NEED TO KNOW
Professional musicianship didn’t always feel like a possibility for Luke Combs.
The “Forever After All” recently caught up with Willie Geist at City Winery in Nashville for a Sunday Sitdown interview set to air on the Sunday, Feb. 1 episode of Sunday TODAY. PEOPLE can exclusively premiere a clip from the conversation, where Combs spoke about why he didn’t always think singing was a realistic career choice.
During the Sunday Sitdown conversation, Geist asked Combs, “Was there ever a thought in your mind that you might be a performer, that this might be an actual job that a person could do?”
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“You know, no, as crazy as that sounds,” admitted the “Forever After All” singer. “And I kick myself all the time, like, ‘How did I not put this together sooner?’ All I did was sing all the time, and never one time was I like, ‘Maybe I could sing for a living.’ I don’t know, I guess in my mind it was like, ‘Well, I mean, that’s not something you do. It’s not a job you can have.’”
Despite being a fan of musicians, Combs wasn’t able to conceptualize the idea of actually pursuing the craft himself. “When you’re growing up and you see Alan Jackson on TV, you’re like, ‘That’s not a real guy.’ Like, it is, but you don’t process that that’s his job. I don’t know,” he said. “As a kid you don’t put that together.”
At the time, the North Carolina native thought well-known musicians “live on ‘famous planet,’ and I’m on ‘not-famous planet,’ and they beam all the famous stuff down to Earth.”
“I came from a real working class family, and my parents were always like, ‘Chase your dreams,’ you know? But then in my mind I’m going, like, ‘I mean, to an extent, right?’ Chase your dreams, but I’m not gonna be in the Olympics. I don’t have to tell you that that’s not gonna happen,” added Combs.
“Chase your dreams within reason, you know what I mean? Let’s not get crazy with it here,” he said.
The Grammy-nominated artist thought his options were limited and recalled telling himself, “Maybe you could open a restaurant or something. Maybe just stick to banking or something.”
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“My parents always encouraged me to sing, and they were very proud that I was doing those things,” said Combs. “But it wasn’t like my dad was like, ‘Hey slugger, you’ll be Garth Brooks one day, man.’ It just didn’t happen! You know what I mean? He was like, ‘You’ll never be Garth Brooks.’ And no slack to him. How often does that happen? It doesn’t happen. And damn, it happened though.”
The “Days Like These” performer’s career is massive these days. He’s earned multiple No. 1 country hits including “When It Rains It Pours,” “Beautiful Crazy” and a cover of Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car,” among others.
Combs also has three Grammy nominations under his belt, and he’s won multiple CMA Awards — including Entertainer of the Year, CMT Music Awards and Academy of Country Music Awards. His new album, The Way I Am, is set to come out on March 20 via Sony Music Nashville and Seven Ridges Records.
