LUKE COMBS RELEASES FOURTH STUDIO ALBUM “GETTIN’ OLD” (AUDIO & VIDEO)
GETTIN’ OLD CUT X CUT (VIDEO) – LINKED HERE
GETTIN’ OLD CUT X CUT (AUDIO)
LUKE COMBS: “The idea of Growin’ Up And Gettin’ Older I think was really born out of being like, so many songs that we couldn’t get to.”
CHIP MATTHEWS: “Right.”
LUKE COMBS: “On like on Growin’ Up that it was like well these songs are- a lot of I mean most of the songs on Gettin’ Old I really would argue that I like a lot more than the stuff on Growin’ Up. But it was like they just didn’t fit on that and then it was like, what I can’t- you know it because they’re all to me in my mind, they’re all from the same timeframe. Like they’re the same record in my mind like the same era of like working on an album but it ended up being two different albums.”
LUKE COMBS: I was driving from where we live into town, I’ve driven that way a million times and I just saw this road sign that said Hannah Ford Road and it looked country as shit and I thought it was really cool. I really didn’t have any idea of what that would be about. Like there’s no, I have no history with that road or anything, honestly. I just thought it was a super unique name and ended up writing it – in starting it I guess in with Jamie it’s just me and you.
JAMIE DAVIS: Yea, Coyote Joe’s
LUKE COMBS: Coyote Joe’s parking lot. Rob was there, the hottest show of all time
JAMIE DAVIS: For sure
LUKE COMBS: It was like 8 million degrees.
REID ISBELL: It was a pretty hot show.
LUKE COMBS: But it was really hot. But we started was that, it wasn’t after the show. It was like before the night before
JAMIE DAVIS: It was like the night before – I don’t even know if the band was- if you guys were there yet. And we started riffing around. I think you actually came up with a little guitar thing. And we kind of put that together, kind of started coming up with a melody, kind of chorus-y melody verse melody thing. I don’t know how far we made it that night because we weren’t sure what it was gonna be about at the time I don’t think, and then maybe finished it in Bangor Maine?
LUKE COMBS: Maine
JONATHAN SINGLETON: oh that’s right
LUKE COMBS: and that was like one of those
JONATHAN SINGLETON: what a great town to write a song like Bangor
DAN ISBELL: barely even know her
LUKE COMBS: write a banger, new banger in Bangor you know.
DAN ISBELL: I don’t even know her, I don’t even know her
LUKE COMBS: But yeah, we finished it then. Thought it was –
JAMIE DAVIS: yea by then we had an idea of like what we’re trying to do, or the story we were trying to do I guess,
LUKE COMBS: yea
JAMIE DAVIS: like the forbidden romance kind of thing or something. I don’t know what you say it was but we kind of had a story to go by. So we’re a little more processed by the time we started there, I guess.
LUKE COMBS: Yeah, I would say that’s the song we had the most trouble trying to record.
CHIP MATTHEWS: Yeah, we did.
JONATHAN SINGLETON: Oh, we had watched a song die a horrible death in the studio. And we didn’t want it to happen again.
LUKE COMBS: That’s right we didn’t
JONATHAN SINGLETON: Jaime
JAMIE DAVIS: Thank you
JONATHAN SINGLETON: all I could see was Jamie’s face
UNKNOWN: you remember calling me about that?
JONATHAN SINGLETON: No
CHIP MATTHEWS: no we knew because you were strong about it. You wanted to write it. We knew you wanted to write it.
LUKE COMBS: Yea, I knew I loved the song. But it was just –
JONATHAN SINGLETON: we were doing like the Allman Brothers version
LUKE COMBS: right
JONATHAN SINGLETON: when it shows up in a little more rock rocky country. Yeah. And we played that thing. And everybody was like ooh here we go.
CHIP MATTHEWS: Yeah, right.
JONATHAN SINGLETON: It’s tough sometimes.
CHIP MATTHEWS: It’s how it goes I mean we’ve done that with several songs
LUKE COMBS: Yea
REID ISBELL: What song died in there?
LUKE COMBS: great song
CHIP MATTHEWS: great song
JONATHAN SINGLETON: great song
LUKE COMBS: great song
LUKE COMBS: I would say Back 40 Back was probably written
UNKNOWN: man we wrote it a long time ago
LUKE COMBS: I mean when Forever After All was written around that same time so that would have been
CHIP MATTHEWS: Yeah
LUKE COMBS: I mean deluxe of I mean we were cutting those vocals – for the deluxe of What You See is What You Get in my study at my house.
CHIP MATTHEWS: right
LUKE COMBS: you had come in, like taped all that stuff in there.
CHIP MATTHEWS: Yeah
LUKE COMBS: I don’t think I cut vocals in the studio until the Growin’ Up.
CHIP MATTHEWS: Yeah
LUKE COMBS: Like literally final vocals for an album were always cut in like a bedroom
JONATHAN SINGLETON: right
LUKE COMBS: or like a closet or like, I’m not sure, I’m not sure why to be honest at this point.
CHIP MATTHEWS: We had just gotten the barn
LUKE COMBS: we built that studio
CHIP MATTHEWS: that totally dialed in finally
LUKE COMBS: it flooded in that first week that we got it finished
CHIP MATTHEWS: yes, that we got unbelievable.
UNKNOWN: Oh, yeah, that’s right.
LUKE COMBS: And destroyed all the carpet.
CHIP MATTHEWS: And I was coming out of COVID. And then you’re like, yeah, the studio flooded. We gotta set it up in the man bar and I was like
LUKE COMBS: yea you were like dyin’ was dying and stuff. Dude, it was brutal times. Because you had to build – you went and bought, you and Nudie went and bought two by fours
CHIP MATTHEWS: and built a vocal booth.
LUKE COMBS: A vocal booth with comforters from Walmart in the in the pole barn.
UNKNOWN: That’s awesome.
LUKE COMBS: Because the studio flooded out.
UNKNOWN: Yeah, yeah.
LUKE COMBS: But we were at that at my house. Yeah, I mean, I think that was probably my first time writing with Jeff.
RAY FULCHER: I think it was yeah.
LUKE COMBS: I think so, no
RAY FULCHER: What about Driver?
LUKE COMBS:I know me and Rob had written with Jeff on, we wrote at a song called Hush Puppies actually
RAY FULCHER: I remember this song.
REID ISBELL: Dude I’ve heard that song
LUKE COMBS: Writing with Jeff is just so different, because he’s, you know, he’s all he probably don’t own a guitar in standard tuning.
JONATHAN SINGLETON: right
RAY FULCHER: got that gut string lucky
LUKE COMBS: That gut string
CHIP MATTHEWS: Yeah, that was really hard to that was hard to emulate what he did.
LUKE COMBS: definitely, I mean it’s like a lot of times, I feel like when he’s playing on a work tape, it sounds like two people are playing.
ROB WILLIFORD: It’s awesome man he’s an he’s an artist in that playing too. Which is like guys like Travis Meadows.
LUKE COMBS: Travis Meadows
ROB WILLIFORD: Tony Lane, they have that, Jonathan Singleton has that
LUKE COMBS: It’s a unique thing right, it’s a distinguishable thing.
CHIP MATTHEW: I feel like that song also was part of a few songs. That sort of contributed to you doing the Gettin’ Up and Growin’ old.
LUKE COMBS: for sure.
CHIP MATTHEWS: Because we were working on that first half of the album, and there was too many good songs that we weren’t going to put on there. And you didn’t think you were going to do a deluxe. And Back 40 Back for me was probably my favorite of that bunch that wasn’t gonna make it
JONATHAN SINGLETON: it was on and off and on and off.
CHIP MATTHEW: And so then you kind of went hey, I’m just gonna do this. And I was like, wow that’s pretty cool.
DAN ISBELL: We were literally sitting in on hunting blind had been all week
LUKE COMBS: unlevel very on level
DAN ISBELL: very unlevel, wobbly, uneasy
RAY FULCHER: pump the brakes
DAN ISBELL: Dude, he just pulls this knife out and was like, check this out, man. My uncle made me this. First off, I don’t think I knew you had an uncle. Is it your uncle?
LUKE COMBS: Yeah. So it’s my dad’s sister’s husband.
DAN ISBELL: Okay. He was like, yeah, man, he made me this knife, check it out. And I pulled it out of the case and was looking at it. I was like, man, that’s pretty sick, and I flipped it over. And so on a knife, you have the blade section and then the back end is what’s called the tang. And that was what solidifies the knife in the wooden handle. And so on the top spine of the tang, when I flipped it over, it just said, You Found Yours right there. And I said, hey man, this is cool. He said, I had never seen, had you never seen it?
LUKE COMBS: Nope, I’ve had that knife for, I don’t know, it’s going on 10 years.
DAN ISBELL: yea he goes I’ve had this knife for 10 years
LUKE COMBS: And it’d been in my hunting bag I mean, ever since I’ve had it.
DAN ISBELL: I know this is this might be getting a little too deep. But it’s like, things like that let me know that there’s there’s a God, you know what I mean? Because it was out of nowhere, out of no contrived, hey, maybe you should go for this kind of sound on your record. It was just there and we saw it. And we instantly knew what the song was like, whether it be about your girl and then also, he’s like, oh, you’re home or you’re this or a dog.
LUKE COMBS: well because both of our wives were pregnant at that time right?
DAN ISBELL: Yeah yeah, and it was like purpose
LUKE COMBS: That’s what we were talking about in the blind. We were having that conversation. And then I pulled the knife out to show it to him.
DAN ISBELL: It was, it was wild
LUKE COMBS: and it was just like, well, that’s what that song is gonna be about for sure.
DAN ISBELL: And then we
LUKE COMBS: we went to the keys
DAN ISBELL: we started in the keys?
LUKE COMBS: No, we we wrote it all that day
UNKNOWN: We wrote it all there
DAN ISBELL: We were just kind of all in that moment. That’s all just kind of fell out, honestly.
JAMES MCNAIR: But that song, that I remember writing that and we’re trying to find a groove and you had a really cool just tempo groove to it. And it just pushed it it was another one of those stories songs that were able to get some tempo on it and I think that’s what makes it just really cool.
LUKE COMBS: Yeah
JAMES MCNAIR: and then I begged to get those whoa’s in there and finally
DAN ISBELL: oh he did, he wanted some whoa’s, I was like Jonathan don’t want these whoa’s
CHIP MATTHEWS: whoa’s mean a good
JONATHAN SINGLETON: I don’t mind whoa’s
CHIP MATTHEWS: bars are going away.
JONATHAN SINGLETON: he hates when mandolins do the thing and he hates whoa’s and I was like dude this whoa is – I can’t wait because we listened that word over and over and over did we not?
CHIP MATTHEWS: Yeah, we did, we did.
JONATHAN SINGLETON: like us that was a section I think Massey was sending us all of those things.
CHIP MATTHEWS: Yeah.
JONATHAN SINGLETON: And I loved the whoa’s
UNKNOWN: for the record, James pushed those whoa’s
RAY FULCHER: James is the whoa guy though
EVERYONE: the whoa guy
JAMES MCNAIR: The last show you just wait we’ll put you right up front for the live show
UNKNOWN: I liked the whoa’s. I thought it was great.
DAN ISBELL: That last verse though with the blue pound and little feet. If that don’t get you.
CHIP MATTHEWS: those guys who put that line in there to get cut.
DAN ISBELL: Actually, I put that knife in his bag to get cut.
LUKE COMBS: He actually inscribed that on there
DAN ISBELL: He thinks his uncle made that knife
LUKE COMBS: That was on the first session for anything Growin’ Up and Gettin’ Old. Because that was from… I don’t remember. Yeah, it was all the way at the very first and I had just gotten the first roughs like board mixes out for The Beer The Band And The Barstool and I was so excited to play it for Rob, because I loved it.
DAN ISBELL: And he hated it.
LUKE COMBS: Like, that’s what you want, though. Right? It’s like you want somebody to want it to be the best.
ROB WILLIFORD: I wanted it.
LUKE COMBS: He’s like, because he believed in that song so much. And you’re like, we played it. And I played it for him in the car. He’s like, he’s like, God, just he’s like, I just want it to be cooler that this.
ROB WILLIFORD: Yeah, my dumbass got in there when they first cut it and said, this ain’t good.
REID ISBELL: That was you?
ROB WILLIFORD: Yeah.
REID ISBELL: I was saying this is the best thing I’ve ever heard.
ROB WILLIFORD: Yeah, always lamented that I’m like, dang.
JONATHAN SINGLETON: What was the difference? Do you remember? It’s more like up and up?
CHIP MATTHEWS: There was no angst in the track. It felt good. It was syncopated, really cool texture.
LUKE COMBS: But it never went anywhere from the verse to the chorus, it never like, it never changed in like dynamically speaking.
CHIP MATTHEWS: And also the lyric is kind of tragic, in a way anyway. And it wasn’t a tragic track.
ROB WILLIFORD: I wanted it to be darker. But that’s one of those titles I always joke with Luke about that song. Because, man, you had that title. 2016 maybe? Yeah, I mean, we were in like, it was before radio tour. We were in hotels, Kappy was driving around the van. And some guy brought up about the book, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. And I’m like, I don’t remember. I just remember we were in a sh*tty hotel room. And Luke was like, it’d be cool to like, the beer the band, the barstool. And so ever since then, I’ve always been like, dude, I’m so glad I had that idea.
REID ISBELL: Dude, I didn’t even know. I just got chills, mostly because we were sitting on that porch in Boone. And we were scrolling through. We were doing the idea thing, like we had we thrown some out and nothing was- and it was late that night. And I think that was the first day you got there. And we have maybe had that fire going out there on that porch and just scrolling.
ROB WILLIFORD: I love the crickets in that work tape.
REID ISBELL: And you said, you said man, you said, Luke, you’re like, what about this one? And you kind of said that you you had this, we started this thing or had this thought. Just that a while back and said it and man, same thing that as soon as you said that thing, it just-
LUKE COMBS: That was a long write too. We were up long into the night.
REID ISBELL: Like hearing the song for the first time the recorded version, I’ve lived with that work tape for, you know, sometimes we’ll write songs and we’ll go immediately get them demoed. And that’s the version you listen to until something happens or nothing happens. But with this one, we just, we just work taped it right there on that picnic table. And you can hear it starts off with the crickets in the background. And you can just hear like Boone, North Carolina in the thing and work tape and then being able to hear Luke play me he’s like, dude, he and her beer band and barstool yet. And hearing that for the first time was super cool, you know, to hear it. You know, produced out I’ve always loved that song was super, super proud of that one to make the record.
LUKE COMBS: Yeah, I’m glad we got it right.
CHIP MATTHEWS: Yes. We had to listen to the lyric more when we were recording so that it kind of matched. They sort of felt like you could picture this guy in this situation. I thought that was the biggest thing that missed in the first track to me.
JONATHAN SINGLETON: Didn’t Luke say to that he was like, nah, man. This is like an old country song. Yeah. Okay. Why didn’t you say that in the first place? Yeah.
LUKE COMBS: We, that was your, like, ideas that you brought down there, right?
JAMIE DAVIS: I have some awesome music as a melody for the for the chorus. But like it was a shared title we come up with,
RAY FULCHER: It’s one of them we just kind of like, we like, worked into the title somehow, like we never I don’t even know if any of us had that, like our phone. Just one of them I was just like, this feels like it should say this. It’s like the thing you were playing should go here.
JAMIE DAVIS: I had a bluegrass, you know, chord progression kind of Chucky train make playing going on just to try to do something, you know?
JONATHAN SINGLETON: Yeah, that work type is still I’m still…
LUKE COMBS: Oh, yeah, it’s like, yeah, I still wanted it to have that feel to it. Obviously, you didn’t want it to be like a, you know, traditionally leaning bluegrass thing to fit on this record. So it’s like, we had to kind of blend and marry the two ideas. It felt like I think it’s my favorite solo on the record.
RAY FULCHER: That’s my favorite.
JONATHAN SINGLETON: Jerry row and Rob McNally. They were super thoughtful to maneuver to did not make it that.
CHIP MATTHEWS: Kind of the mando and acoustic to help that pull it back. The ups in the mando.
REID ISBELL: Did y’all recut cut that? Because that was on the same session. That was on the very first session.
LUKE COMBS: I felt like we kind of got it right. The first time.
CHIP MATTHEWS: It was really straddling both, it had bluegrass elements, but it was. So yeah.
JONATHAN SINGLETON: Charlie, Charlie Worsham. Is that Charlie?
EVERYONE: Yeah.
CHIP MATTHEWS: That was a tough one for you to sing too?
LUKE COMBS: Yeah, cuz we had, like you didn’t have feel like you had the vocal you needed. And that was one of the last vocals…
CHIP MATTHEWS: Yeah, it was the last. We had taken a couple shots.
LUKE COMBS: And it was just wasn’t meant, like, you know, you’re going in and singing, Growing Up and Getting Old is not the same thing as singing Still, on a vocal day for me, like, my voice.
CHIP MATTHEWS: You needed to be in that sweet spot where you are warmed up, but you weren’t burnt yet. Like that’s where you needed to be.
LUKE COMBS: Which is tough to like, for what you’re looking for, for an album. It’s such a, at least for me, you know, and I’ve learned this more from working with you. Doing vocals is like, there’s three different places that my voice sits. Honestly, then it’s like, whatever it is that day, we gotta go.
CHIP MATTHEWS: That’s what I’ve learned. Because it’s like, you’re so good. I think, oh, we’ll get three or four passes, and that’ll be it. But then you start going through him like, oh, wait, he’s three different people as he warms up.
JONATHAN SINGLTON: Pushing hard in the middle. And not pushing.
CHIP MATTHEWS: Yeah. So the way you cut us all that time out of your schedule, when we came to the Keys where you literally just came and hung for the day and you’d sing a little and then break and then just slowly get warmed up.
LUKE COMBS: Those days are tough.
CHIP MATTHEWS: But we got a lot of good work in between.
LUKE COMBS: Oh, just do it again I guess. We get them done, but it is hard. Because you really think like, I mean, at least I think I’m like how can we not have it? How can we not? I know but it alway,s I mean. I mean, unfortunately you guys are always right on that as much as I hate to admit that.
RAY FULCHER: Backstory of See Me Now, we, Kenton and I wrote one day and it was, we didn’t have we had like an hour. And we were kind of going through ideas and I had this- I remember having this idea because it came to me the last week I was with my family and was around my aunt. But so my mom’s dad died when she was two. So I’ve never, she don’t know him and I never got to meet him. But throughout my whole life, like even when I was a teenager, my grandma would stop me all the time be like, God, the way you walk. The way you talk… like reminded me of his name’s Oren. And, and so as I got to get to learn more about him, he was a fiddle player in the Strawberry Pickers, which is a…
LUKE COMBS: Sick.
RAY FULCHER: Yeah, so they were a bluegrass band and followed around like the governor of Alabama back in the day. Like, he would go and do a campaign anywhere around Alabama. They would be there to like open the show. So nobody from him ’til me, like did anything in music at all, like, played the radio… That was it. So. So once I started doing music, and I moved to Nashville and everything, my aunt who was my mom’s oldest sister would, every time she saw me, she’d be like, Gosh, I wish your grand- you know, your granddad could see you now. And so she said that to me, 10 times probably. And I remember I just saw her and she said that again. And I was like, write that down. See me now, and so we had sort of the bones there. But it was like, the lyric in the melodies that we got when we were together in Montana was what kinda. Yeah, that next level.
LUKE COMBS: Yeah, the thing that struck me about that song was I remember my son, my dad’s dad, he passed away in 2000 and, oh, I guess it was probably 15 Whenever we went to the zoo, remember with zoo, the infamous, still hung over zoo story. But we were there. And my, my dad’s dad had not been doing very well. And I he got to hear This One’s For You. It was before I had even signed with Sony, but the record was already done. And so I got to, like, go down there and like play it for him and stuff. And he had always told me when I’d started doing music a few years before. And he was like, man, if he’s like, if you stick with this man, like you’re gonna be you’re gonna make it, you know. And I was like, at that time, I was like, this guy’s losing it, you know? Talking about you know, and, but it was weird. Like he said, it was such conviction that I almost kind of believed them, you know what I mean? And that moment stuck with me forever. And then so getting to go down there and finally play him the record. And that was the last time I saw him. And then we went on this five week tour, the first tour we had ever been on. And it was like first weekend, wasn’t it? Yeah, like it was like second day or something. We were at the zoo. And my dad called me my dad like, never calls me. Like, especially not, he was still working at that time. He called me in the middle of the day. And I just knew, you know, and I did, I wasn’t able to go back to his funeral and stuff. And so when you play, and that was really tough on me. And because he was a huge part of my life. And so when he played me that song, I just thought back to that moment of him telling me like you’re gonna make it you know, and that just resonated with me a lot. And I think we got to kind of, kind of tell that story a little bit in that song. You know, I got to kind of tell him some stuff that he never got to see happen, you know, so that was that was cool, man. It was really cool.“
“That was a tune that- it was kinda like Erik Dylan had sent me that. Him and James Slater had written that song and it was it was an Eric like, work tape. And I always just loved that song and I thought it was like so great, you know, and I was like, man, it’s just going to be any day now somebody’s gonna record this song it’s so great. And the thing that, only thing that really, really like bugged me about it was that the chorus never went anywhere, like, melodically speaking. And so I had Erik come over to my house, and we sat down with it. And we kind of rewrote a little bit of the second verse, and this kind of extended the second verse and added a bridge. And then we sat around for an hour trying to figure out melodically how to, how to make it have this, that vocal kind of moment, playing that on The Opry I guess 2020 like April, maybe 2020. In The Opry has done a show every night for 50 years or something. And it’s a long time. I mean, 1000s of 1000s of like, never missed a show, right? So when COVID kind of kicked off, and everything was like mega shut down.
REID ISBELL: How many people were there?
LUKE COMBS: Nobody, it was empty. It was wild, you know, just being in there, it’s empty. And you’re just like, is this what shows are gonna be like for God knows how long? You know, I don’t know, you know, is there gonna be any shows or anything and we’d just finished that song with, with Erik, maybe that that week, or the week before that, or something, there’s a story behind that song. There’s, there’s been a decent amount of folks in my family that have kind of struggled with alcoholism, stuff like that. And so, you know, I have, you know, a couple of buddies who don’t really drink anymore, either. And so it’s like, I think it was like, man, we’re out. And we’re doing this big show. And the whole show is, kinda like, all genres kind of built around, like, have a drink, or like, you know, get hammered or whatever. And it’s like, what’s the five guys in the 60,000 or someplace that aren’t drinking? Like, what’s their experience?
JONATHAN SINGLETON: That can’t do it.
LUKE COMBS: That can’t do anymore. Don’t allow themselves to do it anymore. Like, that was always something that I was kind of intrigued by. And when I heard that song, I was like, that might mean just as much in total to those five people as that other song means to everybody else.
JONATHAN SINGLETON: Well. Yeah. I think the same guy that enjoys the beer song enjoys that song too. Because you kind of know.
LUKE COMBS: Like everybody has, you know, folks in their lives that they know that are pursuing that that thing or has someone in their family has been affected by that in some way. So I just I thought that song was really important. And I do think that instead of calling it The Bottle and calling a Joe, it’s like, I really want people to be like, What the f*ck is this about? Instead of this is called the bottle you kinda know, what’s going on. You know where it’s going right? And if you were just to never have heard it. And what’s Joe about? You don’t know and you’re more inclined maybe to listen to the story as opposed to just like I know where this is going.
JONATHAN SINGLETON: Which is the best first line of a song on the whole thing? You know what I mean? Is that Oh, sh*t. Okay, I know. I kind of know what we’re doing now. Yeah, yeah.“
DAN ISBELL: I remember hearing that Haggard story that he was really cool man. He rented a boat, a houseboat out on Lake Shasta. And he was just like belligerently drunk. He hadn’t really written anything. And they were like we got to get him off that boat. He’s gonna kill himself. And he, when they I guess they called him you know if you could call then and they were like, hey man, like, you gotta come back in and he was like, I think I’ll I think I’ll stay, I’ll just stay here drink instead of going back in. So he had started that song on a houseboat own Lake Shasta and I thought, man, that’s super cool. Nobody’s gonna care about that right other than like songwriters. So me and Beathard had sat down. And there was a really bad first verse. I hate to say that because if you watched this… it was like every rose has its thorn has its thorns was like the first the first song… I know it’s pretty cringe man.
JONATHAN SINGLETON: I love that Casey Beathard’s the bad songwriter and not here to defend himself.
DAN ISBELL: Anyway, so we, I was like, hey, man, we need to chill on this. I was like, I just I’d like to just let Luke hear. We didn’t even have a chorus. I don’t think. And so we went to Montana with that idea.
RIED ISBELL: That was the first song we worked on. We were sitting on the back porch and you like prefacing sharing this idea with Luke and talking about getting into writing it. You told the story of Haggard and as soon as you told that story, Luke goes he’s like, he’s that he’s well you’ve heard the one about Willie right? Wait, what?
DAN ISBELL: So Luke tells a story about how Willie wrote-
LUKE COMBS: Well he wrote On The Road Again, which he actually wrote for a movie. Yeah, that’s right. That’s right. The producer of the film I think was on the plane with him. And was like, hey, man, we really need this song for this thing. And he got the like, barf bag out of the seat. And wrote on the road again on the barf bag.
DAN ISBELL: When he was saying that I was just hearing the money being printed. Telling this story.
LUKE COMBS: But it just, it just worked out so great, because I had never heard the Merle Haggard story.
DAN ISBELL: And what’s cool is like don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story. And there’s probably some elements that some of some of that is it is not. But that’s the the lore of the tune. You know that that a song was born from that.
JONATHAN SINGLETON: That track, that’s one of my favorite tracks. Yeah. Yeah. We we clowned on that guitar part for a long time.
CHIP MATTHEWS: Well it was kind of a tongue in cheek kind of.
JONATHAN SINGLETON: Because it’s the West Tennessee version of how you play all those songs.
LUKE COMBS: Ironically enough, like, you know, is like Jonathan wrote that song with with Eric [Church] and Travis Meadows, but like in Boone yeah, but you didn’t send me that song. It was like, No, you didn’t. It was like, Arturo Buena Hara sent me that song like, he got my email somehow like, and like, was just like, hey, man, I’ve never sent you anything and wouldn’t ever send you anything. But I know you’re buddies with Jonathan, because you weren’t even producing me at that time.
JONATHAN SINGLETON: I probably not, no.
LUKE COMBS: And he sent it to me. He was like, Hey, man, I would never spam you with stuff. He’s like, I just really love the song. And that was when Eric was writing the heart and soul record.
JONATHAN SINGLETON: Yeah. I couldn’t believe he didn’t cut it. Shocked.
LUKE COMBS: Yeah. But I think Arturo was like, kind of shocked that it didn’t make the record either. And I mean, you know, what a great publisher of him to like, yes, and that f*cking song. And I loved it. And I was like, Well, you know, Jonathan’s on it and I’m been a huge Travis Meadows fan for ever. Me and Rob have been huge fans of his for a long time and so I obviously would have loved the tune whoever wrote it But it was like it already had the story because you know, I love church so much. And you know, me and Jonathan have been buddies for a long time now and the love Travis Meadows and I just the song was just so great. And then I was so adamant about that drum part. You remember how annoying I was about that drum? I don’t even know what to even call that.
JONATHAN SINGLETON: Was it the end?
CHIP MATTHEWS: Yeah, kind of a double time with the backbeat in it.
LUKE COMBS: Yeah, almost like a marching band. Kind of drum thing going on in there.
JONATHAN SINGLETON: So the two parts went together. So we you were like, it’s got to be this way. And we’re like, okay, well what if we put the other drums in and then put that one in there? Will that slide by? He was print it… to us like, I love it. We got it.
LUKE COMBS: Who else knew that song? Y’all just talk about that…
DAN ISBELL: Didn’t Eric (Church) have that song for a while?
JONATHAN SINGLETON: He did have it.
DAN ISBELL: He almost cut it. And then, man, I was just, I couldn’t believe that song couldn’t land somewhere.
JONATHAN SINGLETON: Nashville songwriters knew that song.
RAY FULCHER: Yeah, that was the one that everybody was always like, have you heard? Yeah, of course. I’ve heard…
LUKE COMBS: It was getting passed around.
DAN ISBELL: I’m curious. Why did why did somebody not cut? Because it was like a death song?
RYA FULCHER: I mean, Luke would tell you, it’s hard to sing too.
JONATHAN SINGLETON: It is a story song.
CHIP MATTHEWS: They must have been overthinking it. Because it is hard to sing.
LUKE COMBS: Because Randy’s demo is so good. Like the blueprint’s already there. It’s not like you have to go in and go well, it’s just an acoustic work tape and how do I cut it? There’s a sick demo right there.
RAY FULCHER: They listen to Randy, do it in there. Like… you know what I mean?
DAN ISBELL: I played it for Randy at the office. And before, I kind of stopped it in the middle. I was like, hey, by the way, this a lot like the demo.
LUKE COMBS: Isn’t that the point of the demo, though? Isn’t that the idea?
CHIP MATTHEWS: Just a story song like that.
LUKE COMBS: When that song was going around, at least when I heard I don’t know how long it had been around before I had heard it. And that was five years ago. Right? And how old is that song?
JONATHAN SINGLETON: It’s gotta be that many years old.
LUKE COMBS: But like, at that time, nobody was cutting stories, songs at all, really. I mean, outside of Eric Church, probably. And I would argue that it’s a really tough song to sing and like, figure out how you would do you live. I mean, we struggle with it even in studio. But I mean, like, that’s one of those ones that we have. I haven’t even run with the band yet. And I’m like…
JONATHAN SINGLETON: Good luck on those harmonies.
LUKE COMBS: What does that look? Like? What does that look like live? Like I struggle with- it took us a while to figure out The Kind of Love We Make Too. Vocally speaking… because it’s just a challenge. Because it’s fast and it’s like, I was mad.
ROB WILLIFORD: Where were we, wasn’t it like Seattle or Denver?
LUKE COMBS: Denver.
ROB WILLIFORD: It was cold in Denver.
REID ISBELL: You were mad when we wrote it too.
LUKE COMBS: I remember somebody telling me, I was, I think it was when me and Moffitt were still doing stuff. And he was, I was telling him I was like, well, we can’t do this, because I’m not going to be able to sing this thing live like this. And he was like, dude, he’s like, we can’t dumb down the record. But like, you’ll figure it out. Yeah. like, we got to make it as good as we can. And you’ll- you’re gonna figure it out. I promise. So I always remembered that, you know?
JONATHAN SINGLETON: You have to let the crowd sing.
LUKE COMBS: Yeah, but I don’t know. I don’t know why, how that song never get cut, because it’s an awesome, awesome song.
REID ISBELL: It’s one of the songs too that like, because we all hear as songwriters. Like you have people all the time sending you songs. Or being like, hey, man, have you heard this, or heard this one? And I remember I was at my house alone. And I don’t know if Dan texted it to me or he showed up and was like dude you gotta hear this song. And like, I remember where I was when I heard that song. Like, that’s how good and different you can say that tune is. And how it stands out among, you know, the rest of them that you hear over the years. But that one just stuck with you.
LUKE COMBS: There’s a few songs like that floating around town.
JONATHAN SINGLETON: Well a couple of them are on this. That you know what I mean? I always thought that was neat too. Because there’s a you know, in Growin’ Up and Gettin’ Old you know, when you’re trying to figure those two things out but there’s a Randy Montana song on there. There’s all our, all your buddies songs on there. There’s Jeff Hyde songs on there that feel like the soundtrack to that. You know, the things you were listening to when you were like, oh, man, I’m gonna get better at this. I’m gonna get you know what I mean? I’m gonna figure out how to get Beathard tunes on there. Yeah, I thought that was really neat in going back and listening to it as a whole once I could listen to it again.
LUKE COMBS: Once I could listen to it again.
DAN ISBELL: So I’m standing there in the crowd. And Luke is on stage and he starts talking about Nicole, I guess, was Nicole sick?
LUKE COMBS: She was there but she was sick.
DAN ISBELL: Yeah, yeah, she never came out, she never came off the bus. And he’s like I don’t even know if you’re out here tonight. But I love you anyway or but I do anyway or something and it was it came out to me is love you anyway. And I was like, that’s kind of a cool title. So I wrote it down on my phone and I knew we were going to keys. I’m putting my vote in for keys dude- I’m not saying I won’t go to North Carolina probably. But I threw my guts up for two days, gettin’ up those hills. Keys suits me just fine. But anyway, we took that down there. Well I don’t think we had the setup on it really.
RAY FULCHER: Because on the plane ride down there we were like we’re like let’s dive into a couple of these things like what is it eve, what are they about? And that one was just one where we didn’t even- we couldn’t figure it out while we were texting. And as where, the coolest part about that is like we’re sitting on that back patio or the overlooking kind of the ocean but it’s just dark we were kind of throwing around ideas about this thing of what it was going to end up being and how it was a love song but also the core of this like breakup song or a heartbreak song.
DAN ISBELL: You don’t even know it’s a heartbreak song until it gets right to the hook.
RAY FULCHER: It’s almost like the verses are like poems in a way.
DAN ISBELL: Yeah. And they didn’t make a whole lot of sense until that hook kind of kind of turned the wrench and tightened everything up.
LUKE COMBS: I think that that song is a great example of you know, a lot of times I’ll tease a song on my social media and I think I put you put a work tape of that song up.
RAY FULCHER: And it smoked.
LUKE COMBS: I don’t think it did that, that great. I don’t think it did that great compared to what I’ve always kind of like what I usually put out and then all of a sudden we put up the recorded version and it’s like people were losing their minds.
DAN ISBELL: But if you think about it and the in the stuff that you were putting out at the time. That doesn’t really-
LUKE COMBS: Doesn’t necessarily fit what I was doing at the time.
DAN ISBELL: It’s more of a Gettin’ Old than a Growin’ Up.
JONATHAN SINGLETON: That track is so pulled back too. Yeah man it’s way pulled back and it’s literally kind of fiddle and lyric…and squeeze box. Oh yeah, I played it for you. That’s on your iPhone wasn’t it? Squeeze box?
CHIP MATTHEWS: Oh, no, no, it’s fake. I think it’s in the nord to be honest. I mean, I had to like ride all those.
DAN ISBELL: Most of the time I can sniff those out. That was a good one.
JAMES MCNAIR: I had this one idea, Take You With Me in my phone. But it was a completely different concept from any, you know, to where it turned into. So we called Rob up and Rob was out. And he’s like, yeah, I could come out and write a song. And I remember we started the verse and a little bit of the chorus like before that.
LUKE COMBS: We didn’t get like really any chorus stuff that we liked, though.
ROB WILLIFORD: I had forgotten about the storm, because we had gotten to Ohio State early because it was a stadium show. And like we had done all the prep work. And that day of show, it was like everything that they had set up. I remember getting up and looking outside of the bus and like tents or just flying by. And it was like… middle of Kansas, kind of like are we in a tornado in Ohio? What’s happening? So that kind of died down. And you guys- I didn’t even know y’all had gone to the golf course. Hit me up, I walked over to your bus, got on there. And I wasn’t on there long. And you said, I got this idea to take you with me. But very quickly, it reminded me of the nostalgia of like, when your dad says, as a kid, your dad saying that he’s gonna take you to do anything is a big f*cking deal. And like just those words of like, how do we get that emotion? And I remember we started writing that verse in the turtle and the rabbit line happened. And I saw Luke get emotional.
LUKE COMBS: Oh yeah.
ROB WILLIFORD: And that made me emotional. And I was like, we’ve got to keep that. Becuase that’s the whole idea of the song. And man, that will always be, we’ve had special songs man, that one will be always be a special song.
LUKE COMBS: When you listen to it. It’s really the singer of the song is the kid in the song. Yeah, like having the experience with your dad. And and you know, and taking you to do stuff. And I think that was- made it a little bit easier for me to write honestly, to not be the dad in the song. Right? And then when we finished it in the Keys, we got the chorus, you know, and of course is like this big kind of like Vince Gill melody thing that we really wanted to do and couldn’t quite figure out that first day, and then in the last verse, it kind of, you kind of just break the whole perspective of the song is just kind of like gone. Like it turns into like, me singing directly about my experience, right, which is not in the song at all up to that point. And I thought that was, that was pretty neat. And maybe something that I hadn’t done before and but just really kind of saying exactly what was going on in my life at the time. Which is just saying, you know, hey, I’m thinking about my son while I’m writing the song. You know, my kid, he’s not even old enough to understand, you know, what this song is about. Or anything or the emotions that I’m going through while writing the song. You know, it’s like, it was pretty, it was like pretty cathartic experience for me to be able to write that song because I hadn’t like processed any of the emotions of like being a dad, like a new dad yet at that time. And it was cool. It’s definitely one of my favorites, man. I love the production of it too. I think really nails the feel of what I wanted that song to be, you know?
CHIP MATTHEWS: It was hard to work on at times just because you’re focused on everything but the lyric, until lyric jumps out and gets grabbed you right.
JONATHAN SINGLETON: And Chip didn’t like that song either so it made it harder.
LUKE COMBS: I’ve had a million favorite songs, you know, from the time I was born until now, you know, at any given time. But that was one of the first like, oh, that’s like my favorite song right now, you know, and my dad had this old pickup truck that had a cassette player in it and I have the actual cassette that me and my dad used to listen to like the exact one of that album. And that song just always, I mean, stuck out to me. And that was probably one of my first experiences, subconsciously, even knowing what like a hit song was. Because I mean, I didn’t know at the time that that was a hit song. Right? Like I was, when I was, when I first heard that I was probably three or that song had been out probably five years already. At that time, I think that came out 88 or 89 or something. But I remember hearing it and being like, man, I like this song, I mean I liked every song on that album. But that song for whatever reason, really just stuck out to me. And I didn’t really know why or anything. So I listened to it my whole life. You know, I always come back to it. And then when I started teaching myself to play, it was the first song that wasn’t just like, this thing that I taught myself to play. It took me a long time to learn how to play that song. Anyone that has ever-
JONATHAN SINGLETON: It is your guitar. If you pick up a guitar, there’s no doubt you’re playing Fast Car.
ROB WILLIFORD: Back in the neon days when we’d soundcheck, there’d be like three or four songs, he would always grab the guitar and play.
LUKE COMBS: The solo from What I Got by Sublime. Yeah, and then Avett Brothers song called Murder In The City. Yep. Always play that one. And then Tracy Chapman Fast Car for sure. And that’s still that’s the only three songs I know on guitar. But no, I just took me a really long time because I was really like that song was way more advanced on guitar than I was when I learned it. Right. Like, I feel like I’m just now really, like proficient enough to play that song well enough to do it on stage, like just at this point. But I could play that song 10 years ago, because I just sat there and played it. It took me months to be able to play it and then to be able to play it and sing it took even more time you know? And so I always would just kind of cover that in my bar gigs and people just loved it as much as I loved it. You know? And, you know, you hear a song like Chris Stapleton do Tennessee Whiskey is like, how many people’s only impression of that song is Chris Stapleton? Not to mention that George Jones has cut it and David Allen Coe’s cut it. And you know, all these people have cut this song. It’s been around for generations of country music fans, and has even been a single for other people too. And then when Chris did it, it just, you know, get this whole new life and I think that’s what, I think that’s what, I love that song so much. And I think it’s such a great song that it deserves to be heard by a whole generation of people that haven’t haven’t heard it before. And, and so to be able to, like, have an opportunity to do that, especially with a song that’s meant so much to me and my love of music from as far back as I can remember is super unique.
DAN ISBELL: I’m married, but I don’t wear a wedding ring because I’m maybe weird but my hands I can’t have like markings or stamps. Drives me nuts.
LUKE COMBS: Loves chicken wings.
DAN ISBELL: A lot of napkins. And Ray was like, hey, Dan, why don’t you wear a wedding ring? And I was like, well, you know, I gave him the whole spiel. I said, I’m gonna eventually have to get a tattoo, right? He said, we should get one line down here. And I was- at the time. My hands were literally sunburned because it was like, middle of February or something when we went down there. So my pasty ass was down there and all the sudden, it’s like, you know, everything on me was a sunburned, right? So I said, man, I getting this. I ain’t gettin’ a tattoo on this hot dog man this is sunburned right now. You know how bad that would hurt? I just said it in passing. And I was like hmm, Tattoo On A Sunburn, that’s kind of a cool idea. And they were like we’re going to play Madden. And so they went in and started playing Madden.
LUKE COMBS: I did.
DAN ISBELL: And I started working on the song. And then I went in and said, hey, I think this is kind of cool. It’s a little out of pocket. But it’s kind of a weird idea. I play it for ’em. And Luke’s like, I feel like it just hurts too much. Sounds like it hurts. I don’t know if I’m into it. And I was like, okay. Ray’s like I’ll finish it with you. So we’re like, sick. So Ray comes out. We work on it a little bit. We didn’t really put a whole lot into it, though. Did we just…
RAY FULCHER: Verse. Bones of the chorus.
DAN ISBELL: Yeah. No, not a huge thing. And so we come back, and we’re like, hey, Luke, sure you like this? He’s like, Yeah, I’m positive. And so we’re like, okay. Let’s see if anybody else does, right? Because that’s what we do as music row songwriters. So we were like, man, we got this day with Ben Hayslip, who should finish this thing out and just see if anybody cares. So we finished it out with Hayslip. Our version of it. I think I had maybe said something to you about it. And then you went to his house and-
RAY FULCHER: The day, that’s the day that it was supposed to get cut. I was just, we’re just hanging out, like going to the house to hang out. He’s like, what song is it? It’s just actually started down in the Keys. It’s called Tattoo On A Sunburn. He’s like, I don’t remember much about it will you play it? And so then I just played the whole song in its entirety. And at that time-
DAN ISBELL: But didn’t you literally play it? You didn’t play the record?
RAY FULCHER: No I sat down with a guitar and played it. Yeah, I remember him being like, that’s pretty cool. And like, just kind of sits back. We don’t really say anything else about it.
LUKE COMBS: I had told you that Ray played it for me. And you were like, yeah, I got the demo. And you played me the demo for it that night. I was like, oh, cool. I was like, Cool, man. like, I was like, well I like this, but I just, there’s some things I don’t like about it. You know, like, where certain things all are and how they fall.
DAN ISBELL: And you put my favorite line in there now, which I know that seems like something I would say in order to get a song cut. But it’s already cut so it doesn’t matter. It was the due West of Arkansas line. Yeah, because that made it come from the Carolinas instead of- Because we wrote it about down 65 you know, in Panama City or whatever. But his perspective was from the
LUKE COMBS: Myrtle, Outer Banks
RAY FULCHER: Cool how his winding road like led to what it was and if you take any of those parts out, the song never ends up the way it finished up.
LUKE COMBS: Yeah. Pretty sick. Yeah, that one turned out good.
LUKE COMBS: It was over COVID I wrote that song. And man, just kind of like, I guess probably tail end where like things were about to start, like, maybe we were talking about going back out. You know, and like, those plans were being discussed what that looks like. And, you know, but still, I mean, been at the house for a year and a half not doing anything except, you know, doing stuff really like this in my garage or whatever it was. And driving around and ended up in, I have this clover plot up on this hill, at our house, and me and gnudi were up there. Just try driving around like something to do, you know, there’s nothing to do. And we got out and, you know, we’re just like, looking for four leaf clovers, right? Because there’s literally just nothing to do you know, and we’re like, I found one and I was like, man, that’s sick I finally found one. And then Nudie found a 5 leaf clover, he actually found one what I have the picture. I took a picture. And I was like, man, like how lucky you gotta be to, like, find the 5 leaf clover. And I wrote that title down on my phone, 5 leaf clover, and had a write a couple of weeks later with Jesse Alexander and, and Chase McGill. And we couldn’t really think of anything to write honestly, it was one of those days where you’re just struggling, you know, like, this idea, don’t like it, and we’re going through, we’re trying to come up with stuff and can’t find anything. And, you know, it’s one of those titles that it didn’t really, at the time jump off the page to me, like, you know, I wasn’t like, Man, this is such a great idea or anything like that, it was just another idea in my phone, you know, and, and I started playing this, you know, kind of Irish-y sounding kind of thing on my phone. Or like, I mean, on the guitar, and, and then I was like, I was like, man, well, I got this idea called 5 Leaf Clover. And they were like, sh*t we love that of that idea, especially with this guitar thing. And really kind of song kind of just really wrote itself when we wrote it really fast that day. And again, another song I had started kind of playing on the road. Like, during the acoustic section, the solo section of the show, and I think I played it at a festival or something first and didn’t really- Again, another one that didn’t really take off really from the jump. And then as it kind of got posted a few times throughout that year, people really started you know, globbing onto it for whatever reason and saying when’s this song coming out? When are you going to put the song out? And then we went to to record it and and really kind of wanted to like key in on that Irish kind of like Celtic vibe the acoustic was taking in the way I was playing it. And you know, adding that fiddle on there I think was was huge I think for that song.
JONATHAN SINGLETON: I had played a bunch of times that John Mayer song the Age Of Worry song. I played that song a bunch of times for everybody trying to get it and then you know, country world and then it’s like you whisper something to somebody and it changes as it goes down the line you know, and just kind of like oh, okay, no, yeah, I love that. I love that which is how it kind of ended up I think Rob and those guys were passing that thing off and then putting the fiddle on it with that thing it does. It feels so cool. Such a cool line. I text Chase back and forth during that things as me how everything was going and I was like, man, this thing’s killing. It just feels so good.
LUKE COMBS: That one was another idea that y’all come down with.
DAN ISBELL: No, we literally had- we wrote- we had foxes killing our chickens.
LUKE COMBS: Oh, that’s right.
DAN ISBELL: We were both going through foxes eating the hell out of our chickens. Let me tell you something, that does not work well, for a watch that names your chickens.
LUKE COMBS: No, I don’t know well, but no, I mean that would really just kind of fell out honestly. I mean it really did. I mean it was just like to me that one’s like pretty self explanatory. I mean, it’s just a big vocal and then to me the the biggest part of that too is like how we ended up cutting it right? Which is like, almost like a Black Crowes thing.
JAMIE DAVIS: I remember that these two had the chicken thing going on. And they were telling me on the phone, we’re trying to get prepped to go write, the thing get the keys. I was like, I got this title thing or we got this thing, we got we got foxes literally killing chickens like Fox in the Henhouse. What the f*ck am I supposed to do with this? We did, we did it was a bluegrass title. When I was just like dude. I mean like give me the f*cking hardest one you got, that’s the one I want. Like he literally gave me the hardest one you had.
CHIP MATTHEWS: You know the way he sings it, you couldn’t have cut it bluegrass. Because his vocal just dominated everything it’s like it needed that edgy ballsy track.
JAMIE DAVIS: Well we were trying to do-
DAN ISBELL: Don’t try to talk your track…
JAMIE DAVIS: Something like that was what I was thinking on the thing was like a Steel Drivers something. You know that kind of thing? Because we’re intentionally writing the bluegrass thing but I remember we did the big long Fox In The Henhouse. Yeah, we knew it was on when it was like when we got this and then when he lit into it that day it was like yeah, okay, I get it. I get it.
DAN ISBELL: I just remember him singing that one like he meant it.
JAMIE DAVIS: We started, we were like literally writing about foxes getting chickens. But once we turn into- but once we get into it there were so many different ways that you could see the story going. Like you were like, well gah is this guy like is this a thief grabbing some sh*t is like a dude sneaking on somebody’s old lady? Is it like, somebody stabbing somebody in the back? I mean, it was like all these different things. But we were literally right and lyric like a fox is killing chickens at the house. You know, but but it started being all this stuff and I was getting fired up because I was like, man, okay, I like, i get it.
RAY FULCHER: That was one that I distinctly remember it was Kenton and I started it. And I was- he remembers these days well, but 2017 I went through a terrible breakup with this girl from back home, and kind of…
EVERYONE: Here we go…
RAY FULCHER: I’m not going there, but so I call Kenton. I was like, dude, I don’t feel like writing today or whatever. He’s like, why? And I was like, I want to talk about it. He’s like, well just come over here and drink some espresso or whatever, cuz he’s got espresso machine. I was like, let’s do something, now shut up till I go over there. So I went over there. And then he was like, you know, I was like, dude, I don’t I don’t feel like writing. And he was like, well, just let’s talk or whatever I go, well, I was like, you don’t. When you move to Nashville, you don’t think about days like this, like nobody tells you about these days. When you move to Nashville. He goes, well, let’s write that. And so as I had been kind of reflecting on the reasons why and stuff, it just, it made sense, kind of as we started this song, and we kind of finished an iteration of it. And then Luke, tell me if I’m wrong, but heard it somehow on the bus. But you were- had been gone a long time. And we’re missing Nicole and so Luke called me it was like, what? Like, what is the song? What? And I kind of told him the story. And he’s, like, come over to the house. This was this ended up being like, a few days before Christmas, went over his house. And then we went kind of line by line, and just made it you know, kind of put a lot of your story into it, but really just like, pulling the curtain behind what everybody sees. And like, sometimes it’s not always that and even…
LUKE COMBS: Nobody films, the sh*tty parts. Yeah, right. You know what I mean?
RAY FULCHER: The ups and downs we go through. And so it never felt complete to me until we kind of finished it. And then from that day on, it’s been my favorite song.
LUKE COMBS: I really wanted to do it, you know, and I think, you know, it’s a song that wouldn’t have been able to be on some of my other albums, just because it’s like, you’re not, you know, you’re just not ready to say those kinds of things, or you don’t feel sure you’re established enough to say, those kinds of things. But like, it can be related to a lot of different jobs, or different lifestyles or career paths. But, you know, it’s like, the things that really, people don’t talk about a lot. You know, nobody comes to town and says, hey man, you’re gonna have these days that are like, there’s this weird juxtaposition, I think of, like, sometimes you can be having, like, you know, some of the worst, like, mental health days that you’ve ever had while doing and achieving some of the biggest things that you’ve ever achieved. I’m sure that a lot of you guys have been through that stuff, too. And your brain does that with everything too.
JONATHAN SINGLETON: And then on the way home you’re like… You’re like, oh, man, chest kind of hurts. And the story we stop on too.
LUKE COMBS: Yeah, the worst story, you’re like, God, that’s the that’s the most realistic one.
RAY FULCHER: That’s definitely what was happening. There is no other way to reality you aways. Yeah, yeah.
LUKE COMBS: I think that song speaks to that a lot. So I love that one for that reason. As you probably heard, if you watch all of this thing, it’s like, it’s really just guys that really like to write songs I get along really well. And I think that’s what this has always been about. I think I hope that you kind of got to feel that in the conversations that we had today that it’s just like, the songs are just these like moment in time. You know, when we sit down and write them and then you know, through a lot of a lot of time and work they become what you guys love and I think I really just wanted you guys to know that it’s like, you know, it is a you know, it’s a process that we all love and that we love being a part of and so that kind of came across in this.