It’s fair to say Keith Urban is in high spirits these days.

The Australian-raised country music star is back on tour for the first time in three years, promoting his 12th studio album, “High.” It comes in the wake of a continuing Las Vegas residency he began in 2023, and ahead of his new TV reality show, “The Road,” set to premiere at 9 p.m. Sundays this fall on CBS.

“It feels really good,” Urban, 57 — the father of two with his wife, actress Nicole Kidman, says via phone following one of the tour’s weekend jaunts. “Other than COVID, I typically tour every two years. I should’ve toured last year, but I scrapped an album so I had to push everything off by a year.

“So it feels especially good to be back on the road right now.”

The High and Alive World Tour also comes 25 years since Urban’s first Top 5 country hit (“Your Everything”) and his first No. 1 (“But For the Grace of God”). With 18 more Top 20 singles and nine platinum-or-better albums to his credit — and a wealth of awards including four Grammys — that makes Urban one of the genre’s old guard. Nevertheless, he considers himself “now guard,” staying active and current — even collaborating with hot hitmaker Jelly Roll last year on the song “Don’t Want To.”

“I just love making music and that hasn’t changed,” says Urban, who also maintains a periodic residency in Las Vegas. “I don’t feel like someone who’s had a long career — until I put a tour together and I suddenly realize how many songs I’ve got on this setlist that people know, which is an amazing feeling.”

Urban does, however, retain some old-school sensibilities in the way he approaches music.

Playing guitar since the age of 6 and schooled in both country, which his parents favorited, and rock players such as Fleetwood Mac’s Lindsey Buckingham and Dire Straits’ Mark Knopfler, he appeared on Australia’s “New Faces” when he was just 13, and released a solo album in 1991 before becoming part of The Ranch and moving to Nashville. There, Urban learned to live by record executive Tony Brown’s advice: “If you have a hit song, you’ll have an experience, but if you have an audience you’ll have a career.”

Urban, of course, chose the latter. He considers himself “an album artist, but also singles-oriented” at a time when the primary focus is on the latter.

“I’d like to think it’s relative to every artist’s authentic self,” Urban explains. “Certain artists lean more into single-type work or EPs. Other artists lean into albums. I think they grow audiences that are attuned to that, too.

“What I think we’re seeing a lot of right now is potentially short-term decisions by certain artists. They have umpteen million TikTok followers and they go out and headline and all of that. They’re motivated by streaming numbers and metrics and wanting to get those numbers up. It’s not about going the distance and building steadily and solidly for a long-term career.”

But, perhaps wary of sounding like he’s telling those “kids” to get off his lawn, Urban is quick to add: “There’s no right or wrong. There’s just being true to your art and your music and what your objective is — what your motivation is for making that music.”

“High,” which debuted at No. 10 on the Billboard Top Country Albums chart last fall, is Urban’s latest reminder of his intent. He had set out to make an album called “615,” which he describes as “very Nashville-centric — only Nashville songwriters, only Nashville musicians, only Nashville this, Nashville that.” As he proceeded, however, he found those parameters unsatisfying.

“The result was just a little too one-note,” he acknowledges. Putting the project aside, he took three of the “615” songs and “just decided to build a whole bunch of songs around those three and make what was sort of more my kind of album,” mixing elements of country, pop and rock.

“You would think by now I’d know that however I make records is however I make records — why should I change that?” Urban says, with a laugh. “Maybe I just had to find out why I make records the way I do and that’s what I did. This taught me that if my records are scattershot, at least they’re organically scattershot. It keeps everything exciting and fresh. No guardrails, just go in and make some music.”

As the tour unwinds, Urban is also looking forward to “The Road,” a musical competition show conceived by Blake Shelton and produced by Taylor Sheridan of “Yellowstone” fame. Having been a judge on “American Idol” and a coach for the Australian edition of “The Voice,” Urban says “The Road” takes an entirely different angle, putting contestants literally on the road, opening up for him and co-star Gretchen Wilson at special club dates where the audiences determine who continues and who’s eliminated.

“I’ve not seen anything like it,” Urban says. “I think (Shelton) looked at it and went: ‘What happens to these artists on ‘Idol’ or ‘The Voice’ after they leave these shows? What’s next?’ Probably the sad reality is they go into tiny little clubs and try to find an audience. And if they’ve never played live, they also try and figure out how to choose songs, how to handle audiences that are not really interested in them, what it’s like being away from your family for weeks and weeks and weeks … all of what it’s like being on the road.

“That was sort of, I guess, the spark for the show. So, Blake and his producing partner took the idea to Taylor Sheridan, who loved it, and then they called me and Gretchen Wilson and we all got on board and made this thing that’s really unique. I think people are gonna find it really interesting.”

Keith Urban, Chase Matthew, Alana Springsteen and Karley Scott Collins perform at 7 p.m. Sunday, June 22 at Pine Knob Music Theatre, 33 Bob Seger Drive, Independence Township. 313-471-7000 or 313Presents.com.