Luke Combs Reflects on His Rise from College Gigs to Stardom: ‘You Can’t Be Afraid to Bet on Yourself’

Fourteen years ago, Luke Combs took the first step towards believing in himself and landed his first gig singing in college. Music had always been part of his life, but it wasn’t until he started chasing it more intentionally later in life that he realized it could become something bigger.

Growing up in a working-class family, the North Carolina native remembers that his parents always encouraged him to “chase your dreams.” While he believed their encouragement to be genuine, that idea didn’t feel like a realistic option to him.

“In my mind I’m going, like, ‘I mean, to an extent, right?’ Chase your dreams, but I’m not gonna be in the Olympics. I don’t have to tell you that that’s not gonna happen,” Combs told Willie Geist for a Sunday Sitdown interview on an episode of Sunday TODAY.

“Chase your dreams within reason, you know what I mean? Let’s not get crazy with it here,” he added.

Combs remembers watching Alan Jackson on TV and struggling to wrap his head around the idea that music was an actual job. To him, artists like Jackson didn’t feel like real people with real careers, which made the thought of following in his heroes’ footsteps seem impossible.

So when Geist asked, “Was there ever a thought in your mind growing up that you might be a performer?”

He confidently responded, “No. It’s as crazy as that sounds.”

“I’ve kicked myself all the time like, ‘How did I put this together sooner?’ Because all I did was sing all the time and never one time was I like, ‘Maybe I could sing for a living.’”

Little did he know at the time, Combs was already shaping his sound while singing in school and church choirs, experiences that he carried with him into his years at Appalachian State. Music remained a passion as he studied with hopes of becoming a homicide detective, until he took a leap of faith and moved to Nashville in 2014. It was there that he wrote and recorded his first hit, “Hurricane.”

Looking back now at the journey he’s had and the things he’s done, Combs has developed a very important piece of advice: “You can’t be afraid to bet on yourself.”

“When it came to my career, and I wish more so in my personal life, I was always a glass half full guy,” the “Back In The Saddle” singer explained. “So the no wasn’t no, it was not yet. And so it was always just striving to be better. And it can happen, man. I’m proof positive that it can happen.”

On top of massive success, which includes earning multiple No. 1 country hits, three GRAMMY nominations, and plenty of other nods from CMA Awards, CMT Music Awards and Academy of Country Music Awards, he has also learned to balance his dream of being a dad.

The country star and his wife, Nicole are currently parents to two boys with another baby on the way. With a growing family at home, Combs has found his own way to make both family and music a priority, refusing to believe he has to choose one over the other.

“There’s this idea that you can either spend time with your kids or you can work. And it’s like, no, it’s like selfishly I’m going to figure out how to do both. I would text my buddies and be like, ‘Hey, what are you doing next Wednesday? I have a day and I really like this song. I’d love you to come over and let’s work on it.’”

This balance has allowed him to build his brand-new album titled The Way I Am, dropping March 20 via Sony Music Nashville and Seven Ridges Records. The upcoming 22-track collection will arrive just one day before he launches his 2026 My Kinda Saturday Night Stadium Tour.

After years of betting on himself and learning how to show up both onstage and at home, Luke Combs has come to embrace the idea that success isn’t about any one moment, but instead it’s about everything that comes along the way.

“The goal is not the destination. It’s the journey. Dude, getting there is the fun part. So just enjoy it, man,” he shared.