Keith Urban on balancing his touring commitments with home life

Keith Urban says he has achieved a “good balance” between his home life and touring commitments after years spent on the road.

The Grammy-winning country music star, who lives in the US with his wife Nicole Kidman, is returning to the UK next year for a string of tour dates.

He suggested his family may join him and make a holiday out of the trip.

Asked whether his family joins him on the road, Urban told the PA news agency: “It’s actually a mix of everything. I am fortunate here in the US where I can tour in short bursts – do a handful of shows, come home, do a handful of shows, come home.

“And then if we are doing a stretch like the UK we might relocate over there for several weeks, make a bit of vacay out of it at the same time.

“It’s been this way since the beginning so I am so used to it now. It is a good balance, let’s put it that way.

“I love being on the road but of course it’s really nice to have a home that you want to go home to as well. I think anybody could relate to that. I have had the opposite.”

New Zealand-born, Australia-raised Urban, 53, has two daughters with his Hollywood actress wife, 54, and the couple spend time in both the US and Australia.

Urban released his 11th studio album, The Speed of Now Part 1, during lockdown and it features collaborations with disco pioneer Nile Rodgers, R&B singer-songwriter Breland and pop star Pink.

He said a major misconception about country music outside the US was that it lacked variety.

“I always think the first thing about country is that is encompasses so many styles within that genre,” he said.

“Breaking through the perceptions of it being one particular kind of sound has been the biggest struggle globally for the genre.

“Even an artist like me who is not traditional country in any sense of the imagination gets labelled a country artist.

“You play these festivals which are country festivals and yet there are all these people with chequered shirts and cowboy hats and hay bales and you are like, ‘That’s not what I do – this isn’t at all what I do’.”

“Half the stuff I do is not country at all. A chunk of it is, of course, so my music runs the gamut of all kinds of stuff.”

The five-date UK leg of the Speed Of Now World Tour 2022 begins in Birmingham on April 28 and ends at Edinburgh Playhouse on May 9, before Urban plays in Europe.

Tickets are available online.