Unknown Musicians Open For Keith Urban On Competition Series ‘The Road’

“The Premiere” – The journey kicks off for 12 emerging musicians as they take the stage as opening acts for Grammy® Award winner, executive producer and “headlining superstar” for THE ROAD, Pictured (L-R): Keith Urban.

Photo: Lauren “Lo” Smith/CBS ©2025 CBS Broadcasting, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

When Blake Shelton reminisces about his start in the music industry, he recalls, “I was opening for an artist named Jamie O’Neill, who was opening for [the band] Lone Star. At the time, I’d had one single, and it was just coming out on the chart. I was given 20 minutes to perform, and, this sounds ridiculous, but I want to say, like, three foot of stage. There was really no room. It was so terrible.”

After that, Shelton opened for Toby Keith, “And then, I became a household name and never had to open for anybody ever again.”

Because of his experience as an opening act, Shelton seems to be a perfect fit for his new show The Road.

The competition series follows 12 emerging musicians competing as opening acts for Grammy Award winner Keith Urban at venues across America. The show offers a raw, behind-the-scenes look at the gritty, high-stakes life of touring musicians.

The the winner of The Road will receive a $250,000 prize, a record deal, and a performance slot at the Stagecoach Music Festival.

Shelton and Urban also serve as executive producers, with fellow musician Gretchen Wilson working as tour manager throughout the run of the series. The Road is executive produced by Taylor Sheridan, David Glasser, and Lee Metzger.

It was Metzger who approached Shelton about participating in the series, as Shelton reveals, “He said, ‘what if we did a singing competition show where artists got to open for a superstar, and you get to film them out on the road? And my first thing I said was, ‘there’s no freaking way any superstar will ever, ever allow that. That’ll never happen.”

But, then, as Shelton recalls, “Flash forward, we finally came up with a concept that does work, but more importantly, we found a superstar, that knows how to play ball.”

In talking about Urban in this role, Shelton says, “I really don’t know who else could have done something like this, because he’s got the experience with television, he’s got the old school experience with touring and playing the bars and the honky-tonks out there. I don’t know that this could have happened if we couldn’t have got Keith involved.”

He then points out that Wilson is what he believes is, ‘an obvious choice to be tour manager.’

“There’s really only one Gretchen Wilson in the world. Thank God, by the way, because she’ll put us all in our place, and that’s exactly what we needed for the show.”

While Shelton has previously been a judge on the singing competition series The Voice for many years — which his says prepared him for this series — he also says his role with regard to The Road very different.

“Well, in a lot of ways, it was a dream come true [to be an executive producer on this] because, as much fun as I had being a coach on The Voice, there’s no way you can do a job for that long and not [think], ‘if I was the boss, how I would do this?’ And as time went on, I just had these things in the back of my mind. Things that we never did, for whatever reason.”

So, he thought, “What if you took these same artists and they weren’t in the TV studio with a prompted audience, and you put them in front of people that’ve been standing outside for six hours in the rain, or in the 100 degree heat, waiting to see Keith Urban, and then [those people are] having to watch these [musicians] they’ve never heard of before? How would these artists react in that situation?”

About featuring total unknowns in this manner, Urban says, “I think what makes this show so unique, is this is what really happens. And watching all of these musicians, night after night, have to choose a cover song, and an original song, and make these decisions of how to connect with this audience, and hold them, and hopefully have that audience vote and get them through to the next night, that’s real world truth right there about being an artist on the road.”

It’s Shelton, Urban and Wilson’s history in the industry that makes them the perfect trio to work with the new artists, says Wilson. “It’s all of those experiences, though, that made the three of us, I think, so compassionate when it came to dealing with these musicians. It wasn’t like they were dealing with somebody who hasn’t walked every bit of every inch of every mile in their shoes. And so while we were tough, it was coming from a place of love and knowing that sometimes it just doesn’t go the way you want it to go, but you still have to get out there and perform. I think we were a really good team for them.”

With an abundance of other competition shows out there, Wilson says The Road is different because, “The rest of the shows are exactly the same. I’m guessing that these competitors go back to a really nice hotel room and sleep in a really fancy space, and then they come into kind of a studio set every day. And this is a lot more real-life situation. They have to tour across the country on a bus, it’s crowded, you get to know each other very well. And, the nerves and just the real world behind the scenes, I think, is what sets this apart. The real rawness of it, is different from anything else that I’ve ever seen.”

As Urban excitedly says, “I can’t wait for people to see it,” Shelton adds, “I couldn’t be more excited and more proud of this project, and I really think we’ve come up with something that’s completely different, and it’s gonna be fresh for music fans to see this on television.”

‘The Road’ premieres Sunday, October 19th at 9 o’clock on CBS, and is available for streaming on Paramount+.