Going back to where it all started.
Luke Combs is a global country music superstar, who racks up #1 single after #1 single, sells out venues all over the world, right up there with Morgan Wallen and Zach Bryan, he’s the biggest thing in the business. But he got his start in the college town of Boone, North Carolina, when he was in college at Appalachian State University back around 2011-ish. That’s when he met his now close friend, local musician Adam Church (who was featured in his ‘Doin’ This’ music video), and they stared playing as a duo around town.
Adam was playing gigs with another friend at the time and was already pretty established in Boone, so Luke connecting with him was obviously a great way to get his foot in the door at the local spots, so to speak.
Luke used to post on Vine a lot (if you remember that app, pre-TikTok), and YouTube was really big then for growing a music platform, and during an appearance on the Tukr’D Out Podcast, Adam remembered the message Luke sent about them getting together to record a cover, which was the first thing they ever posted on YouTube from the first time they met:
“So Luke hits me up on Facebook in my messenger, he’s like, ‘Hey man, my name’s Luke, I go to App State, I see you have an App State hat on in your YouTube videos. I would love to get up and hang out and maybe plays some shows or do a song or a cover with you for YouTube.’ I’m like, ‘Yeah, man, I think we can make something happen.’
So like a week or two goes by, I go to his apartment, we do, it’s still on YouTube, it’s called ‘I Don’t Want This Night To End,’ Luke Bryan. That cover is still out there, the first time we ever met.”
The rest, as they say, is history…
But my favorite part of the story is Luke going to Adam’s gigs and playing his set breaks, which included two very specific covers in “Wagon Wheel” and “Friends In Low Places.” It’s funny to imagine Luke waiting to play during someone else’s set breaks now, and something about those two songs in particular just makes me laugh… but hey, everybody’s gotta start somewhere, right? And while now everybody is kind of sick of it, “Wagon Wheel” was quite the banger back then…
Luke certainly turned that two-song set break gig, if you can even call it that, into a heck of a career:
“Luke would actually come to my shows when I was playing with my buddy Blake and play met set breaks. He would play ‘Wagon Wheel’ and ‘Friends In Low Places,’ and that was Luke’s start of playing live in front of people. Eventually my buddy Blake takes over his family business, and Luke and I kind of joined forces to start playing duo gigs.”
Luke moved to Nashville in 2014, and released his now hit song “Hurricane” in 2015, when it initially charted and it gained traction on iTunes organically. A year later, in 2016, Luke’s label re-released it and in 2017, “Hurricane” peaked at the top of the Billboard Country Airplay chart, becoming his first #1 single. It kicked off a run of 17 straight #1 singles at country radio.
The two of them played gigs around town for several years before he moved to Music City, and it was really the only experience he had playing live music in front of a crowd before he went to Nashville. It’s hard to even imagine he had such limited experience now, but when you’re that talented, it comes naturally in many ways and it’s clear Luke was meant to do this.
He’s obviously come a very long way, but I love hearing about how artists who are as successful and popular as he is got their start.
Watch the clip here:
And of course, I’m going to leave you with the cover of “I Don’t Want This Night To End.” Luke sounds exactly the same, and man… what a dang voice. He was destined to be a country music star, and he still has some of the same mannerisms and things he does onstage now. I guess all of that’s easy to say now, but come on… this is incredible:
