Keith Urban on fatherhood: 'I love having girls'
Multi-platinum country recording artist Keith Urban said that raising his two daughters, 10-year-old Sunday and 7-year-old Faith, has been something of a “learning curve.”
“I just love being a parent,” Urban said in an interview for the ABC News special, “Country Music’s Biggest Stars: In the Spotlight with Robin Roberts.” "I didn't know that I'd ever get to be one."
“It's an incredible feeling,” the four-time Grammy winner continued. “And having girls -- I love having girls. You know, I come from a family with no sisters, one brother. So, it's been quite the learning curve in a really good way.”
Urban, who is known for several hits -- “Somebody Like You,” “Raise ‘Em Up” and “Blue Ain’t Your Color” -- has been married to Oscar-winning actress Nicole Kidman for 12 years.
Even with the heavy star power between them, Urban, 51, said, “we just have a real life,” raising their girls outside of the spotlight as much as possible.
“We have a real life in the sense that we do the most normal things as a family, and we don't live on social media all the time. We don't read tabloids… we don't give it any attention,” Urban said.
As a dad, Urban, who was born in New Zealand, said he has reflected on what his parents went through when the family moved to Australia when he was just 2.
“They were keeping it together really well, considering… starting a completely brand new life in a foreign country, which Australia was to them,” he said. “They didn't know anybody. They didn't have any support. They didn't have any money. They just did it… I'm just really impressed at what they were able to accomplish, the two of them.”
Urban, who is also a three-time winner of Country Music Association Awards' Male Vocalist of the Year, broke out as a recording artist in Australia in the late ‘80s, and then made his American debut in 1999 with his self-titled album, “Keith Urban.” He has since produced 10 albums in the United States, including “RipCORD,” which was nominated for the Best Country Album Grammy Award. His most recent album, “Graffiti U," has earned him a CMA Award nod for Album of the Year this year.
“My music, it's just whatever my music is. It's just me. And it's influenced by so many places. And it's just my filtering of it, really, that makes it unique to me and what I do,” Urban said. “It's always reflective of whatever I'm drawing on at the time, whatever's speaking to me.”
“Anytime that the music that I make is [making] a connection, I mean, that's the first thing -- ‘Does it make a connection? Does it mean something to somebody? Does somebody resonate with it?’” he added.
In addition to "Album of the Year," Urban is also nominated for the CMA Award's Entertainer of the Year – a title he first won 13 years ago.
“It's extraordinary to get those nominations,” Urban said. “The record acknowledgment, Album of the Year, it’s huge particularly for this record, because -- what I am most is a country artist, and that is my history, and that's the foundation of what I am.”
