BobbyCast Recap: Luke Combs Chats About His Background, Quick Rise to Fame & More
Did you know that Luke wanted to be a homicide detective?
On episode #226 of the BobbyCast, Bobby Bones brought on platinum-selling artist Luke Combs to talk about the quick rise of his career and to delve a little deeper into his background. Luke came on the podcast fresh from appearing on Saturday Night Live this past Saturday (Feb. 1), which he says was a very big accomplishment for him.
“It was really cool because I grew up watching SNL with my dad, so it was really neat,” Luke says. “It was very surreal to be there and see the set because it’s so iconic. It was awesome. I would definitely do it again.”
From there, Bobby and Luke talked bout the incredibly quick rise of Luke’s career. Each of Luke’s singles, with the exception of his latest song he just released, have all hit the No. 1 spot on the charts. With all this quick success that just started in 2016, Bobby wondered if Luke has even had time to sit down and let it soak in.
“I just try to not think about it because it can be really overwhelming to try to understand the scope of it.” says Luke. “I try to not bathe in it as much as I could. It’s crazy. I don’t think I fully understand, honestly.”
While most country fans most likely know Luke’s name and the words to his songs by this point, Bobby pointed out that the quick rise to fame may have led to details about Luke’s background being left out. For that reason, he asked Luke to talk a bit about his upbringing.
Luke chatted about how he grew up in both Charlotte and Asheville, North Carolina. He always enjoyed singing and would listen to country music with his mom when he was young. He went to Appalachian State University where he majored in business and later criminal justice. He told Bobby that his career goal was to be a homicide detective, but he didn’t finish his degree due to the requirement of an abundance of math and science classes.
Lucky for Luke, he soon realized music was what he was meant to do, and started making trips to Nashville. While his career did skyrocket quite quickly, Luke certainly wasn’t immune to some early rejection in the music industry. There was one meeting with BMI that could have easily swayed him away from a career in music.
“I played ‘Hurricane,’ ‘When It Rains,’ and ‘One Number Away,’ which were my first three number ones,” Luke says of the meeting. “And they were like, ‘Okay, here’s the deal. You gotta get better at songwriting, you gotta write better songs, and you’re never going to be an artist, so that’s it.”
Luke certainly proved that person wrong by earning No. 1 honors with those three songs, as well as with four more singles. To hear more from Bobby and Luke’s conversation, including how a bet-gone-wrong forced Luke to become a temporary vegan, listen to episode #226 of the BobbyCast.
