CLARITY is a big word for Keith Urban these days. It reflects a more settled life that's come to the country singer-song- writer since his 2006 marriage to actress Nicole Kidman and the birth of their daughter, Sunday Rose, in July 2008.

It's a result of a successful 2006 rehab stint at the Betty Ford Centre in California. According to Urban, it's the secret ingredient of Defying Gravity, his fifth studio album in a career that has included four platinum-or-better albums and 10 No. 1 singles.

Photos - The Kurbans are in love

"I felt a lot of clarity in making this record," the 41-year-old Urban says by telephone from his home in Nashville.

"There was a particular clarity that I had with who I am and what I wanted to say and what kind of music I like making.

"And on this record, too, I didn't do a lot of second-guessing," he continues.

"I think I might have done a lot of second-guessing in the past but with this record I operated more from instinct, getting into the studio and making songs . . . I kept everything spontaneous and I think it's a stronger record because of that."

Urban was in a better state of mind for Defying Gravity with its first single Sweet Thing making a sprint to the top of country charts.

Where the double-platinum Love, Pain & The Whole Crazy Thing (2006) was something of a post-rehab statement, and his first album since marrying Kidman, the latest one finds him openly and unabashedly revelling in happiness and romance.

"It's a very 'up' record," Urban agrees, "a big, joyous, free-spirited record. Obviously I write a lot about love, and this record is a lot about . . . having the courage to love.

"It's difficult as you get older because you've been in love, you've had your heart broken and your tendency is to want to hold back.

"But you have to absolutely, completely be in it. Even if you have some trepidation about it, you've just got to put everything into it. It's that letting go and closing your eyes and believing that you're going to fly and float - just let it go and float."

Urban started making country albums in Australia in the early 1990s, scoring hits and winning awards including a Golden Guitar for Best New Talent at the Tamworth Country Music Awards in 1991. Nashville was in his sights and in 1997 he and his band at the time, The Ranch, made the move and released a self-titled album that same year.

The Ranch garnered attention for Urban's guitar work and he played on albums by Garth Brooks, the Dixie Chicks and others before producer Matt Rollings took Urban into a solo career with Keith Urban (1999).

"I've spent most of my career as a solo artist," says Urban, who joined Ranch for a second album in 2004.

"The band was a deviation from what I was already doing, really, and in hindsight probably the reason it didn't work."

Urban summed up his first years in Nashville with Greatest Hits: 18 Kids (2007), a collection of favourites such as Somebody Like You (2002), Raining On Sunday (2003), Days Go By (2004) and Stupid Boy (2007).

That stocktaking had a significant impact on Defying Gravity.

Kidman is the source of several songs on Defying Gravity, Urban says.

The title My Heart Is Open is something she said to him early in their relationship. Thank You speaks for itself, while Why's It Feel So Long was inspired by his longing to speak with her after having dropped her at an airport that day.

Fans are likely to read something about his marriage into any song he writes about love, Urban concedes, but he insists there's more to them than autobiography.

"For me, writing a lot about anything personal is a difficult balance," he says.

"On one hand we're private people, yet on the other hand I write songs that are going to be about my life, my home life, my family.

"I guess I write about all that in a way that I'm comfortable.

"It doesn't get too detailed or explicit to the point where I feel like my privacy is being invaded, but I'm able to create art from my heart and that is inspired directly by my life.

"I wanted to figure out what it is that I do and try to keep the focus clear and in the centre.

"On (Love, Pain & The Whole Crazy Thing), I think I was thinking about trying to achieve a bunch of things and spread myself out a little thin without a central, clear focus.

"Not to discredit that record, because I learned a lot from making it, but it seems there's more cohesiveness with this album."

Urban and producer Dann Huff, who produced the singer's three previous albums, went into the studio in mid-2008 but only one song they worked on, a version of Radney Foster's I'm In, is on Defying Gravity.

"Songs just have a way of either continuing to rise or not," he says.

"I don't seem to make a real conscious decision of culling certain songs out of the herd and keeping other ones. They just seem to organically find their way into what ends up becoming a whole album.

"I'm a legitimate fan of commercial music. I love songs that are hooky and catchy and hopefully have some substance as well. I just don't think it's in me to make a blatant piece of indulgent art that doesn't appeal to anybody."



Life is different now as Urban is a father to Sunday Rose and Kidman's two adopted children with ex-husband Tom Cruise.

"I wasn't even sure if I was going to end up having kids in this life and I was OK with that," he says. "I had just gotten to that point where I thought, 'Oh well, maybe it's just not my lot to have children. That's cool'. I've got two stepchildren whom I love, and lo and behold we end up getting our little angel."

Sunday Rose has "a rocking wardrobe", he says, most of which comes from friends and fans who throw items on stage at his shows. He appreciates one garment that bears the inscrïption, "I Crawl The Line", but adds that most clothes have gone to Goodwill or the Red Cross.

Country music has been Urban's flight path from an early age. The New Zealand-born, Australia-raised singer credits his father's records with indoctrinating him to country music when he was growing up.

"It was all American country (music) - Charlie Pride, Jim Reeves, Ronnie Milsap," says Urban, who started playing guitar at six.

"Since I was a little kid, I wanted to go to Nashville, because 'Nashville, Tenn' was written on the back of every one of those records."

Rock was part of Urban's roots through his brother who listened to Jackson Browne, the Eagles, Electric Light Orchestra and Supertramp. The finger-picking styles of Dire Straits' Mark Knopfler and Fleetwood Mac's Lindsey Buckingham became influences.

He spent his early career in an environment more supportive of rock: "Mostly Aussie pubs, which were pretty rough joints," he says. "There are really no country joints. They're rock'n'roll crowds, so if you're going to do a Glen Campbell song, you'd better do it with attitude or conviction or they'll eat you up."

Urban will be on the road this year with his Escape Together world tour, which will put him in touch with fans who have supported him through his travails of the past few years.

"People buying your records is probably the strongest (affirmation), because that means the music's affecting them and they're connecting with it somehow," he says. "My attitude for every record I've done has been the same.

"Write and find the best songs you can, assemble a team you feel comfortable with and record the songs the best you can. It's as simple and difficult as that.

"But that's all I can do; the rest of it is faith, timing and synchronicity."