'It toughens you up': Keith Urban recalls getting crushed in his Australian pub rock days

37:10Keith Urban: Australian pub rock, Nashville culture shock & his curling curiosity

Ahead of his cross-Canada tour later this year, Keith Urban announced a handful of last-minute dates at intimate venues, including a surprise show at Toronto's Horseshoe Tavern last Monday for a capacity crowd of around 400 people.

"Doing these club dates, like the Horseshoe, is just reminding myself what to do in those places where there's no production," the Australian country superstar tells Q's Tom Power the day after his Toronto show. "It's do or die…. There's no way to hide."

Though he's more used to performing in arenas these days, Urban got his start playing small gigs in Australian pubs when he was just a teenager. At 15, he quit school and started performing in cover bands five nights a week, which he says taught him how to keep a live audience engaged from start to finish.

"My mum and dad would drive me to the gigs and I'd play four hours, all covers, no originals," he says. "Doing that for years and years, I mean, all the way up until my 20s, really gave me a good understanding of songs that connect and why they connect."

But the Australian pub rock scene isn't necessarily the kindest or most forgiving environment to learn in. Known for their punk spirit and brutal honesty, Urban says Aussie pub crowds have an "absolute middle finger attitude" and aren't shy about expressing their distaste for a live act.

"The audience tells you," he says. "If you suck, they let you know, like no problem, no problem at all. So you just get this really tough way of performing that is just total conviction and totally in, and the audience then goes with it. It's like you either lead or you get crushed."

Urban recalls people throwing things at him onstage, telling him to f–k off, and a guy standing in front of him with his fingers in his ears for an entire song. But the experience also provided him with valuable feedback.

If you suck, they let you know.... You either lead or you get crushed.- Keith Urban

"You just roll with it and it toughens you up," he tells Power. "It's a good way to grow up, it was good for me at least, because I remember doing a show and this guy came up to me afterwards and he goes, 'Hey, that third song you did, what was that?' And I go, 'That's one of mine.' He goes, 'Yeah, that's s–t. Don't ever play that again … but there was one you did at the beginning of that second set, what was that one?' And I said, 'I wrote that one too.' He said, 'That one's better. Don't do that first one, but do that second one.'"

When Urban moved to Nashville in 1992, he didn't realize that the audiences there were often too polite to tell him that they didn't like his music. "I spent the first several years totally confused with why everyone seemed to like what I was doing, but nothing was happening," he says. "I didn't have any reference for that."

'Originality was mistaken for ignorance'

After moving to Nashville, Urban was surprised to learn that he didn't quite fit in. With his Australian accent, long hair, unique sound and larger-than-life performance style, people assumed he just didn't know much about country music.

"It was strange for everybody that I was there but me," he says. "It felt so natural for me to be there, like it made perfect sense. But I see now, looking back, I'm like, yeah, I must have looked really odd…. Every single thing that I was doing was odd in that town."

Though it's fairly standard now, Urban's fusion of country, classic rock and Top 40 pop was unheard of at the time. "Originality was mistaken for ignorance," he explains.

Slowly but surely, he built his reputation through songwriters' nights and picking sessions until people realized what he was doing. It took about a decade for his sound to catch on with his first big hit, Somebody Like You, which was released in 2002.

"[My sound] seems so tame, you know, based on where things are at," Urban tells Power. "But at the time it was so sort of groundbreaking."

Urban's 12th studio album, High, is out now. His Canadian tour kicks off with a date in Toronto in June, followed by the rest of the country in September.

The full interview with Keith Urban is available on our YouTube channel and on our podcast, Q with Tom Power. He opens up about his relationship with his father, shares a story about getting fired from a metal band in Australia, and asks some burning questions about curling. Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

Interview with Keith Urban produced by Vanessa Nigro.