Urban grateful for 2nd chances

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — It’s hard to imagine Keith Urban choosing a more appropriate title for his fifth studio album, “Defying Gravity.”

He says it signifies the power of the spirit to overcome the earthly problems that can pull us down. But it could just as easily be a metaphor for the 41-year-old singer’s life.

Since his last album, 2006’s “Love, Pain & the whole crazy thing,” Urban has rebounded from a well-publicized bout with alcoholism, had a daughter with wife Nicole Kidman and settled into a relatively “normal existence” in Tennessee.

Urban calls his clean slate “liberating in every way.”

“It’s allowed me to get centered with my music in a way I don’t think I’ve ever felt before,” a fit and youthful-looking Urban said during a recent interview. “Obviously, I’ve played music all my life and I love doing it and it’s my life. When it’s sort of taken away like that ... When it comes back in the right way, like it has, it comes back with a meaning that is profound for me.”

“Defying Gravity” hits stores Tuesday. The first single, a soaring love song called “Sweet Thing,” became his latest No. 1 country hit. The second, “Kiss A Girl,” is rising fast and currently at No. 20 on the Billboard country music chart.

“I’m not watching it every day,” Urban said of the charts. “But it does get exciting when a song starts getting up near the top.”

The New Zealand-born, Australian-raised entertainer, who has been one of country music’s biggest stars for the last decade, is a fixture in Nashville. He lives here with his family, and Kidman and Urban are frequently seen around town; daughter Sunday Rose was born here last summer.

Urban says he and Kidman can live a simpler life in Nashville.

“We don’t have drivers and tons of security people and all this other stuff you often have to have in other places,” he said. “We have a very strong love of Sydney [Australia] as well, but from a paparazzi standpoint it’s a bit intrusive. They’re doing their job, and I get it. But it’s not as fluid and easy for us to get around as it is in Nashville.”

“Defying Gravity” is his first collection of new material since “Love, Pain & the whole crazy thing.” Most of the 11 songs are about relationships — some working, some not. But even when the lyrics express longing, the music is often sunny and upbeat (“Standing Right in Front of You,” “Why’s It Feel So Long.”)

“I wrote about what inspired me the last couple of years,” said Urban, who wrote or co-wrote most of the tracks. “I’ve certainly gone through a lot of things, particularly since ’Love and Pain’ came out. What got me through all my struggles [is] I felt more compelled and inspired about than wallowing in all this stuff.”

There was plenty to wallow in if he’d wanted to. A couple of weeks before releasing “Love, Pain & the whole crazy thing,” he checked himself into the Betty Ford Center after backsliding in a long struggle with substance abuse. He stayed there for three months, missing the Country Music Association Awards where he won male vocalist of the year.

Despite postponing his tour and promotional appearances, the album still went double platinum and produced several hits, including “I Told You So” and “Stupid Boy.”

Of his treatment, Urban says simply, “Some people never get it, so I’m grateful to be in the place I am today.”

His friend, country star Brad Paisley, said he could tell Urban had a “renewed sense of direction” with “Defying Gravity.”

“He’s definitely as happy as I’ve ever seen him,” Paisley said. “The thing about Keith is that no matter how difficult times were for him, he was always very cordial and very nice. It wasn’t always readily apparent when he was in a down in the dumps part of his life. He still made great music and still was very nice to people. It’s almost like he internalized it.”

The album’s final cut is called “Thank You” and it will probably be the most analyzed song on the record. It’s the only one that’s overtly confessional, a gentle love letter to Kidman for helping him through “days that seemed so dark, I couldn’t wait for night to come.”