Luke Combs on 'Growin' Up' after becoming the country's unlikely overnight superstar

Overnight virtual superstars are no more unlikely than Luke Combs. Five short years have passed since his major label debut, and in that relatively short time he has achieved nearly every professional achievement a country singer could hope for, including being named CMA Artist of the Year. Awards last November. . A distinction perhaps even greater than the singular: he is the first country artist in history to have his first 14 songs reach No. 1 on the Billboard airplay charts, without a break in the proceedings.

And as he puts it, acknowledging that it didn't necessarily come in as the most perfect package Nashville has ever put together: "Look, man, I can't say that I would I bet on me either."

Some are probably still trying to figure out and bottle the key ingredients to his success, but maybe it's not that mysterious: take a voice that projects major league manhood but also vulnerability, sprinkle it in a basic songwriting team of prowess with lyrical and musical hooks, and most importantly, don't tread on the pleasant, humble personality of someone who — unlike a lot of bro-country who's been over there - looks like someone you wouldn't mind having as your real brother. (Or handsome, though, as fans well know, especially with the news of his first child's arrival on June 19, he's taken.)

His streak of success continues with a new album, "Growin' Up", which debuted on the charts last week as the most prolific country album of 2022 to date. Its lead single, "Doin' This," was the 14th No. 1 hit from that aforementioned streak, and its follow-up, "The Kind of Love We Make," will likely be the 15th; that seems like a reasonable projection simply based on the fact that she debuted at No. 18, an unusually high arc in the world of progressive country radio.

Variety spoke with Combs in its trailer on the set of the Jimmy Kimmel show shortly before the birth of his son and the release of "Growin' Up".

This is the first time you don't have a title track. So finding "Growin' Up" as a title must mean something to you.

Sometimes you feel like the 21-year-old kid just trying to learn to play the guitar; some days i feel like that guy again. And I feel like I'm 70 some days, and I feel like I'm 18 other days. I am about to have a child in a few weeks. Just in the last few years, being 30 and then 32… that's a big change, from 28 to 32, and it's kind of that change that I've never heard of. Because at 21, you feel like an adult. And then when you're 25, you're like, “Damn, man, I wasn't an adult at all at 21. Then when you're 28, you're like, "Man, now I'm really an adult." And then you get to 32 and it's married, home, kids on the way - that changes everything.

I think there are a few songs on this album that wouldn't have been here if I hadn't been where I am in my life right now: a couple musically, a couple from a lyrical point of view. Even musically, I wasn't as afraid of the genre: Well, what if there were too many slow songs? When you're younger you want to be a fun, energetic guy, and there's a lot of that here too. But I'm ok now with saying "Okay, man, if we're going to have slower songs, then that's what it's going to be", whereas before I might have been pressured to say, "Do we have enough stuff that people are really going to like?"

Is there a song you could cite as an example of something you may have given up on a while ago?

Yes, "In the middle of somewhere". We live an hour from Nashville and have been for three and a half years now. I think we moved there at the right time, because we're entering this new phase of life where things tend to go faster, but they also slow down because of things that become important to you, that's ie spending time with the people you care about being in a place that allows you to breathe. Not that I don't love Nashville, because I love it to death, but being there in a very small town has changed my outlook.

When my homies would go out and write songs, a lot of them would say, "Man, you live in the middle of nowhere." I started thinking about it. And I was like, man, these little towns mean so much to the people who live there, especially the people who grew up there and are from there, and maybe left and came back, or the people who have lived there since their birth and will live there until their death. I hadn't experienced that, because I grew up in Asheville, which isn't Los Angeles, but it is a city. And so I had never experienced an authentic life...