Next week: Martina McBride joins Lon to reflect on her tour this winter with George Strait.

So when Keith co-hosted Country Countdown USA, Lon Helton asked if they got together: “No, because I knew it would be impossible to not talk about stuff.  I got a lot of people reaching out saying they wanted to hang out.  Vince Gill called and wanted to go guitar shopping, but it’s too hard.  You want to talk and ask questions.  God bless people wanting to do that!  But I’ll tell you what Brad did do.  He sent over this t-shirt that has a real speaker sewn into the from of the shirt, it’s a thin real speaker, with wires in the shirt, and it’s got a button that’s got laughter, applause, and sound effects, and he said, ‘Take that with you, and if someone tells a joke, hit the laugh track button.”

LISTEN TO KEITH: 12-08 Keith4

Where’d you get it done? “I went to Boston.  John Mayer is a good friend, and the guy who operated on him, John emailed me and said he’s the guy to go to, and then several other people I knew had been to him and he came highly recommended.”

I read where you said you realized you weren’t singing correctly? “It was hard to sing.  It was taking an enormous amount of physical energy to sing.  Since I’ve had the surgery it was like having a blocked artery.  All of a sudden it was unbelievable.”

Was it a polyp? “For me, I had this large nodule, which was sort of like a callouse.  My doctor said ‘If you worked in a factory, you’d have calloused hands.  But you have calloused chords.’  I sang five nights a week when I was in my teens.  Years of that, years of bad habits, a little period of less than healthy lifestyle, and it all caught up with me.”

LISTEN TO INTERVIEW: 12-08 Keith1

How did you know it was OK to speak?  Did they call you when it’s alright? “I accidentally talked twice during that three week period when they said not to speak.  It was the strangest thing, the post-surgery period was the most weird thing.  The surgery wasn’t as traumatic as the healing.  You can’t cough, you can’t sneeze, I got good at suppressing a sneeze by rubbing the bridge of my nose, my wife showed me, it works every time.  Then on top of that you can’t have any coffee or chocolate, this massive list of food you can’t eat.  You can’t work out.  I felt like I was 80 for three weeks.  But I got good at being economical with my writing.  I’d have a white board that I’d write on. ”

LISTEN: 12-08 Keith2

The tough part had to be interacting with your girls.  I read where you recorded some bedtime stories?  “Sunday’s 3-1/2, and didn’t grasp that.  She can’t read yet so I couldn’t write notes for her.  So I did the books on tape, and I’d turn the pages, and she’d press the stop button and say, ‘I want YOU to read it.’”

What an amazing experience.  Were you afraid when you sneezed? “Oh so scared!  As I said I talked accidentally twice.  Both times, I was reading a paper.  In the midst of that, Nic came in and said Sunday woke up, and I said ‘Do you want me to go get her?’ And it came out this demonic sounding thing, and it scared the heck out of me.  I emailed my surgeon right away, and said ‘Is this OK,’ and he said ‘It’s fine.’  But the strangest thing that happened to me was…my falsetto was gone.  Before the surgery, I couldn’t hit the high notes in songs like Kiss A Girl any more.   I had a dream in my dream, I’m singing a Leo Sayer song, ‘You Make Me Feel Like Dancing.’  I woke up the next morning and was terrified that I sang in my sleep.  So I emailed my surgeon and went, ‘Could I sing in my sleep, and if I did, is that bad?’  And he said, ‘Yep, that’s bad!’ 

LISTEN TO KEITH HERE: 12-08 Keith3

Did the change in diet after the surgery affect your eating habits now? No. It didn’t change anything.  I missed coffee terribly.  It was over a month of no coffee, and that’s hard.  I never got used to having tea.  But no I couldn’t wait to get back on my bad habits, but I was in good shape, I’ll tell you that!”

LISTEN TO KEITH: 12-08 Keith8

WATCH KEITH:

Keith wrote and performed a song that’s played with the closing credits.  Keith told Lon he was commissioned by the producers to write the song. “They called and said ‘We like the songs you do because there’s a sense of optimism and hope in your songs, and we’d like that at the end of the film.’  So Nic & I went to see the film at a screening room, and I took all these notes, and thought, ‘Where do I start?’  So we took two days to write the song, and the first day was just talking our whole philosophy about the military.  What touched me about the film was the willingness of these men and women to give their life.  Literally give their life for what they believe in.  So I asked myself, ‘What am I willing to give my life for?” I’m not a Navy SEAL.  I can’t do what they do.  But what’s my version of that in my life?  What do I believe in, like they believe in.  So that was the start of the song.”

LISTEN TO KEITH HERE: 12-08 Keith6

The movie opens next Friday, February 24th.  Keith says he learned a lot about the SEALS from the movie.  “These guys and girls are such an extraordinary breed of people, they have such a deep ingrained sense of honor and duty, and there’s a scene in the film, the moment where you give your life, will stop you in your tracks.  That was the start of the first verse.  We wrote from that scene and the song came about.” 

Keith went on to say he received a lot of support and advice from his wife, actress Nicole Kidman: “I’ve never written for something.  I felt tremendous pressure and expectation.  I was just a couple weeks from my surgery.  I felt every part of this was one shot, and I don’t do well with that.  But Nic was great, she said ‘I really think you can do this, I think you’ll do great.”

So as you sat in that advance screening, knowing your song was coming, what did you think? “I was really grateful that the song makes so much sense once you see the film.  So it’s just right to be in the credits.  As I said, the whole first verse came from a scene in the film, so I think most people at the end of the film will have that scene in their minds, so when you hear the song, and you hear the lyric, it’ll make a lot of sense.”

LISTEN TO KEITH HERE: 12-08 Keith7

Did you meet any SEALS at the premiere?  I did, after the film, there was all of the guys in this film, they were all there, I got to spend a couple hours with them.  They said, ‘You know what it’s like, you go on tour and leave your families,’ and I’m like, ‘Look, I appreciate the similarity, but there is no similarity.  It’s matchless.  No one knows what that’s like except you guys.’  The guys who directed the film, they’ve been connected with the SEALS community for a long time, they’re close to that circle, so the shots they get, I’ve never seen that kind of action, it’s a remarkable film.”

In addition to Keith Urban, the sountrack features new songs by Sugarland, Lady Antebellum, Trace Adkins, Montgomery Gentry, Jake Owen, Wynonna, Hunter Hayes, and more.  It’s available this Tuesday, February 21st.  You can hear Keith’s song below, and see the trailer for the movie.

The party began with Richard and Keith taking questions from the press.  Keith said the song was written during the summer of 2010, after the Nashville flood destroyed all of Keith’s guitars.  The two started the song in Nashville, and they finished it in Chicago while Keith was touring with The Eagles.  Richard recalls, “Joe Walsh came in while we were writing and said, ‘Am I interrupting something?’  ‘Yeah, kinda.’ So we think Joe Walsh put some good mojo on the song and we’re grateful.”

Near the end of the press conference, Keith revealed that this song actually became part of repairing their friendship: “We had an issue with each other that’s all I’m gonna say. I learned a lot about the importance of friendship and this guy was so incredibly gracious and good and I learned a lot about what it takes to be a real friend. And I wanted to really make it up to Richard and show him that our friendship really means something to me and so I said, ‘Please I wanna write together again we should really do that’ and we talked about it for a long time and we eventually did. And I’m so glad that we got to not only write the song but for the song to take us to this point because it wasn’t born of a quota to write a song it was born of a want for us to reconnect. And the song was just… it was a byproduct of that desire.”

The party ended with Urban and Marx performing the song with two people that Keith found on YouTube singing the song. With a young man singing lead and an even younger girl playing lead guitar, the two music superstars sang background vocals to their number one hit that made the music industry crowd downright cheer.

Toby told Country Countdown USA’s Lon Helton he’s very proud of his son: “Watching him out there, with 35 or 36 of the best high school under-16 year olds in the nation. There were some boys who were 6-9, and Stelen’s 6-1, about 240 pounds, there were some jokers who looked like they’re ready for the NFL.  I threw him to the wolves, and he came out alright.”  Toby told Lon that he will begin his summer tour a little earlier this year so he can spend time with his son next fall: ”My son will be on the 10th grade football team, so I want to be around for that, and so we’ll start the tour earlier.”

At the same time, Toby has been working on his daughter Krystal’s debut album: “I was in Nashville just a few days ago, finished the last recordings just a few days ago.  She had her first two live shows this past weekend.  It was her first two shows on her own with a band, where she wasn’t just playing with dad’s band.  She had to conduct her own band and lead the audience.  She did wonderful.  I told Krystal if she graduated from college, I’d help her out.  She graduated, and now she’s ready to go out and have some fun at this.” By the way, Toby’s daughter Krystal got married in October 2010.

LISTEN: 12-07 Toby2

LISTEN to audio highlights from Keith HERE

READ stories from Lon’s interview HERE

Next Week: Kenny Chesney previews the Brothers of the Sun tour.

LISTEN: 12-07 Toby4