Keith Urban talks late father's influence: 'It's a strong driving force for me to impress my dad'

Keith Urban's says his father's influence still permeates almost everything he does.

It was his late father who instilled in him a love of country music, Urban recently shared in an interview with Billboard, and his father whose approval he still seeks today, even though he died six years ago.

"I think that fire has burned in me forever, and probably still does," Urban told Billboard. "I think I got my dad's approval long before I thought I had it…but it's a strong driving force for me to impress my dad. Still, to this day."

Urban mentions his father in the opening lines of his current single, "Wild Hearts," which goes, "Saw the man in black / Spotlight in the air / Heard a thousand screams / Saw my daddy stare."

He said his dad's love of music came to mind when he began to write "Wild Hearts."

“Literally the first thing that came to me [was] when my dad took my family to see Johnny Cash and I was 5," Urban told Billboard. "The truth of my past [made] it so easy to write, because there’s no doubt that was the beginning of my journey, that concert."

He went on, "I realized it was the thing that set me on the path into country music, into playing guitar on stage, singing and doing this thing probably to get my dad's attention from the very beginning."

"When you're 5 years old and you see your father mesmerized by something -- in a way that I don't think I had seen that gaze come to me -- I'm like, 'I'm going to do that,'" he added.