While promoting his new album What You See Is What You Get on Jimmy Kimmel Live last week, Luke Combs revealed he could have gone down another career path.
While Combs described himself as a “a pretty bad student,” he originally had another occupation path in mind before becoming a country music superstar.
“My major was criminal justice. I wanted to be a homicide detective. That’s actually what I wanted to do,” he told Kimmel.
“People are pretty surprised by it… if you’ve noticed, I don’t actually have the physical build of a police officer.”
Combs identified a connection between the role of a homicide detective and that of a songwriter.
“Solving the puzzle was the intriguing part of me, which is what I love so much about writing song,” he said.
“It’s a puzzle that has no pieces. So you make the pieces and then you have to put them together. That’s the thing I enjoy so much about writing music.”
Ultimately, Combs took a different path and decided to focus on his true passion.
Watch Luke Combs’ interview on Jimmy Kimmel Live
“You can do something you like this and people will like pay you for it,” he ultimately discovered.
“I didn’t comprehend that.”
His new 17 track album What You See Is What You Get is breaking all sorts of records, including being the first country album to hit #1 on the Apple Music streaming chart.
It is the follow up to Combs’ breakthrough debut This One’s For You, which has spent 50 non-consecutive weeks at #1 on Billboard’s Top Country Albums chart.
That is the longest reign ever for a male artist and tied for longest for an artist overall with Shania Twain’s Come On Over in 1997.
Combs is nominated for three awards at this Thursday’s CMA Awards. Male Vocalist of the Year, Song of the Year (‘Beautiful Crazy’) and Musical Event of the Year (‘Brand New Man’ with Brooks & Dunn).
What You See Is What You Get is out now.
