could feel the song wanting to be sonically different than what we started out with which was sort of playing guitar and drums and that’s how the song started in the studio was just guitar- acoustic guitar- and drums. But I could feel this strong pull towards… there’s something else. There’s something else. Keep searching. Keep searching and don’t rest on this because if there’s something saying there’s more, you gotta answer that call. It’s just sometimes you can’t be bothered, right? In life. Life is saying you gotta get out of the boat and start swimming and you’re like ‘The boat’s fine!’ and the boat’s getting smaller and capsizing and you’re like ‘That’s alright.’ But every time we get out of it and follow the muse. Every time we follow the muse it is so worth it. As much work as it may be, it’s always worth it.”
Thank you to everyone who made these nominations possible!!! I'm so grateful!!! – KU #CMAawards50 pic.twitter.com/MVvTfoUK90
— Keith Urban (@KeithUrban) August 31, 2016
