FULL SEND PODCAST - Luke Combs x Nelk Boys | Ep. 46

Episode Date: June 16, 2022

Luke Combs on His Competition with Morgan Wallen & Country Music Industry Secrets Presented by Happy Dad Hard Seltzer. Find Happy Dad near you http://happydad.com/find (21+ only). Video is available on http://youtube.com/fullsendpodcast/videos. Follow Nelk Boys on Instagram http://instagram.com/nelkboys. Part of the Shots Podcast Network (shots.com). You can listen to the audio version of this podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts & anywhere you listen to podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We want out. We want out. We want out. Luke in the house. In the house, man. Let's go, baby. This. Look at this. So, what? We got a, like, big day today? What's going on today? You got a big day today, man. A lot of stuff going on. I got this going on. Yeah.

It's a big day already. Appreciate it. Got a Rolling Stone interview after this. Oh, shit. Then I got a number one party, I guess, of sorts this evening. I'm pumped for that. So, you know, we're pulling up to that tonight, right? I didn't know that. What is having a party tonight?

Oh, really? True. True. I am, man. What is the number one party? Well, I mean, in Nashville, you know, you kind of, there's a tradition of like celebrating when you get a number one song at radio. So tonight we're celebrating nine of those.

Let's go, baby. Haven't had one in how many years. Been kind of busy. Your cell, your, so this is number one's adding up from years. And now it's just all leading to this one party. Yeah, because usually you have. So, historic. historically it would be like you know like a lot of times when if you take a song to radio is like a lot of times it takes you can take a year to go number one but you know we were lucky enough to have a bunch that went in like 14 weeks or 15 weeks so then it was like we had so much shit going on that it was like it was hard to fit that into the schedule you know and I feel bad because just too much number one's the party every single part it's tough it's tough you know but really

the thing that that's that sucks to me about not being able to do it is like it's really to celebrate this like the guys that helped you write the song you know it's not as much about myself as it is about celebrating those but it's your number one party though well i guess technically did you like go up to the guys and we're like hey we got to have a number one party no that no the writers were probably pushing you like yo when's the number one they're like hey man listen i need to celebrate here yeah no no it's it was actually got presented capy presented it to me actually so is through BMI. Well, congratulations.

Thank you. That's fucking us. It should be fun, man. What's that like? What's your process like, like working with writers? Like, does the song come to you? Do you, is it more of a collaborative thing in the studio? I think a lot of the times, man, it's, it can be one of many things.

It can be an idea that I had, an idea of somebody else had. It can be something that somebody already started that they send to me and they're like, do you like this thing or do you not like this thing? I got to give those guys a lot of the credit, man. I mean, some of those guys write, you know, five, six, seven songs a week. So it's insane, yeah. Are you at the peak of your career right now, you think? Are you like at the top?

This is where this is the best it's been so far? I mean, I would say so in a lot of ways, yeah. I mean, we're playing stadiums right now, so it's, there's really nowhere to go. You just played Seattle? Yeah, I just played Lumen Field. How long ago was that? A couple days ago, like three days ago. You went Denver to Seattle?

Yeah, we went Denver to Seattle. Was it a mile high, the Broncos? Yeah, it was at Broncos Stadium. Hell yeah. Then we did Bottle Rock and Napa in between there. Fuck. Stage coach. Oh, two ago, which you guys were.

Yeah. Yep. So, yeah, it's been crazy, man. It's been, but it's been a light year, honestly, for us. I mean, I can have a baby, like, in the middle. That's what I was going to say. Are you serious? Yeah.

When is it, like, one day? Like, it's due, like, next week. Wow. So it could literally, like, we literally went to the doctor yesterday. And it was like, oh, it could, nothing yet, but it could be tonight. Are you ready for that? This is the first is your first? your first kid first

holy shit i got the car seat in the truck dude so you're preparing i'm ready to roll dude i got the little mirror in the do you know if it's a boy or girl can you say it's a boy wow yeah did you do a gender reveal party or anything we it was super small dude we did one in our house we have a house uh in florida and we did it there with just like my parents her parents my wife's sister and then their grandmother

what's that feeling like like about to have a kid in a week oh man i don't know i just feel i just feel i just think you're kind of like, you just don't really know what to expect. I'm ready for sure. Yeah. But I don't know how ready you can be. Like, how ready can you actually be? How big, how big of a lifestyle change is that doing what you do?

Honestly, man, like I kick it at the house a lot. So I don't think it's going to be, you know, I mean, it's going to be super different, no doubt. I can't just go do whatever I want whenever I want to, which is kind of. You can't go out and get fucked up and go wild party. No. I mean, I guess you could. do you do that you're not a big you're not that's why they got babysitters that's facts true man that's true that's a that's a job that that that exists out there man

i don't know i don't know how i would feel about though like somebody i'll probably say this and then end up having somebody to help but i don't know like we're we're giving it a stab like like after this week i'm shut down for a couple weeks i have a few shows like four or five shows next month as you should be and then it's like august nothing like most to September nothing. And that time will be just, let's focus on family and that's it. Yeah, like just stay home with the wife and the kid and like have parents in and out. Yeah, that's crazy.

I mean, I just feel like you have to do that. You know what I mean? That's like super important. At least, especially for my wife, man. Yeah. Yeah, the way, the baby can't be screaming like up nine times a day while you're playing the fucking guitar on stage. Right. And you're just gone or you're just gone or something.

You know what I mean? It'd be tough to. I don't know. I would fit. Like if I was in her shoes, I'd be, that would suck, dude. Did you get, did you get your start? When you first started playing, because I read that you came in Nashville was your first place that you came to? Well, I came here in 2014.

I had been playing in North Carolina for about three years at that point. I mean, I couldn't play guitar 11 years ago. I taught myself how I play guitar 11 years ago. Self taught? Self taught. Not very good, though. I'm not trying to say. Off what?

Like off YouTube or anything? Or just? Just, I mean, kind of like, you just, I just, anywhere that I could pick anything up was really how it was. You just randomly were like, yeah, I want to learn guitar. guitar well i mean i've been singing forever yeah i don't know it was just like being tall or something like i went as soon as i could talk i was singing like anything i would hear i would sing it i had no idea i was any good at any at it at all until like high school maybe you know and then i was like oh cool and then it's like i'm in college and i'm like you know first i'm like a business major

and i'm like okay well i hate math so i don't know why i decided this will be a good idea to do And then it was, I switched majors to criminal justice. I really wanted to be a homicide detective is what I wanted to do. Really? Wow. How many years did you make it in college? Well, made it five, but didn't, didn't, nothing, nothing to show for it. You know what I mean? Yeah.

I don't think that really matters. Yeah. I think you're good. Now, now it's cool. Yeah. At the time, it was cool. I didn't. No.

It's a huge career change. Yeah. Weren't you a bouncer at a bar? I was a bouncer at a bar for a while and worked in an IZod store for a while. for like over a year like folding shirts and like asking people how was being a bouncer

like did you ever have to put anyone on their place or anything like that were you a douche doormand or were you cool no I was cool man it was like a tandem deal I had this guy real name buddy love was my boss

buddy love buddy love he's about 6 5 450 you don't want to fuck with buddy love no dude buddy love rolled some heads I saw it happen many times

but it was like I was like I worked at a new bar, I lived above the bar. Like, I literally, there was seven apartments above this bar, like on top of it. And I lived up there. So I would come down. My first night at work was Halloween. Oh, fuck. Which was like, and this bar was not, we're talking. Wait, what city is this? This is in Boone, North Carolina. Small town. Okay. But this bar is probably twice as big as the room we're in right now. We're talking 250 folks in a room that twice as big as this. And so it's like, chaos and it was the new it was like the new bar in our college town so right when i got the job

so it was like everybody wanted to go there i don't know if you've ever been to boon there's not a ton of bars to go to anyways there's like eight bars in the whole what town so it was like when a new one opens it's like every student and the whole college was like i want to go to that bar you know it's 200 well that's a lot of power being the down or the doorman for sure man yeah turn people down no beef though you know what i mean no beef though you seem like a non-confrontational guy no man it was like my thing's like why am i gonna get i don't get paid enough to get in a fight with somebody at a bar yeah you know what i mean it's like making what set at that time probably seven dollars an hour like the least amount of money was that the 90s in

1990 when two 2000 probably 2010 how old you you're 32 32 okay cool 2010 probably 2010 probably and so what was your what age was your big break that you would feel and what what was your I mean, my big break was probably, I mean, if there is a moment, it was probably when I put Hurricane out, which was my first number one. But when I put it out, from when I put it out to when it went number one was like two years. So when I put that song out, it was like, I didn't have anything like anything going on at all, like nothing. But the process before, so you put out Hurricane and Hurricane was like it went wild, right? But the before stuff, like were you doing open mics and that? Because you come down to this, this fucking city, right?

I thought you were a bouncer and then you started performing at the bar. Hold on. I did. Yeah, I was in college, though. And then I moved here. Oh, okay. When you, when you, uh, excuse him, sorry, I was the question. Excuse this guy. He doesn't, uh, nobody's talking about a lot of time. I'm saying, when you go to, when you go to Nashville, right? You see all these, like, cover bands and all that. Was that what you were doing, what you were doing cover every night singing? I didn't do any cover stuff here in town. So the way it worked for me was, I picked the guitar up 21. I'm bouncing at the bar.

I asked the guy that I worked for at the bar. I was like, hey, man, can I play a show here? I've been teaching myself to play guitar. And he was like, no, we don't do shows here because there's apartments upstairs. I'm like, well, I live in the apartment upstairs. And I guarantee you that everyone in the apartments would be down here if I did the show. So he still said no. So I went across the street.

I played rugby in college. And so we drank at another bar frequently. Asked that owner of that bar, who was a little bit more of a loose cannon. I was like, hey, man, can I do a show? here and he's like just write it on the calendar he had a calendar hanging on the wall and i just rode it on there's like a saturday or something charged a dollar a ticket made 200 bucks that was more than i made at both of my jobs that week i went back to the bar i worked at told my boss i said hey man i just went over across the street and sold 200 tickets over here so i can do that over there or i can do

it over here and then i played at the bar i worked at every week after that for two two years probably two, three shows a week and it kept building, kept people being like, this guy, Luke, I'm sorry, because he just, it just kept going in my little college town. Yeah. And then it was like,

then we started playing in other college towns in North Carolina. Right. And then we got, you know, I was on Vine. Do you guys remember Vine? Oh, yeah. So I was, that was like,

the beginning, it was like OG TikTok, dude. Right. This is like a hustle story. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, exactly. So, wait. So, you blew up on Vine? I mean, blew up. I'd like, like, you were 75, that,

followers probably which was a lot dude for a kid in college you know what I mean what would you do just a cover yeah because I mean vines were what six seconds long yeah it's like the limit bro vine was so big back in it just fucking died out though what I got bought I think like I think I think Instagram bought it and like shut it down okay that's probably what did you get I believe what happened did you Twitter bought it Twitter bought it Sammy jeet he coming in clutched her it got shut down though did you get any like gigs or anything from vine directly from there oh Definitely, man. I got, I got booked for, like, I played fraternity parties in Auburn, Alabama, and that was all from kids that had seen me on Vine. Damn, that's wild. Which was awesome. You know, because then I moved to Nashville. And from having the Vine thing to carryover.

The Vine thing, like, when I had released some music in college on my own, enough people were buying it to where I didn't have to work. Like, enough people were listening and buying to it and buying that music that I could, like, just come here and write songs for, when I moved here in 2014, I was. wrote songs for eight months never played a show didn't have a job i just wrote songs every day for eight months and then i put hurricane out essentially because i needed like i was essentially running out of like okay when my songs are you know two years old now or whatever so i got to get something out so i can continue to like try to get my career going and i put hurricane out sold 15 000 copies first week like living like living in a apartment by myself was that was that was that with that for like what was the first big check that you were like whoa the first time i didn't even realize what was

going on man because it was like i so there was a service called uh because there's been many checks there's been many after there's many checks there's been there was a service called tune core where if you had music like you could pay them like 10 bucks and they would put it on iTunes for you i don't even know if it still exists it probably does but for an end like that was a huge game changer in the music business because it was like before there was this this glass ceiling of like oh well if you don't have a record deal good luck getting your music out if you don't have this good luck anybody ever hearing you and now with the power of the internet you can do whatever you want to so i take these songs put them on there pay ten dollars to get them on there

and then it's like they're like okay so we pay every month but the you know how it works like you get you don't get your first paycheck until the next kind of 60 day thing so it's like two months right yeah yeah i'm sitting there and i have like no idea how it's going like there's no statistics i'm making 150 dollars a week working playing three four shows a week making 20 bucks here and there kind of deal if i'm doing good and then i remember it was like to the day i'm like man i'm getting on here like what's it going to be what's it going to be what's it going to be and i'm sitting my apartment and finally log in they got my laptop and there was like 10 grand in there And I was like,

damn. Dude, I am wealthy. I'm absolutely the bill gates of my college job right now. But I was like, holy cow, dude, this is from a month of selling music,

which is like I already love to do it. Like it's, I don't even have to like, you wouldn't even have to pay me. Was there like a splurge? The splurge was, I think at that time, Xbox 360, dude.

It was the splurge at that time. Just copped on Xbox? Yeah. College kid, dude. Oh, man. Well, this is, like, when it had just, was, no, Xbox 1, excuse me, 360 had been out. Okay, yeah. So Xbox 1 had just come out.

That was like a second dream cast. Right? Keep going, yeah. Am I wrong, dude? Am I wrong timing on this? No, you're right. Xbox, Xbox 6. But if that, does that time line up, though?

Yeah. It's like Xbox one that just came out. And it was like this big. You know, it was like a television set. And now they're like this. I don't know about that. I don't know about that. The one's pretty small.

The OG will know if you watch. The OG Xbox is big. The OG Xbox. We're not talking Xbox. Okay. you're talking three i had a three six everybody had three six of course one came out yeah and that was like right when that check Aaron thinks he's good at fucking video games he thinks he knows i am why what are you what are you gaming will light you up in fucking two k too war zone well i haven't

played war you're playing duty for no i haven't played war zone on a hot minute dude so you're playing a lot of call of duty i did pandemic pandemic for sure i used to like now that when like now that like king con godzilla isn't like i'm out dude you know what i mean No, I don't. You dude, come on. I'm not playing Godzilla. I didn't even know there's a game. It's in Warzone, dude.

Oh, I don't play Warzone. I play Fortnite. I know. I don't mean to be that guy. He's like a builder. He's like one of those weird guys. He builds and does all that shit. Like Minecraft.

No judgment. Minecraft guy? No. That's shit's too boring. You gotta be with me on that. If he makes you feel comfortable at any time. I'm not trying to hate, but people still play Fortnite. No, they don't.

I don't like feel comfortable admitting that right now. I've never played four. Probably time to move on and grow up. Yeah, I know. I get a lot of shit for that. Never played it. You played 2K? I do.

How's your game there? Not very good. Really? Yeah, no. I've read that it was different. I don't read you were good. At 2K? I read on the,

it was the lie then. They said they were good of 2K. I mean, I would say I could, like, decent. Like, I'm not going to go online and beat someone that plays all the time. I was ranked 32nd in the world. This is cap. No, it's not. I swear.

I was ranked 30. Completely bullshit. Actually, 15th. 15th in the world on college basketball, NCAA. I think it was like 1998 or. something, a video game back the day. I just want to throw that out there. In 1998? There was no rankings back then. Yeah. On what site? I forget.

What system is that? This is the most bullshit story. No, it's not. No, 15th in the world in 1998. There's no ranking to say. No. Yeah. Maybe I told the story wrong, but I swear my 15th at your high school. Family's fucking life. I was ranked in the top. I know it was 40 at one point. In what system? That's going on online first fucking started.

Where's the ranking, bro? At your school or what? No, it was in the fucking world. I swear to On what? Like, where? On some fucking thing. I need to remember about it. I need to remember it. But I remember being like 18 and I was top fucking 40 in the world. How does this guy pull this out of his ass? Huh? No, I didn't know. I used to be super popular. You think it was in that?

Fuck no. Think it was in print, dude? No way. What? Your ranking system. No, it wasn't in fucking print. Can we try and find this? Guy drops 1998, yeah.

No, it was right around when, uh, I'm going to think about this, but I'll get this back to you next episode or whatever I would do. Think about how to continue to bullshit. Oh, okay. Back to you. Back to you.

So didn't you do the, did you audition for the voice? I know it's kind of transitioning, but. I did. Yeah. Where was that? That was in Atlanta, actually,

is where I auditioned. I remember. I find this right now. It was like spring, it was so it was spring break in college. Yeah. And I'm going, okay, you know,

I just really started learning. how to play guitar, dude, and I don't think I had played a show yet. Yeah. As far as my career thing goes. I had sang a bunch, but, so it was spring break. I got nothing going on. I got, like, no money at all. And it was like, someone hit me up and was like, you should go do this thing and go audition

for the voice. And I was like, all right, man, I got nothing else going on. I could drive to Atlanta. I got a friend that can sleep on his couch kind of deal. And I remember getting there. And, like, I didn't understand, like, how much of a whole thing it was going to be. What do you mean? Like, there was thousands of people at this thing.

Like auditioning. Yeah, dude. I thought it would be like, you go in. There's like a hundred people there, dude, that kind of are serious about what's going. It was a clown show, dude. There was like thousands of people in here. Who was like the hosts of the show? Well, at that time, it was not.

This is like just a big cat-led call. Like, you're before you even the TV thing. Right. And so it's like, I get there. I'm like, I'm by myself at this thing. Yeah. And I'm like, what am. my doing it this thing man like this is just outrageous man like i'm totally like so big i'm

like what are the odds of like of like any like me even making it to the to the table at this deal so i wait in line hours and hours and hours and hours it's like a convention center dude and there's there's like people singing dude and they're singing lion king and the everybody's singing together dude and i'm sitting there like oh dude this is like this is like a nightmare are you like you Not like the Lion King soundtrack? Because I think there's some bangers on it. But like in a group setting where there's strangers like forcibly singing the Lion King soundtrack.

Lion King has some fire songs. Well, it sounds like you're intimidated. It does. No chance. Dude, I remember this girl sitting beside me and she was like, do you think you're going to make it? And I was like, if you even have to ask yourself if you're going to make it, then you're like, just leave all right.

Boy, does she feel stupid now? No, it's like, I get it. But like I had so much confidence going in. but it was also like this is ridiculous so we wait hours hours hours and it's like we finally they call my row it's like 10 people at time go we go up the escalator and it's a it's just another waiting room of like and i'm like oh my god this never ends dude and we go in front of this guy finally there's 10 of us they take people 10 at a time there's like 10 rooms with producers in each one for the show and essentially you go in and stand in like a lot like a photo lineup almost

and you just they go okay sing sing sing like dance muggy dance kind of right and so it's like like one at a time or all just in over okay one at a time and then like i sing it's like i was the only guy in there so it was me and like nine chicks in there singing there was older like because the voice american idol had like limits like on age limits and stuff but the voice was like anybody could go in there so everyone sings and this guy's like all right everybody thanks for coming and i'm like dude i totally wasted my whole day being at this thing and then right when we're about to leave he's like oh you can stay what did you sing i saying um i think i sang save room for my love by john legend can you give us a little preview right i'm just kidding i could i mean john legend

john legend that's why'd you pick that because i was good at it so that was a practiced one yeah it was just and then i get up and it's like i finished the deal and then i go in so they made me stay. I had to stay in Atlanta at this time. So I'm missing a day of class now because I'm like, oh, this will be a one day deal. Go into the next. There's another audition now. And then I sing, I'm, I tell them I want to do like a country song. And they're like, oh, well, you didn't sing country before. And I'm like, well, so I have to sing like one kind of. That's kind of show is just about being a singer, like the whole thing. So wait, wait, wait. Without showing you're versatile, you could do multiple genres. Right. But it's like there's always, there's got to be some,

sort of angle. So essentially I got a letter back after the next audition which I made it through and then they told me essentially like I was too boring to like be on television. So you didn't win this thing? I didn't make it on the auditions. Do I didn't make it to the show? Wait, that's crazy.

So I still have the letter in storage that's like you're a great singer but like so essentially it becomes about ratings right? They fucked you then. The voice kind of sucks. The voice sucks. But it's not like American Idol's better I think. I can't blame them. Actually how. Which one is how we Melendell on. I like Howie. How is it? That's America's

that's deal or no deal, Bob. American Idol back in the day. No, he's on another one. With Simon Cowan shit. O.G. American Idol was with Simon and. Yeah. And then the world got soft. They were being pussies on people. Like Simon used to be like, you fucking blow. He's shredded people. Which is fine. I feel like that's why a lot of people watched that. 100%. Did you agree with his style, right? Like, don't you think it should be? I think

honesty, man. The world's becoming pussy. Dude, I think honesty goes a long way, man. And I think it's like everyone's afraid to say this dude you're not great like you're not going to be great dude if I asked you that if I was going to be a good sprinter yeah like a track sprinter dude

and I walked in the room and you were like dude man yeah dude I'd be like you're lying to me dude yeah I'm 300 pounds dude I'm not going to be a good track sprinter yeah I don't see you as a track sprinter and there's people that come into these shows it's like

and it's like you gotta just be like listen dude it's just not is that how you're in discipline and your kid, are you going to be like, firm? Yeah, dude, for sure. Right. So did that kill your motivation at all?

No, dude. It actually, here's the thing that I loved about it was that it was like, essentially that the letter they sent me was like, you are a great singer, but you're just not made for TV, which I was like. What do they mean by that? Like you want to perform? Essentially like, okay, so if you watch the show, it's like, oh, here's John and he lives in his car.

and it's like I didn't have a there's no story there's no here's Luke he's in college and he's really good singer and he's doing really good for himself I get I get I get it right there's no like there's no mojo that's kind of crazy though there's no and I can't blame him

because the job is essentially to get ratings dude you have to have ratings and you feel like you've gotten better though since then well you probably weren't as great as good as you were I don't know man I was pretty good back then too honestly I mean it's a singing wise right for sure i mean but you're better now because i'm guessing with more money because like you look at the people that come to nashville to fly in nashville that are trying

to have the same success that you are right they bring their fucking guitar in the airplane and want to play on broadway yeah um has your voice you think improved with the money and the means you have behind it to put like vocal support and i don't think so i think it's like being tall man it doesn't matter how much money you got you can't get any taller you know what i mean it's just like something like that i i mean i truly believe that you can get better better without a doubt you can get better at anything but your limits are based on kind of like what you got to work with man like I'm never going to be a bodybuilder no matter how hard I tried at it I would get a lot more muscle than I have now but I'm not going to be an Adonis dude you know what I

mean like I'm not going to be like an NFL player no matter how hard I work at that particular thing I do believe that hard work helps you tremendously but there are certain things that you're you know you're pre-determined like, okay, I'm a great singer. I didn't, I did, I've, dude, I put my, and that's like raw talent. I've put my 10,000 hours in 10,000 times at singing. But I would still be pretty decent if I had never. But I may never know that.

There are some people that are probably great singers that don't even realize they're great singers because they're afraid to, like, sing or they're afraid to. Fear is, fear definitely has a way of interfering with, no doubt. Did you ever have any fear in the way up? I didn't, man. It's kind of like my only gig, dude. You know what I mean? Like, you don't, like, when you're the big guy, dude, there's not a lot of, like, high school's brutal, dude.

You're not meeting your girlfriend in high school being the funny fat guy. It's not going to happen. Facts. Because at that time of life, it's like, nobody's like, oh, yeah, I'm a personality girl. You know what I mean? Like that just doesn't. Have you ever, like, been at, like, a party and busted out the guitar to try and, like, be that guy? Oh, college, dude, for sure, man.

Did it work? Like, you, like, anybody that. shows you they learned it's like everybody learns to play guitar so that they can sing acceptably in social situations if you're at a party and you just bust out singing everyone's like this guy's a total weirdo yeah you break the guitar out you're okay this guy's cool this guy's you see so many people the thing about coming in Nashville is like you know you've been down a broadway right yeah it's just every fucking place live that you go is live music and it's somebody who's covering your songs it's a lot

A lot of talent, too. Last time I came to Broadway, I was like, holy fuck. Yeah, but there's also a lot of fucking misses. Oh, yeah. I haven't seen any. I mean, I went out twice and I, people were good. You go out around like three in the afternoon on a fucking Monday. But you got to love the hustle.

For sure, man. I mean, and like those gigs, dude, those gigs don't pay unless, except for tips, dude. Like, you're talking like, these people might be paying $50 to park. And if they don't make $50 in tips, like, they're losing money to go sing for four hours, sing other people's songs. And their goal is to be you. I don't know. I mean, I'm sure a lot of people, but I mean,

some people probably are like cool with that too. Like some people just love, especially some of them use, I mean, I think everyone has an ultimate goal to like advance. But my, my goal with music was always just to not have to like work a real job. For sure.

That was always like my bar of like full success was like, I don't have to work and I don't like have a boss. I could kind of see you arriving on like the crime scene and just kind of be like you know Yeah I got the really like Yeah Luke Combs

Detective Combs is here I'm here man Everything's fine The murder at 1600 Everything's fine It was uncle John In the study with a pipe Right

Do you think a lot of like The country artists Have that kind of similar come up By starting at like live shows And it transitions like that Um I don't think enough of them do For sure

Yeah Especially now Right In the social media age And I was a social media guy myself. I'm not hating, dude. It's, I wouldn't be here without it. Right.

You know. But your Instagram is pretty, pretty popping, right? It's good. Let's look at it right now. Do you ever post clips anymore of like, but it's active? I have, yeah, I do every now and again. I mean, obviously not as much as I used to. Yeah.

I should, though. Yeah. For sure. I mean, that would be better content, content, content. Do you ever do covers anymore? Yeah, I just did a Jordan Davis cover the other day. Oh, nice. A couple weeks ago.

Nice. I like a competition in country music to be like more country. Yeah, what's the politics like In the country music scene I think there's a lot of hyperbole of like how country I am How country are you? I don't know, I mean

Country as I want to be I guess Didn't you catch like a fish the other day Like a trout? I feel like is that true That's an elementary level dude In what way though? I feel like catfish For some of this country It's fucking tough sorry

Large mouth impossible large mouth Yeah But where do you catch those? Anywhere You just go back in the river And you could catch him Yeah Pretty much.

If you have there, I would never do that. Have you done that? Go to fucking Google and look it up. I'm asking him because I want to find out from him. Why are you fucking offensive? He's fucking catfish fishing champion. Fucking catfish in the world in 1981.

You want to catch a fucking catfish. You come over here. Fucking guy was six years old in 1980. Come out of the boat in the world. It's an idiot. National catfish rankings. Yeah. Is that like a thing though?

People question like how country you are like rappers. It's like, yo, you're not good anymore. Like, these people are like, you don't really hunt and shit. I mean, I think that probably does happen. I mean, I think it probably happens a lot, honestly. But, I mean, I'm not exactly dressed up in here, I would say, you know. You're not wearing a camo shirt and like fishing boots.

Like mudded out. Yeah, extra tufts right now. You're a hunter? Yeah. Fuck, dude, I don't know. I've never been hunting. I would just, my biggest thing about hunting is I think that I'd like, I want to do it. But then I think I'd line up and I'd fucking hit the deer in the head.

And I'd just be like, fuck. Head would be horrible shot. It's not a good shot. I don't think you're supposed to do that, right? What do you hunt? I don't know idols, bro, yeah. What do you hunt? Lungs, heart.

What do you, are you like big game or? Deer, I mean, deer, deer and turkey mostly, but that's just what's prevalent here. Yeah. I don't have to leave, I don't have to leave my house to do that. You know what I mean? I mean, I would love to go, you know, do an Elkhine. I've never done that. There's a lot of stuff I would love to hunt.

I would never do like the Africa thing. It's not my scene. Like, big game. Like, none of that stuff would be. Just like North America. stuff really one thing about the country music scene that i think is different that i was thinking about just now is like you never there's no features really right no there is there's a bunch but do country do country singers collab with each other yeah yeah i've got i mean i got a collab on my new album

with marina lambert i mean people do people do it all the time so i think people do it as much in country almost as they do in hip-hop you think so i think so whether it's writing together or doing a song on i've had a collab i mean i had i've done you know brooks and done which was great eric church i got miranda on this album i love doing features dude it's just it keeps it interesting to me and you did something with ed shearing right i did i sang with him in uh in london we played in london like in march is that right march uh that was awesome dude that show was a complete it's just a complete shit show

in a lot of ways so like we get on the plane cap of remind me if I'm saying this right so we're leaving Dublin is that right get on the plane to go to London we have the show that night this is at like 10 in the morning so as we're taking off

it's like hey so all of our gear all of it guitars everything that we have here is like stuck in Ireland. And I'm like, what do you mean? And they're like, well, we showed up at customs and they were like, oh, it's Sunday.

So customs is like closed in the morning or something. I was like, what do you mean? How can customs be closed? Is that a thing that has hours? And so essentially we called and were like, hey, we will come and load the stuff on whatever ship or whatever it needs to go to ourself. And they were like, you can't do it if nobody's there. So we had to find and rent all of the gear that we used for that show.

We didn't have a guitar in the, in the arena until 5 p.m. And the show was at six. Oh my God. You should just utilize social media. Did you ever do that? Well, we did. I think my steel guitar player, he found like the only steel guitar in England was like through Miranda Lambert's steel players, friends.

cousins uncles that like knew he's like this is the only guy in england that own even owns a steel guitar and so that and it's completely different than mike's steel guitar players so he sat in there for like three hours like learning how to play this thing wow and i'm knowing well sheeran's going to come out and like of course this would happen on like the one day but my team crushed it how did you guys link you and ed we link so it was years ago so it was like my wife had told me years of go like hey my friend from like high school or so it was something like that she does like she's like ed shearing's like does cuts his hair or something like it was something that outrageous

yeah and i'm like i'm like all right that's you know whatever cool sure and then i remember coming off stage i believe san jose cap and so cap's like dude you got look at this video and it's Ed Shearin on his Instagram story singing when it rains at Pores. I was like, huh. Well, maybe like, maybe my wife's friend wasn't like BS and dude. You know what I mean? So then I hear like through the great vines like we're going to try to link you guys up, you know, because he's a fan or whatever.

And I'm like, okay, no, no chance, right? Like Ed Shearing's like the guy, dude. So anyways, dude, I get all this one day I just get an email. and it's just from Ed Shearan, dude. And he's like, hey, man. And email? An email. Doesn't text.

He's old school. Doesn't text, doesn't text, doesn't call. And it was the Ed Shearin? It wasn't like any management team. No, it was him. Yeah. It was him.

And he was like, hey, man, I'm going to be in Nashville, these dates. Email me back if you'd like to meet up with me? Essentially, yeah. It was like, it was like hit me up if you want to hang out. Just emailing the whole day. Yeah. Damn, that's a little.

That adds like four or five hours to the little time. It was just email. It was literally just email. Were you ever, like, in a point like, hey, Ed, maybe should we take this to text? He doesn't have text. Really? He doesn't text. Really?

No. No cell phone? Or maybe have you not made it to the level of getting a cell phone ever yet? Guy rocks no cell phone. I don't believe that. I think you just, have you made the cut yet? Maybe he has a strict cut. I've been to his house, dude.

Yeah, but does that be made the cut? I would think so. All right. I just, I find it very hard to believe that the guy doesn't have a cell phone. That's a kind of cool way to live, though. He has a tablet, bro. But he doesn't, like, he literally doesn't happen. So Ed Sharon is a fucking strictly email guy.

Strictly email guy. Wow. Which I respect, by the way. Can I get his email? For sure. Blast him away? Yeah, just blast him away. I'm just going to be like, hey, Ed, you don't know me.

This is Bob Mennery. I host the Full Send podcast. Please come on. Yeah, he's like, what, 70 date stadium tour right now. What's that? He's on like a 70 date stadium tour right now or something in Europe. That's crazy. Just in Europe.

There's got to be people. Yeah, Shearine's, the biggest the big. I do. Yeah, I like it a lot, man. Tiring, though, but are you, like, drinking and partying on tour? I mean, like, so if we're doing the way, historically, the way tours have been, it's like Thursday, Friday Saturday. Right? Yeah.

So it's like Thursday, Friday's, like, take it easy. Because, like, physically speaking, like, I am the, like, everyone else can party, dude, and whoop it up as much as they want to. Yeah. But, like, I physically have to sing. on Friday and on Saturday. Yeah. So, like, if I'm whooping it up Thursday and Friday night, to come Saturday, dude, it's like, you might not, you might not be able to sing,

dude. Right. Which is, like, not an option. For sure. Like, I'm too professional to, like, not. That's good. You know what I mean? Like, I wouldn't, like, I just have too much respect for, like, my fans and all that stuff,

man. That's good. You know, too much respect. So you have, who's somebody that's, because you got a, it's like, a big fan of your music that you met that you've been star-struck to be like, you have a huge fan can I meet up with you

come to your show besides the Full Sin podcast and Ed I mean Ed would definitely be up there but there's just I don't know it's like I mean Peyton Manning for sure

Oh that's a good love Peyton Wow he's a nice guy He went to Tennessee Yeah he went to Tennessee Yeah he's great man And he's an awesome guy And just so like kind And like humble dude

I fucking love Peyton Manning. I'm from Denver, so He's the nicest guy in the world. Nobody gives a fuck Aaron. Go ahead. Do you know. Well, he played for the Broncos for a little bit. You probably don't know that part of this. This is the Aaron Steinberg show. Peyton's great. You know, um, God, man, I'm trying to think who else.

Kat, you got any ideas over there? Crew? A lot, right? The answer is a lot of people. For what? I just asked him who's somebody that, like, was a massive fan of his music that he might have admired growing up. Justin Thomas? For sure. Let's go. J.T. Like Trow. Mike Trout.

Fuck, yeah. Yeah. D.K. D.K. McCaff, yeah. A lot of folks, man. I mean, it's cool. And that's neat, man, you know what I mean?

It's just neat to, like, meet people who are super good at something. What made you want to come on this show, by the way? I mean, I figured it's like, you know, you guys are kind of at the top of your game. And I feel like kind of I am, too, in a lot of ways, you know, humble brag there. So I figured it makes sense, man. But it's also something different. You know what I mean? It's like, I like to be.

out of my comfort zone, whether it's writing or, you know, having to talk with you guys, it's like, it's not always the same thing. Like, I don't want to answer the same questions all the time. And I feel like this was not going to be. Yeah, this is not weird. You know what I mean? You're not going to, this is not good morning America. You're good.

It's like, it's just a different thing. You know what I mean? It's like, I like to do different things. Do you do a lot of these? Do you do a lot of these podcasts? I haven't really done a ton, man. I was going to say, yeah, yeah. You've done a ton, man.

Honestly, I haven't. But I enjoy it, man. It's more like, you're just kind of talking. Yeah, conversation. You just, you never know what could happen. That's a cool thing. Like, we did last week, we did, uh, post Malone. Post Malone.

So, how was that? It was, uh, it was, it was, it was really cool. He's a really cool guy. What ended up happening? Uh, we did, uh, 50k. If I lost, me and post lost, we did 50K to charity. And if Bob lost, he had to get a Buffalo Wild Wings tattoo on his ass. He used to be the former voice.

And we don't like fake shit. This is all just organic. It just happened on. So who won? We won. I got to get that shot, too. I mean, I wasn't a lot of redemption shot, I guess, apparently. No one said no, though.

Are you a beer pawn guy? Yeah. Yeah, so when the game, you hit two cups to win it, aren't you a lot of redemption game? Let's do another bet tonight. Redemption shot, man, I feel like that's pretty standard. I feel like you're owed a redemption. He just didn't ask. But, yeah, he fucked up.

You cost yourself that. It's lack of awareness. If it wasn't brought up, I get that. But we also hit same cup, Island, both of us, same cup so it's kind of no redemption at the same time oh yeah there's a good argument for that yeah exactly so island but you could have made the argument no i'm a man of my word i'm getting the tattoo on my ass i'm not fucking happy about it but that's it it sucks dude i'm not joking i always because i pride myself i always told myself i'm never fucking getting a tattoo i just don't want one i'm not interested

and now you're getting one and now i have to fucking get one so you should get like a cool meaningful one i can at the same time i mean like at the same time like you obviously have to honor the bet and get the B-dubs. B-dubs is pretty meaningful, though. B-dubs is meaningful, but we're not talking about B-dubs anymore, but the thing that I'm going to get on my ass is a wild wing cafe guy for the record. What's a wild wing cafe guy, I mean? I never heard of that.

Not Buffalo Wild Wileings, right? No. Yeah, potential deal, Bob. Just hold on. I want to talk to you about Wild Wing Cafe because I'm a big fan too. What is Wild Wing Cafe? It was, dude, we had, I used to play there a bunch, dude, in Asheville. We had one in Asheville. RIP to the one in Nashville

It's now closed Which is unfortunate But essentially It was like a smaller chain wing spot Yeah Smaller chain wing spot And they've got like 40-ish flavors

Probably Dude and we used to Wing night dude In high school bro We put a hurting on that spot Dude Yeah It's good though

But they have so many flavors And it's like I'm not a big like Super saucy wing guy Yeah Like I'm like a crispy dry road kind of guy, you know? Like if I'm getting like...

I do like a parmigarly B-dubs with some ranch on the side, though, I won't lie. I think we go against B-dubs. We're combs. But just boneless. It's not traditional. Yeah, of course. Figure out a chicken wing to rival them.

Chicken wing. We're huge B-dubs guys. We're in this guy. We're huge B-dub's guy. Really? No, we're not. We're not. I just like their boneless wings.

No, they're great. You ever see the winkest link? Boneless wings are nuggets. It's a classic. Kyle's the host. It would be a living at any time. Bones wings are just nuggets Yeah, I don't fuck

For actual traditional wings No, right Yeah, it's traditional Dude, yeah It's traditional, dude, it's a beta move To go boneless Dude, it's just chicken nuts It's alpha to go bone in

It's the kid, it's just kids wings I agree Yeah, it's fucking ridiculous Would you ever like venture out of country Like in do, let's say you did a Not venture out, but if you did a collab with Post Malone Or something different

I think it would just have to be like Like it would just have to make a lot of sense Like in the sense of like I mean post laws loves country anyways i mean i don't know if he loves me or not but he loves country stuff for sure post loves everybody but i i mean i would if i i don't know man i've seen people in the past like go oh man i want to do something other than country or i want it's like i don't like country's always been enough for me like i don't want to be like a pop sure star like and i feel like a lot of people have

like starting a boy band though for dude i mean i got to look for it dude i got the i got the i got the boyish figure dude down but no man i the country's always just been enough for me dude like and i feel like there's been so many guys i've seen that are like they kind of get to the top of their thing yeah and then they're like well i want more or i want to do this like or i want to you know i want to be this guy or gal now it's like traditionally do especially in our genre man that really hasn't worked for a lot of people besides taylor swift morgan walling too though with yeah he's doing it though, but I wouldn't say he's going for that thing.

He just did a one time. He's not going, I want to be a pop star. You know what I mean? Sure. He's dipping his toe in, and it has to be something like that for it to be cool. Yeah, but you guys, you have to have being who you are, there's so many opportunities, and what you've done so well is for different

business ventures that must come to you every fucking day on like, hey, do you want to be a part of this? Do you want to be a part of this? So eventually the money gets so big, probably for somebody like you, that you could latch on a different yeah what other businesses do you got going besides music i mean i got um blue otter sunglasses which is going really great um and that's been going on for gosh probably four years now something like that um that's been that's been great for me but man i also try to not be i mean i own

a publishing company with one of my buddies which is you know that's that's just Nashville stuff um but i've always tried to like i don't want to do like too much either yeah you know what i mean like i really love like singing and writing and and playing you know country i really do yeah and it's like there's been times where there's other things that have come in and it's like i just get i just get overwhelmed with it man because then i feel like i'm not focusing on what i'm really good at you know what i mean like and what i had to me what i have is enough for me like you know what i mean you do a collab with crox i did i did I've done that.

I've done four. No, but like the guys that have done collabs with Crocs are legends. Like it's been Beaver, Grateful Dead. Post. Post and you.

Yeah. That's pretty cool, though, right? Yeah, dude, it's been great. They just hit you up and they're like, hey,

let's do it. He probably has like 50 pairs of Crocs. Seriously, I'm not a cross. I mean, I got the girl dead. But how many, like, have you given him a shot?

I'm never going to a shot. I haven't. I haven't. I haven't. I haven't. I haven't. things on my feet. I'm sorry. I don't know if this is a slap to anything you're doing business wise. No, it is,

but it's okay. It's okay. I won't take it. It's got a collaborative thing. It's a crocs are probably fire, but just getting to that step of like putting them on is to me, it's like a big step. I'm just scared. I don't know. I just, there's some fear. Because you know, dude. You know you're going to love it. That's why you're scared of this. I don't

want to be a crock guy, but because I know I'm going to like it. You know that you're going to put them on and be like, yeah, but do you ever like when you're performing it's 100 degrees and the sun's on your fucking feet when you take them off don't you have like weird tan lines on your feet i'm never wearing them on stage dude oh so you're not that into crocs then you can't wear them on stage me are boots on stage dude just to fit the whole country vibe well you don't wear you know you're not gonna wear crocs to the track meet bro you're gonna wear spikes you gotta wear the thing right that makes

sense you know at least for me you know you don't have to but for me it's like that's part of the no of course it's kind of part of the deal for me absolutely i mean yeah yeah i just have a thing that I do you know that I like that I do so where would you rent you know how they have like golfer ratings so you have you know number one well they also have NCAA basketball racing yeah they have in 19 fucking 45 actually trying to try to try to bring up a point go ahead sorry sorry sorry back to my question uh there's rankings you know in the NBA and NFL and players one two three players players so who's the number one country music star in the world right now oh man I mean That's me or Wallin, for sure.

Ooh. Yeah. Now we're getting into something. Yeah. Is there any competitiveness there? I mean, I think anybody that says there's not is lying, you know? I mean, I think any business is competitive. I mean, you know, I think that friendly or does it get?

Oh, dude. I love Morgan. I think he's a great guy, man. Yeah. And we've been on tour together, man. I mean, you know, I mean, I don't think there's any, at least to my knowledge that it's like, I don't know of any, like, country music. like oh i hate this guy i can't stand this guy like i don't know of anything that's like at least that comes to mind straight away but i think dude

friendly competition is is key though too like people keep you drives people to like to be the their best man like if morgan doesn't come along and start crushing it you get comfortable 100% it does grow that's the same with us too with podcasts or videos other like you want to be like you want somebody to compete there's plenty of room for Everyone to eat. It's actually... Dude, 100%, man. But it's good for the sport.

It's like, Morgan's crushing. It's good. It continues to like... For me, the cool thing about it is like building the genre. For sure. I feel like there's always been a stigma of like, let's say you go to L.A. And someone's like, oh, what are you a country singer? Ugh.

So you don't have like a Morgan Wall and Dartport in your room? No. No. Okay. Definitely not. Because we have... We have asked Morgan... We've got some... Let's go.

What are these things? What are these? Luke Combs, bro. Are these Luke Combs custom crooks? They are, dude. Oh, shit. I'm bashing crox, my bad. Pop those bad boys on, dude.

I know you're scared. You wear those when you're fishing or hunting, no? You want to try one, Bob? I'm not doing it. No. I mean, actually, fuck it. I will. Oh, size 10.

I'm keeping these. I have a hundred in crox. What's that bad? No. Yeah, do we have a bunch of pairs of these or no? Just one? All right, I'm keeping these. I'm making the jumps.

Is it going to feel them? I mean, Combs did us a big favor. Are you worried about putting these on or now? A little bit. You got to go bare foot. You can't go sock to the fucking crock? No, that's a bad look. Yeah, that's bad.

That's a bad rock. No, socks and crocs are sucks. Tell him, Luke. I'll go barefoot. Why, do you go barefoot? I would go barefoot. Give me the fucking barefoot crock. I'm going to do the real tape.

Taste is. I'm going to do the real fucking review of the fucking Luke Cole's fucking crockorino. Let me see. Dude, you're going to like that feel, dude. Do you go strap back and strap at the front? Oh, strap in the front for me. That's two-wheel drive, dude. Pop that strap back, dude.

You're immediately in four-wheel drive. you know that thing's not when do you go strap back is there a time in place for that i i personally almost don't ever yeah it's not a good look it's just to me it's like it doesn't i don't know i'm not out you know i'm not going on a hike right in my in this style for sure if things get serious there is a time when you need to go strap back yeah there's a time maybe if you find yourself in a situation that you didn't expect to be nice they are nice they're kind of like a slipper like I wear flops a lot too like socks and flops

I tell you I mean I'm not a crox guy but if it was to wear anytime I would be or crock it would be this one I like what you did with the little things on top of them I believe it's Jibbitts

am I saying that right gibbets I think is the name gibbets yeah you're going four wheel here oh whoa I'm just testing it out

you get that's the that's the dad move right there feels powerful strap back yeah that's a different feel this is not like a you know an obvious plug here but where would I get these

if I wanted to buy these things. Well, those have been sold out long. Yeah, bro. You got to go secondary market for those. Secondary market. Those are secondary market. Nasty crock. On my foot?

I mean, not the product. I meant my foot. No, dude, you're going double, dude. Look at them here. Oh, my God. Sox on with the strap back? Yeah. What if you go one strap back, one front strap?

Has that been done before? I've never seen it. No, I've never seen that either. It just feels irresponsible, really. To go one forward, one, but how are you feeling? It feels good. Get out, dude, take a lap. Take a lap.

Take a lap on the crew. Crocs. You can't really feel the comfort, dude. They're pretty nice. I mean, you're definitely standing out. Yeah. With the orange strap and everything. So that's your personal crock that you created and everything?

Yeah, that's the three. Shit. Oh, wow. Let's go. And they're sold out there. 2019. We can find that. Yeah.

Yeah, that's there. Yeah, that's there. I might do like a giveaway for my fans. With these? Yeah. These are mine. You don't have a pair. Well, I'm sure that.

Listen, I'm sure there's another fucking pair. He said there is a... I don't know, dude. It's the only pair. I'm keeping it. Really? Yeah. Mondo.

This episode can be edited many different ways. Just so you know. I don't have much control over that, but, you know, that's just how it is. You know, and we hit some very controversial topics. Oh, for sure, man. For sure. Yeah. It is what it is.

Yeah. So what's on the agenda today for you? Man, like I got, I got an interview after this, man. Rolling Stone. Rolling Stone. And I got the number one party tonight. And then I got what? I think I got a day off, I think, tomorrow, and then play the stadium, CMA Fest on Saturday.

So, be fun. Yeah, it's crazy. And then dad-in-it, guaranteed dad-in-it next week, at the latest. How much money is in this shit? What do you mean? What you're doing? Like, how much, you're talking about the $10,000? I always care.

Like, how much money is in? How much money are you making? In country music? Yes. In general? Yeah. I don't know. It depends on the guy.

You know, you're asking me. This guy, no, I'm asking fucking Morgan Wallin, who's sitting right there. I don't know, man. I'm doing all right. You know, I like to keep it. I don't know, man. I like to keep it. I always, I remember a time, at least when my parents would be like, okay, you don't talk about politics, money, religion. Now, I feel like we do all the time. I don't know why. We do. I promise you this, I'm not struggling. But it's never been about that for me, dude. And do I have nice stuff? Absolutely, bro. I got, I love, I have a Rolex. Yeah, I love that, Rolie. I have nice shoes, man. I have nice boots. Maybe they have one real Rolex in this room. It's amazing.

But it's like, I don't know, man. It's like never, I'm not a big, like, stuff guy. I'm like, uh, I'm an experiences guy, man. You know what I mean? Like, I love going out and doing shit with people that I care about. And like, giving my friends experiences. Yeah. Helping my parents.

Like, that to me is the definition of being rich. That's what I like to do. That's the definition of being rich, dude. Do you ever do like going on, do you ever do like randomly, walking into a bar of somebody who's covering your song and then just pop in and just jump on stage? I've never, I've never been in that scenario where like I've been walking by and someone's like actually been playing my song at that time. But I've always wanted to do that. I've always wanted to do it. Especially if somebody's just butchering it.

But I feel like it'd be weird if you went up and you're like, don't play this song. Play one of my songs. Like if they, because I've never like I've never had the moment lineup. where it's like, oh, man, you know, like this guy's playing my song right now. It's always like, oh, they're playing another song. And then if I was to walk in, I feel like I'd be a big leaguer.

If I walked in, it was like, let me get on the show. Maybe we could help build that. Maybe we can all put on fucking our crocks, go down Broadway, okay, pop into one fucking spot. We're all rocking the crocs. Because there's plenty of pairs going around here. I already know there is.

I know you're hiding in the back. And we fucking walk in and we do, something there where you guys you orchestrate it. It's brought to you by Combs Crocs. But is orchestrated is cool though? If it's orchestrated No, it should be natural. Yeah, but it's just like that'll Have you ever... Tough. Have you ever performed and done

like thrown the audience off and done like a John Legend? Like a random song that's not by you? Uh, I did, I did Fast Car at New Orleans Jazz Fest a couple weeks ago. Go crazy? Oh, love it. Love, yeah. I love that song. Frissy Chapman? Yep. Yeah, it's a classic man. It's a classic. But yeah, dude, dude, I grew up singing everything man i mean you know obviously there's stuff that's really great for our our you know live show and there's other stuff that's not you know what i mean is there any music you just hate not dude honestly not i mean not like me i don't really like like pipple like if

someone throws pipple or something i'm just like i love people i just don't really i just don't really i just don't really what was one of his hit song mr worldwide not really oh mr worldwide yeah the baldhead guy but you like all types of music dude i love all types of music man i mean All of it. You like rap music? I'd love rap music. You have a favorite guy? Right now, currently?

I don't know. I mean, it's hard to not love Jack Harlow right now. Everybody loves him right now. Why hasn't there been a fucking hip-hop collab with you, has there? That'd be crazy. It just hadn't worked out, dude. You know what I mean? It just hasn't, like, come to the table, dude.

Well, we can, I think we can put into fruition here. Who would you want to, who would you want to work with? I mean, I think Post is the one that's always been, you know, I mean, we've hung out before as well, and it's like, that's the one that's always been. that that's the ones that I hear at least hear from my fans all the time is like that's the one that we want to happen Luke combs jack harlowe would be like one of those crazy crazy country collabs i think combs and pose to be better i don't think i don't think jack's a country guy though i don't think he likes country which is cool i can't fault him you know because morgan did it morgan did it right right with the uh little dirk one

yeah he did that that was the first to me well the og dude is tim mcgrawnelly let's get real here okay back in the day dude that was yeah that was like like people were like what is happening yeah especially at that when was that 2005 but that didn't what was some other big ones cruise cruise but that was like a remix thing but tim mcgronnelly was the one that was the first thing and it was like people were just flor because the song was awesome yeah you know i mean it's a big hit it's got to be done right yeah it's got to be done right and that's what's so hard man how does the country like community react to that does it put does it make you feel like yo i got to go do a song when morgan's doing something with little i don't

I don't ever feel the pressure to do something that someone else is doing. I think if you're doing that, you're trying to win a race that's already been running. You know what I mean? For sure. I'm worried about the next lap. You know what I mean? Like, if I spent on my time worrying about what somebody else is doing, then I would just, I wouldn't be doing anything on my own.

I'd be like, well, how do I do what this guy's doing or how do I do what that guy's doing? So it's like, dude, that stuff's great. And I would be doing it. I would do those things. I just, it has to be right, man. I have to have the song, to me, that's what it's about. Like, if the song's not there, I'm not going to do it just for clout. I'm not going to be like, man, I really need to get my numbers up or get whatever up,

so I'm going to do a collab with somebody. Because then that's not fair to them, dude. For sure. Because then I'm being disingenuous, dude. I'm not going, hey, man, I really want to do this because I love your music or I think that you're a great artist. Yeah. You know, I would just be being opportunistic at that point, which I wouldn't want to do.

because then I feel like that just subconsciously dude that bleeds through yeah like and maybe no one would look at it and go man that's really disingenuous but like somehow they know like they have such a way to like sniff that stuff out there's got to be so much shit like when you have so much shit going through your head like at least you know you're on another level but there's so much shit going on it's hard to balance all this stuff does it ever get you to a point where you're just like i got i'm getting like shut the fuck up everybody texting me managers people tell me to do this Tell me to do that. I'm fucking checking out.

Do you ever get, like, that anxiety that we always talk about on the episode? Did you ever get any of that from that? Not really, man. I mean, my team's been really great about giving me space, you know? And obviously, man, I wish it wouldn't have been through COVID. But I had a great amount of time to, like, sit down and, like, process everything, man. Because when COVID happened, dude, like, I mean, I was just, you know, I mean, it was like, I didn't know what was going on, dude.

Yeah. I was literally in Europe at Edchern's house when Kathy called me. It was like, we got to go home in the morning. Really? And I was like, holy cow. That's what the NBA shut down. Yeah, same day. Same day.

Nobody knew what's going on. And so it's like you get home and you're like, okay, well, now it's like my life's gone from just complete and utter chaos insanity to like nothing. Yeah. It's completely crickets. For sure. Like you're at home. Nobody knows what's going to happen to anything. So I had a lot of time to process, man, like what my life had become very quickly.

You know, like you, I never would have given myself that time had it not been for that. Obviously, I wish it wouldn't have taken a pandemic for that to happen. So COVID happening helped your business? No, I wouldn't say it helped you personally. It helped my, my psyche for sure, man. It helped me like, you just don't know how to like handle that. Like, nobody knows how to handle that. Like, it's never, like, people can tell you a hundred times.

Like, it's going to be this. It's going to be that. But it's like, you can't. It's like being a parent, I think, in a lot of ways. That's what all my buddies with kids have told me is like, Hey, man, I could tell you a million things, but you're not going to get it until it happens. And it's, I think the whole career launch off insanity thing is very much the same thing. It's like, people can tell you, you can, you know, Kenny Chesney can tell.

you this or Garth Brooks can tell you that about it, but it's like you can't really understand it until it happens. And then almost every time you're like, well, whatever that guy said was right, it's like it doesn't matter how many times you're told it until it happens. Got to learn for yourself sometimes, right? Right. But you already know. People say, hey, it's going to be like this and you're like, okay. And then it happens and you're like, wow, it was just like that. But also, I wasn't prepared for it still somehow. It's just crazy, man. Yeah. There's a lot going on. It's hard to kind of, you know. It's a crazy, crazy thing, man.

And your wife is very supportive with everything you do? Big time, man. Big time. She's a rock style. This lifestyle does affect the sexy time, though, the bedroom sometimes. Oh, what do you mean? It's just for him. That's personal. We don't need to get into the personal shit. I'm going to get in the personal shit.

What are you saying? Nothing. Oh, that's changed. It's not affecting him. He's laughing in your face. Since my previous podcasts, I've taken it to a whole new level. Nice. So the new album, June 24th?

new album june 24th man long time in the making for sure what's different about this one man for me there's there's some songs that wouldn't have been on my on my other albums you know um man i think that just comes with being you know i'm 32 dude i'm not you know i'm not 70 dude but yeah i'm get like i'm like you hit a different phase of life man like at 30 dude you know it's like i'm married now i'm about to have a kid any minute like that changes your perspective, dude, that changes your outlook on things, dude. So it's like, for me, it was like, there are a bunch of songs on here that I feel like, okay, some could have been on my first record, some could have been on my second, but there are some songs that really I don't feel

like could have been on anything but this one. Because because of the time spent at home at COVID, getting married, finding out we're having this kid, it's like those things have kind changed you know not even just the direction of the song writing but in the studio as well musically you start to you start to change a little bit man and i think it's um that's what this album's been for me and i've always wanted to continue to grow as a musician you know um to be able to continue to kind of push boundaries and and you know do what i really feel like i'm supposed to be doing which i always have been i mean i don't think i've been doing anything wrong but i don't want to make the same album a hundred times in a row even you know what i mean i can write a great yeah i could write

you a great beer drinking song in the next hour and i would love it and it would be great but it's like i already have those songs so how do you continue to be successful and do something that keeps me interested you know because it has to like i have to get up and sing these songs for the rest of my life so i have to be excited about them coming out and excited about people hearing them i think that's super important too man you got to play the same song the thing is you have to play the same song over and over again sometimes do there any ones that you had that you're like fuck i have to sing this song i don't want to anymore but i have to sing it i really don't have anything luckily man that i've put out that i'm like gosh i just really hate this and if we had to sing it i would

just really hate that i don't have anything like that you know um and you know now we're especially once this third album comes out you know it'll be we'll have more stuff dude so our set list will be it will it can change up even more like the more songs you put out it has the ability to make the live show so much more different every night which I think is huge for us dude I mean because it's it can be like okay dude well the set list is like kind of limited with what we have out dude it's kind of the limits of what the set list can be because you're not going to go to you know you're not going to headline stage coach and do a set of cover songs or do a set of you headline you headline stagecoach yeah a couple weeks ago oh shit

yeah that was great wow that's a pretty first time there or you've been there before no that was my third time there so i did direct support in 2019 and then 2017 i did like 1 o'clock in the afternoon like 200 people thing to people that don't know country like some people don't but When I went to Tortuga, that was probably my first, like, country music festival. And it's like, it's so fucking big. It's crazy. It's crazy, dude. To die hearts.

Walking into that, right? Like, it's like, people sleep on it. The line just fucking goes back, bro. Like, yeah, it's crazy. People were fucking nuts. Yeah, it's crazy. It was fucking cool. Yeah, stagecoach is, I mean, 75, 80,000, I think.

Was that who, who thought? That's a lot of people. Who made that, who made that call to you that said, hey, they offered you to headline stage coach? Cappy. Who's Cappy? My manager. Cappy Got a very silent, deadly

Yeah, he's got to pop in for a minute Can we get Cappy in here for a minute? Oh, we can, absolutely. Do my Cappy pop it in? Come on. Yeah, we got to get Cappy in for a second. We like getting in. So what is, so what is this relationship here?

So we got Cappy step in. Cappy, that's an impressive beard. Yeah, Cappy's got a sexy beard. Caffee's dialed in here. So what's this, how did you two meet? What's your role? Cap, give the story. Yeah, dude, give the story.

Let's hear. or what's his role with an on the team manager manager our friend Bradley Jordan who owns a company called Peach Street Entertainment knew I always want to be a manager my best friend in the world we've been friends since high school

called me one day and I was looking to be a manager and he said I found your guy and his name is Luke Combs and I was working for a company for 15 years called Six Man where we threw music festivals on cruise ships so we did Kiss and John Mayer and Paramore big bands like that Wow.

And I had to buy the show to get Luke to even play because he didn't have any shows. So we had to buy it. So it was $750 to buy the show. And then another $750 to rent the room, the 40 watt in Athens, Georgia. Funded by Kappi. Yeah. Well, he didn't know all that at the time. So we did it just to do it to see him play live.

Okay. And... Easiest $1,500 you've ever spent. Exactly. Like jackpot, maybe. Yeah, but at the time, you know, that was only Luke's second. show because the river Rome River Jam or no I'm sorry the brew houses

where Bradley saw you. Second show since moving to Nashville. Yeah. It was since moving to Nashville. Yeah. And then we bought the show and we were expecting it to be, you know, three people there, you know, Bradley, myself, and Luke. Because it was a holiday weekend? It was Memorial Day in a college town in Athens on a Saturday. So like school's been out. Yeah. And everybody's on the lake all day.

You know. Yeah. So we were expecting nobody to show up. And it was amazing to sit there and watch. This is the first time he ever played Hurricane Live in front of anybody either. True. I forgot about that. It hadn't been released yet. It was only on Facebook and it was a video, an acoustic video. And I remember Luke asking me, he's like, hey, can you print these lyrics out? Because these guys need to know how to sing it. And I remember in Soundcheck, they're rehearsing it. And Rob Williford, our guitar player was like learning how to play the opening lick, which is a very unique lick.

Yeah. So he starts singing. And I was like, my God, this guy can, this guy can sing. Like, he can really sing. And he was. commanding the room and there was nobody been in it yet and that's when you know you have something special well about nine o'clock we're going to open doors because it's a college town of course so you know and there's 83 people in line like there's people in line that no not we didn't sell a single advance ticket and i started just asking everybody why are you here well i love this guy why are you here well awesome manager hey guys to the show why are you fucking here i wasn't his manager yet

i was finding out about him okay how how like how do you even know about this guy and they're all like Vine. We all found him on Vine. And we wanted to see him live. And they came in and they were singing every word to every song. He had six songs out, two, three song EPs. And they were singing every word to every song then. Then he sang Hurricane that night. And they sang Hurricane. And it wasn't even released yet. And I was like, this guy has it. And I worked hard to get into the opportunity to manage him. And he gave me the opportunity and said, let's do this. So I quit my job. I moved to Nashville. I was 42 years old. And I started driving the van. And we did everything together. Like it was, I was selling T-shirts, mixing their ears from my cell phone on a 16-channel

Bluetooth mixer as the show was going on. The hustle. To making it work. And then every night he would get off stage and I would hand him a towel and a beer and I'd walk him out to the front of house and he would start signing and taking photos with every fan that was there. And we built it one fan at a time playing bars and stuff like that. That's how we did it from the very, very beginning. Wow. Now of the gritty stuff to throw him onto the bus. So what does he have any, what's some complicated things he has in his rider?

On his rider? No, just. Yeah, no, no. That's what I'm thinking is, give us all the dirt on him now. I mean, we have, we have, I mean, the most obscure thing you have is Topo Chico. I mean, you don't have anything. Really? It's not like you have green M&Ms or anything like that. Big time, yeah.

Yeah, Topichico. That's not even on the rider, though. Yeah, lays potato chips. That's on the rider. Lays potato chips, regular lays potato chips. Has to be on the ride. every night but it's like a panic so those are available for like panic those also are very good for panic vocal moments if there's no lays potato chips when you show up are you like fuck this shit

i don't it wouldn't even notice if they weren't there okay yeah yeah but there's yeah that's that's the only thing on the rider that's like they're always in the in the room like Andrew always has lays potato chips yeah it's like so we what you really use and we always joke around it's like you know me and my guitar player always joke around we're like oh dude for your voice you know we're always like we're just eating potato chips but we're like we're like sour gummy bears sour gummy bears are a big one too yeah but those are more williford yeah willford's a gummy bear guy yeah how big is the team how big is your team god there's over 50 over 50 for sure full-time people all-time employees for sure yeah yeah and this is the guy that when

you know covid hit book club on monday gym on tuesday date date night on wednesday Out on the town on Thursday. Quiet night in on Friday. It's good to have a routine. And it's good for your eyes too. Because with regular comprehensive eye exams at Specsavers, you'll know just how healthy they are. Visit Spexsavers.caver's.ca to book your next eye exam.

Eye exams provided by independent optometrists. He didn't lay anybody off. He didn't do any of that. He didn't lay anybody off. He didn't furlough anybody. He sat everybody down and said, You and your families are safe. You don't need to worry about.

That's 50 people on salary for a year and a half that he made sure we're taking care of. That's out of his own pocket. Great man, but let's be honest. Business was booming. It was good. Well, there's no touring. There's no touring. And that's how country artists make their money.

I was going to say, what percentage of the revenue is coming from live touring? A lot. A lot. More than 50? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Can you guys say what you charge for a show? Yeah.

I mean, Luke keeps it. I mean, let me brag on you. You mean tickets. Yeah, I need to brag on you. Yes, just for a second. Like, because, you know, Luke could charge a lot more for his tickets. And a couple of things that he does that's pretty amazing is every night, there's always a $25 ticket available, even in stadiums, because he feels that a couple, if there's a pair of, there's fans who want to go to the show, they might only have $100 of disposable income to be able to use to go to that show. So to be able to buy their tickets, go down there, have a drink, and everything, like, that's the kind of guy is.

Could he charge way more for that? Yeah, he could charge $55, $60, $75 for that same ticket, but he doesn't. You're thinking of them being able to budget some beers, too. Dude, for sure, man. And it's like, I don't want it to be. I like it. You know, I told you guys before. It's like, it's not, it's, dude, it's not about money for me.

And I do really well. I do. I wouldn't lie to you. I do, I do great. But it's never been about that, man. It's not. Like, this fall? That doesn't make me happy, dude.

Like, money does not make me happy at all. None of it. Like this fall, we put a tour up for sale, okay? And it was 360. So in the round arena tour where we play in the middle of the room, right? Right. Usually you do one, and then that one sells out, you do the other one. Well, we didn't do that. We put them both up at the same time, Friday and Saturday night show. But Luke said, you know what? I want to keep the price 2020 price. Even though I have 22 expenses, I want to keep the price pre-pandemic because of inflation. And the only thing, I can control my ticket price because we don't have a tour deal with anybody. Like, we control everything that we do. And he said, I'm keeping it that way. And I'm not going to platinum my tickets either. I'm not going to jack the price up and let it let it run wild. And I'm going to let my fans buy him first. So all that stuff is done to make sure the fans are the tickets and not the scalpers and stuff like that. But did we leave 25% on the table? Absolutely, we did. But in the

grand scheme of things, are we trying to have a career till Luke can play and do this until he's 70? Absolutely. We're not looking for the quick money grab right now. We're looking for the annuity of a relationship with your fans down the road in Evergreen career. So you're going to look to play till you're 70? I mean, I'd like to. As long as I'm having fun, man. You know what I mean? play i don't know it's like that's just what that to me it's like every makes everything else worth doing like all the stuff that you wouldn't want to do that's like that you would consider oh man this is the unfun part of my job or this is the part i don't like like when you're out on stage in front of a stadium dude it's like all that stuff is just completely you must see some crazy

shit you ever see the the titties go up for sure so people what's a crazy story yeah like what's your craziest um lots of tities though lots of tities i mean there's just never enough and the girls at the country fest are just like different too

oh yeah they just I don't think anybody has a shirt on I wouldn't say that man and it's like the milfs too right oh yeah it's like the 50 year old I got the fucking tramp stamps in the back neck tattoos titty's out

we have a good crowd yeah we have a good crowd so there is so there has to be some moments outside the tities that have been crazy that you've dealt one of my favorite stories that I have um so I went out to me and my wife went to uh Maui BMI puts on a songwriter

in Maui's cool I'd never been there it was wild like couldn't even imagine what was going on so we go to this they have a songwriters festival there that they put on and it's like it's 10 people that they invite like artists songwriter people and they pay for your expenses to go out and your hotel and stuff and it's a thing that's been going on for years it's really cool Well, my wife at the end was like, hey, I've got to, because she was still working full time at the time. She's like, I got to go back to Nashville. I got to go to work. And so I had some radio stuff in Seattle, like two days later.

And I was like, well, I'm just going to stay out here because I'm not going to go all the way back to Nashville. Just to by when I get there, I got to go all the way back to Seattle. So I stayed in Maui for two days by myself. And so one of the like benefactor guys for the show was. like, hey, you want to play golf? I'm so bad at golf. And I was like, I literally don't know anyone here. So I'll go, go play golf with this guy. He's like, hey, you want to go play poker at Willie Nelson's house tonight? I'm like, absolutely. I want to do that. Absolutely. So I have, like, I had met Willie, like, the two days before that, but like, hello, that was the

extent of it. It wasn't like we were sitting there talking. You know what I mean? Like, I don't I don't expect Willing Nelson to know who I am at all, bro. He's like, he's goaded. You know what I mean? So we pull up to his spot. It's his house. It's just like a house on the ocean in the alley. Like it looks like a house in like a 70s suburb.

And then it's just sitting literally right on the ocean. And now it's insane. So we pull up and I'm like, I don't even know if he knows I'm supposed to be there or not, dude. I don't know. so we get out the guy i'm with he's on the phone he's like go ahead and just go in i'm like dude this is like a lot of pressure bro go in and i'm like it's gonna be everybody's gonna be yucking it up dude it's just willy nelson in there by himself watching tv in the garage and i'm walking in like six-pack i'm like like the the you know plastic ring six-pack and he's like

hey man and I was like hello you know what is happening right now dude so we chat for a minute and I'm dude I'm halfway across the world from my wife from anybody dude so we get in there we're talking for a minute dude he rips the he rips the piece out dude

you know what I mean peace put oh and I've heard the stories bro it's like don't you know Toby Keith has a song called Never Smoke Weed with Willie again you know what I mean I heard the song I'm aware of the moment, you know. And I go, all right, man, when this thing comes,

you can only, you got one, dude. You can't go twice, dude, on this deal. Hitting the blunt, you mean? Or whatever you smell? Yeah. It's a bonger. Yeah, it's like a little, it's like that. It's like yay big, probably.

And so, rip this deal. A couple guys show up, dude. They're getting to play poker going on, dude. We're talking about everything. And then it's like, it comes around again. And I'm just, well, dude, rip it, throw it down. and I'm like, oh, man, dude, like, after I passed it on, I'm like, I just did, I just went there again, dude. And this was the mistake that I was not supposed to make that I've now made, right?

So we sit down, dude, to play poker. And dude, these guys, I'm the youngest guy there by 35 years, mind you. Like, don't know anyone. Dude, Willie's got, he's got all the cards. He's got them face up. And he's slinging these cards, dude, out. And it's like me and these old, these guys have been playing poker. not yet but like as the cards are coming across dude i'm seeing them like whoa dude i'm like

these are coming slower and slower you know what i mean you're going all in with jack five off suit and shit no dude this is the first deal this is where panic is sitting in sitting down and all the cards are face up coming and then dude i just see this ace like and it's just spinning and it comes it lands right in front of me man and willie's are all right man what's the game what's the game you're dealing at that moment i'm like oh man i am in i'm in deep water right with these guys you got to call the game meaning call the game bro and i realized later these guys are like every hand is a different game so every hand they're like all right this is duke spider sweetie two hand i'm like what i don't even like texas hold him i'm like barely getting through you know what i mean

and these guys, every hand is a different game. And they're just out of there. Don Nelson walks in. Not a lie. Hall of Fame NBA coach, Don Nelson walks in. And he's like, who wants to get bought out of their spot at the table? And I'm like, your guy over here is. I am dying over here, dude.

And so he takes my spot. I sit down at this little table, dude. And it's like, if I can set it up for you, I'm at this table. There's a hallway going right here. but nobody at the poker table can see down the hallway right only me i'm the only guy in the entire planet at this time that can see down this hallway and i remember one of the guys at the poker table he's sitting directly across from don nelson and so i can't see him because he's behind don and i just see this guy go like he just kind of pops out like this and he's like

Luke, you need a water, bud? And I'm sitting over there, I'm like, no, man, I'm, I'm, I'm cool, dude. He goes, nothing wrong with needing a water, bud, got plenty of water over here. Dude, I get this mason jar, dude. I must have drank two gallons of water, dude. Like, I'm in the bathroom, like, splash him. Like, I'm, like, for sure about to die. Right.

You know what I mean? So you're like, like, panic attack? Oh, for sure. But it's also, like, kind of awesome. Bong just fucks you, too. Like, oh, dude. I'm space out because you're also halfway

across the world and like you don't know anyone and you're in Maui and you're in Maui and you're like I don't have a car and like I could drive anyways if I had a car right so I'm just like

stuck and I'm like I just have to get eventually we'll come off of this roller coaster I'm currently on so I'm coming back and forth from the bathroom dude I'm splashing myself drinking this water dude people are coming in

setting food down on the table besides just pigging out dude in this on this table and i remember willie getting up and he walks down i'm sitting at this day he doesn't say anything to anyone he gets up these guys are playing poker he gets up he walks right past me down all the way down the hallway and there's this punching bag at the end of the hallway and he stands there and and like arms out like full karate kid and starts just kicking this punch him just tossing crane Tossing and crank, like this, dude, he's 85, 84 and like just hammering this punching back.

You're just high shit. That's cool. And I'm like, you know, I'm looking at the poker table and I'm like, what is that? Like nobody sees this happen. He goes out, he's out for five minutes, could have been five hours. I don't know the difference at this point, comes back in, stops at the thing, hits one more crane kick, walks back in, doesn't say a peep, dude. about it sits back down like nothing happened and i'm like that's my moment i've had my moment with willy nelson and it was him doing the crane kicks at god knows what time it is in mowley

baked out of my gourd at his house wow like i texted my buddy i was like hey man i just need you to know that like i know it's 4 a m where you're at but i'm like super baked with don nelson and willy nelson it's like insanity but i just wanted you to wake up to this text my he just needed someone in the world to know right like what happened because like no one's going to believe and then what was the exit how did you get out because you're still obviously probably paranoid dude i'm like well eventually i got to the point where i'm like just crane kick your way out of the house did you do a crane kick on the exit too i i should have though yeah i should have but essentially dude the guy i rolled with was like i mean it gets to whatever time it is and he's like all right man

like these i mean these guys are dude they're 75 somewhere 80 dude and they're like just partying dude right I'm like, these guys are just different, different. That's incredible. Generation, bro. You know what I mean? That's a great story. It was wild, dude. That's a great story.

That was absolutely wild. Well. We good. You got to run to Rolling Stone? You know, you got a run to Rolling Stone. This was a lot of fun. This is a lot, a lot of fun. We'll see you tonight.

Number one party. Number one party. This is a really, really good talk. You're awesome. Album out. June 24th. June 24th, baby. We're going to be bumping that shit.

I'm fucking wearing crocs and listening to that fucking thing. Crocs. Strap back, June 24th. That's a strap back there. I love it. Luke you're the man. Let's go.