NO HAT ALL CATTLE: KEITH URBAN BARES HIS FULL SIX … STRINGS FOR WIND BACK WEDNESDAY

Celebrating not being a harmonica player - Keith Urban.

This Friday, the biggest name in Australian country music – maybe the only name in Australian country music anyone not plugged into country music could name without prompting, and let’s not get started on the fact he was born in New Zealand – Mr Keith Urban comes home(ish) with a show at the big big room in Homebush.

You might not be able to make it on Friday. You might have never given any thought to seeing him. You might have run screaming from the possibility of seeing him. (Though whatever else you or I may say about his music, the man puts on a proper show.) But have you considered him in spandex or white singlet? Sans clothing?

Wind Back Wednesday has and brings it, and some other thoughts, to you in this interview from 2001. Yes, that puts it pre-Nicole Kidman by about four years. He was still pretty famous though.

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THERE IS NO HAIRY CHEST, nor the big moustache. And unless he's hiding the spandex under those washed denim jeans, no other sign that Keith Urban is a Freddie Mercury fan. But it's true. Oh yes indeed, even if Urban, currently Australia's most successful country music artist in the United States, would rather people just forgot about it.

"Freddie is one small part of a huge array of people who have influenced me," he says, a little embarrassed.

Does this love of Mercury go back to his Queensland days as one of the Westfield Super Juniors troupe of singing, dancing kids? (Boy, is he regretting mentioning his past in previous interviews.)

"I don't know," he says begrudgingly. "It probably had in that period of my life, for good or bad. It definitely left an impression."

Given that his latest single, Where the Blacktop Ends, gives him his third American top 10 country hit in the past year, including a No 1 for But For the Grace of God, we can presume he made the right choice when he opted not to become the next Jamie Redfern.

"Now there's a blast from the past. I haven't thought of that guy for 20 years," he laughs. "My parents used to drag me along to all these country shows as a kid. My dad's great love was early American rock 'n' roll and country, Merle Haggard, Johnny Cash. I leaned more towards that and then I grew up with West Coast American rock like Jackson Browne, Fleetwood Mac. But, ultimately, country was the best fit."

Keith Urban's other claim to fame this year is that he is the first Australian country singer to appear nude in Playgirl. That is, no jeans, no chaps, no boots. Just a guitar. Strategically placed, of course. What brought this on?

"It's more what brought them off," he laughs, oddly more relaxed now that the conversation has moved from Freddie Mercury to nudity. "They called Capitol Records and asked if I was interested in doing it, and I didn't see any problem. It would be done pretty tastefully - and I'm always up for doing something differently - and this seemed a good place to go."

If nothing else, a Playgirl shoot does make it clear that 33-year-old Urban, after a decade of throwing himself against American indifference, is no longer merely an up-and-coming star. You would imagine, though, that the post-gig autograph hunters aren't just carrying black-and-white stills from the record company any more.

"I've got no problem with that," says Urban. "The weird part is when people stand in line for an autograph and they haven't earmarked the page, so they start flicking through it looking for the right page going, 'No, that's not you, that's not you'."

What did his mother say about the photos?

"She was cool; both my parents are pretty open-minded people," he says. "It was all tastefully done. Thank God I play guitar and not harmonica."

How strange was it being photographed naked in front of a room full of people such as the make-up person ("Hmm, I'm thinking not so much red there, sweetie"), the stylist ("Darling, have you considered puce pubes?") and the photographer ("Love the camera, baby ... whoa, maybe not quite so much love, eh?")?

"Those particular shots were just me and the photographer. I didn't feel too uncomfortable. When you work in front of the camera for so long you forget there's someone there and you treat the camera as an object."

Sheesh, he's sounding like Kate Moss.

"No, I like to eat too much for that. And I don't like throwing up." Boom boom.

With his success, the requests have been coming from more than the skin mags, including two invitations to the home of country music in Nashville, the Grand Ole Opry.

"Now there's a stretch for you: from Playgirl to the Grand Ole Opry," Urban says.

Anyway, each time he played he performed a Jimmy Webb song, continuing his public love affair with the songwriter behind classics such as Wichita Lineman and Galveston. It's an affair finally consummated recently when he and Webb spent a day in Nashville writing a song.

"The funnest part of the day was coming home and writing the lyrics into my song book and adding that classic last name of the songwriter. I just stared at it."

Yeah, maybe writing with Jimmy Webb beats Playgirl.