Luke Combs will release his highly anticipated third studio album, Growin’ Up, on June 24. The 12-song project will follow Luke’s massively successful 2017 debut album, This One’s for You (50 weeks at No. 1) and 2019 sophomore album, What You See Is What You Get (37 weeks at No. 1).
The two aforementioned albums produced 12 consecutive No. 1 singles. And Growin’ Up has already spawned one chart-topping hit, “Doin’ This.” So Luke is 13/13, and he has a new single, “The Kind of Love We Make,” impacting country radio on June 21.
With the album’s release only days away, let’s take a look at five things Luke has said about Growin’ Up and his upcoming Middle of Somewhere Tour.
1. Work in Progress
Luke dropped his sophomore album, What You See Is What You Get, in November 2019. Of course, that means we’ve been waiting more than 31 months for a full Luke Combs album.
Luke says: “I’ve been working on this album on and off for two and a half years now. It was sort of a crazy process through what COVID brought, and what that meant for our touring life last year. It made me have to put a pause on this album for a second, but I’m just really stoked that it’s finally coming out.”
2. Producing Power
Luke co-produced Growin’ Up with Chip Matthews and Jonathan Singleton. If those names sound familiar, they should. Both Chip and Jonathan had co-producing credits on the deluxe version of Luke’s sophomore album. In addition, Jonathan co-penned Luke’s chart-topping hits, “Beer Never Broke My Heart” and “Cold as You.”
Luke says: “Working with Chip Matthews and Jonathan Singleton as a producer has been really great and I think that the fans are going to love these songs. I’m just excited to get them out and see what they think.”
3. ‘The Kind of Love We Make’
Luke has released three songs from Growin’ Up, including lead single “Doin’ This,” “Tomorrow Me,” and current single, “The Kind of Love We Make.”
Luke says: “I wrote [‘The Kind of Love We Make’] in Montana with Dan and Reid Isbell and my guitar tech Jamie Davis, who used to be in a band with Dan. I met Jamie through Dan. Jamie had the idea, and Dan and Reid brought it to me and I thought it was a killer melody. It ended up being one of those songs that wrote itself. Dan, Reid and I are all having kids within a month of each other, so maybe this song had something to do with that.”
4. Track List
- Doin’ This
- Any Given Friday Night
- The Kind of Love We Make
- On the Other Line
- Outrunnin’ Your Memory (feat. Miranda Lambert)
- Used to Wish I Was
- Better Back When
- Tomorrow Me
- Ain’t Far From It
- Call Me
- Middle of Somewhere
- Going, Going, Gone
Since releasing the track listing on May 17, the most anticipated song has been Luke’s duet with Miranda Lambert on “Outrunnin’ Your Memory.” Luke has shared audio snippets of a handful of songs, including “On the Other Line,” “Used to Wish I Was,” and more, but it looks like we are going to have to wait until the album drops to hear his duet with Miranda.
Luke says: “We wrote that song together, and it wasn’t like we sat down to write a duet,” said Luke at a recent media roundtable via Good Morning America. “I didn’t plan to have her on my album and she didn’t plan for us to write a song for hers. There were no intentions in the songwriting other than, ‘Let’s go write a song that we both think is really good.’ . . . She’s somebody I’ve looked up to for so long as a songwriter. And what she does as an artist is, I think, super authentic and amazing as well.”
5. Middle of Somewhere Tour
You can bet your bottom dollar that Luke will be sampling tunes from the new album during his upcoming Middle of Somewhere Tour, which kicks off in September and runs through mid-December. And speaking of “dollars,” Luke noted that his fans’ money was top of mind when he planned the tour.
Luke says: “I know that the price of everything has been going up these last couple years and there’s nothing I can do about that, but the one thing I could do is set the price of my tickets. So, what I wanted to do was keep the ticket prices the same as they were before the pandemic. I really, really hope you guys will come out and check us out. Can’t wait to see you on the road.”
