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Life on the road is no easy feat — just ask Keith Urban.
During the premiere episode of The Road on CBS on Sunday, Oct. 19, Urban opened up about the difficulties of life on the road as a touring musician.
In the opening scene, a person behind the camera asks Urban and Blake Shelton — who’s an executive producer on the show — about the “challenges” of being on the road.
The “Female” singer, 57, responded, “Where do we start?”
“It’s a calling and you’re born to do it — or you’re not gonna make it,” he said. “When you wake up on a tour bus at 3:30 in the morning and you’re sick as a dog, you’re in the middle of nowhere and you’ve got to play your fifth show later that night and you haven’t slept and you miss your friends and you’re missing your family and you’re completely lonely and miserable and sick and you say to yourself, ‘Why am I doing this?'”
Urban, who recently split from estranged wife Nicole Kidman, continued, “The only answer could be, ‘Because this is what I’m born to do.’ We’re going to find out who’s made of that stuff.”
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The Road, a brand-new singing competition show, was co-created by Shelton and Yellowstone’s Taylor Sheridan. On the show, musicians hope to catch their big break by joining Urban on tour and it captures their high-stakes, unfiltered journeys and offers a backstage pass into the gritty life of a touring musician,” per the show’s description.
In a press release announcing the show, Urban said he “spent a lot of my underage life playing in some seedy pubs, sometimes just for the bartender. So I love the idea of throwing artists into a real-world environment to find out if they are artists.”
Meanwhile, Shelton, 49, said the show reminded him of the days when he was hustling on the road before becoming a star.
“They’re so big-eyed about it. They’re opening for Keith Urban at a bar, and there’s a huge, excited crowd in there waiting for some good country music,” Shelton told PEOPLE May. “I had those moments on the bus [back in the day] where the band would go in and soundcheck and I can remember asking, ‘Is there anybody even in there?’
Lauren “Lo” Smith/CBS
The show’s premiere came weeks after Urban’s shocking split from the Practical Magic actress, 58, after 19 years of marriage. The exes share two daughters together: Sunday Rose, 17, and Faith Margaret, 14.
Shortly after news of their separation was made public, a source told PEOPLE that Urban had moved out of the family home and was largely away as he traveled the world on his High and Alive World Tour.
“Their lives were moving in different directions, and once he quietly set up his own place, it felt like the writing was on the wall,” a source said of Kidman — who filed for divorce on Sept. 30 — and Urban.
“It really hasn’t been a secret in their circles that Keith and Nicole have been living separately for a while now,” the source added. “People close to Keith felt like the split was kind of inevitable.”
