Luke Combs, 29, killed it on the SNL stage! The country crooner opened his debut with “Lovin’ On You,” which was inspired by his gorgeous fiance Nicole Hocking, 26. “But I’m in love and lovin’ on you/I feel that rush soon as you walk in a room/I can’t get enough of you, honey,” he croons in the sweet love ballad. The singer owned the stage at Studio 8H as he belted out the romantic tune, alongside his six guitar players. Owning the stage like a seasoned vet, Luke transported us to another time in country music — and we definitely aren’t complaining!
For the next, Luke rocked out to his 2019 single “Beer Never Broke My Heart.” Jamming out alongside his six-person band, the crooner took us right back to Nashville’s Honky Tonk strip for a Saturday night party! With an orange light glowing behind him, the 29-year-old kept his baseball cap on, paired with a casual button down shirt. “Like diamond rings and football teams have torn this boy apart/Like a neon dream, it just dawned on me, that bars and this guitar/And long-neck ice-cold beer never broke my heart,” Luke sang in his low, raspy voice. The second song choice was no surprise, given the massive success it experienced last summer, peaking at #1 on Aug. 4, 2019! The party-ready jam was perfect for Super Bowl weekend, and Luke looked like he was having a blast as he performed for the first time on SNL.
Luke made his debut back in 2015 with the track “Hurricane,” which didn’t make it’s way to Number 1 on the Billboard Country Airplay chart until nearly two years later in 2017. The independently produced song put Luke on the map, and the tune was part of his first-ever EP, This One’s For You. The album spawned a whopping five other Billboard Country number one hits, including “When It Rains It Pours,” “One Number Away,” “She Got the Best of Me,” and “Beautiful Crazy.”
“I’ve always been a small goals kind of guy…when I picked up guitar it wasn’t like, ‘Ok, I’m going to be Kenny Chesney.’ It was like, ‘I want to play a chord,’ and then it was like, ‘I want to play another one, then play a song, then sing while playing the song,'” Luke revealed to Rolling Stone in a 2017 interview. “We recorded six tracks, and when they got done and [Producer Scott Moffatt] was like, ‘Hey man, we need to master these,’ and I was like, ‘What’s that?’ I never mastered my first two, I just mixed them. I think the price was $200 per song, so I was like, ‘I don’t have $200 per song, and I’m not going to have it.’” Well, the album turned out to be a massive success anyway!
Luke followed up the first project with 2018’s ballad “Beautiful Crazy,” which also hit number one for seven weeks. The country prodigy earned a nod as a nominee for Best New Artist at the Grammy Awards in 2019. Luke then dropped What You See Is What You Get just three short months ago, leading with the track “Best Never Broke My Heart.” If you guessed already, you’re correct: the song was a number one Country Airplay hit, making it his sixth hit to top the charts!
“I just love writing songs and singing them,” Luke admitted in the same interview. “People seem to enjoy them, and that’s all you can really ask for. I didn’t get into it to try to be a celebrity or whatever…I think there’s kind of a comfortability with me onstage – and I think my cool factor is not having one. I’m not extra cool or extra different. I’m an honest dude, not trying to be anything other than who I am.”