Luke Combs on his duet with Miranda Lambert, a UK tour and performing with Ed Sheeran
His third album, Growin' Up, is out now
Last updated 24th Jun 2022
It's hard to believe that it's been four months since Luke Combs headlined Country 2 Country Festival back in March. It had been two years of rescheduled dates - and man, was it worth the wait! Did it live up to Luke's expectations, too?
“C2C was great over there. I’m glad we got it done, it’s been a long time coming.” Luke told Absolute Radio Country’s Baylen Leonard. They reminisced about his incredible performance, which included a surprise appearance from none other than Ed Sheeran. Was this planned all along, or was it a spontaneous decision?
“He told me he was coming to the show and most of the time, and when I go to something, I’m going to be a fan, enjoy the show with my friends. I don’t want to have to go into work mode. I said, "We’re doing Dive, hope we do it justice", and he was like, "I’ll come out if you want me to", and I was like, "Oh man, that’d be killer!" He was kind enough to do that and it was cool.”
Now that UK audiences have had a taste of a Luke Combs show, we want more. Does Luke have any plans for a UK tour?
"Oh, it’s definitely on the agenda. We love going over there, everybody’s been so great to us. Fans are awesome, they know every word to every song which is so cool."
But we're going to have to be patient, UK fans. "I’m not gonna sugar coat it, it’s hard to tour over there it’s a lot different to tour over there. The logistics of getting everything over there. We’re actively planning it and we will be as soon as possible."
Luke's been out on the road in the US, headlining stadiums, playing festivals and he's had some pretty impressive company. Among the artists supporting him have been Absolute Radio Country favourites, Cody Johnson and Morgan Wade, who Luke handpicked to join him.
“I first heard Morgan a year and a half ago, and we still haven't met in person. We're both at Sony, and we both performed at C2C but on a different day than us. I look forward to having her out, she’s a great songwriter and hopefully she’s a good fit.”
“I’ve loved Cody for a long time. The first time I heard of him was my tour manager, Ethan, who was telling me about his stuff and we like giving each other a hard time, like oh you should go work for him if you’re such a fan."
"I met Cody recently and he’s just awesome. Such a great singer and songwriter, puts on a great show. Our crews get along and our fan bases are pretty similar. It’s a joy to be out there with someone you don’t have to worry about or wonder if their show is gonna be good. The guy just gets it. He’s on the way to the stratosphere, I'm a big fan.”
Playing stadiums is a huge step in any musician's career, and bringing out emerging artists can help share their music with new audiences. Does Luke ever think back to his first major tour?
“The first big tour I got was Brantley Gilbert. And man, such a huge fan of his, when I was in college he was on top of the world. I was covering his stuff at bar gigs around North Carolina. When I moved to town and got my record deal, that was our first real tour that was in an arena with buses and all this craziness. It was awesome he was so great to me and my guys and forever grateful to that tour.”
With Luke's crazy tour schedule, it took a while for him to make his new record. “I did 5 or 6 studio sessions, and experiment, and this is where we ended up. It’s been crazy to get to this point recording when covid happened, then when I went on tour I had to stop, I really felt like I couldn’t give my best effort and mental energy to the tour and I didn’t want to do a half assed tour and album. It’s just not possible. The stress of the tour was a lot, it’s not like there’s a guy you can call and be like, how did you tour the last pandemic? People were calling me and I was like I don't know!"
"A lot of that changed over the course of six months. It definitely kept us on our toes. That was the best tour I've ever done. It was so much fun and it was a challenge. These shows were postponed for two years, it was the first time we did a 360 stage, which was a challenge for me, the band and the crew. And throwing the covid stuff on top it was chaos. Proud we got through it. A lifetime accomplishment.”
Luke's third studio album, Growin' Up, is out Friday 24th June, and we're loving it. How did this project come together?
"I’m one of those guys who could change the track list every day and never feel like it’s perfect. But eventually you have to come to a decision. To have made it into the studio and recorded it, I like these songs."
One of the most anticipated songs on the album, is his collaboration with Miranda Lambert, Outrunnin' Your Memory.
“We didn’t really know each other. It was a mutual idea. I always looked up to her as a songwriter, we had the managers figure out a date where we could write and I went to her office and the day before I had written with my buddy Dan, we pitched an idea to the other songwriter and they didn’t bite, they didn’t like the idea."
"Then I suggested it to Miranda and I said I felt bad about writing the idea with her and not with Dan. He lived an hour outside of town and by the time he got there, we already had the chorus which was a completely different idea than what we planned on but he ended up getting on the song anyway, so he owes me one.”
Check out his latest music video for The Kind of Love We Make below.