All the “What Ifs” Luke Combs Is Facing Right Now

Will they or won’t they say “I do”?

That’s what radio host Bobby Bones and his listeners wanted to know about Luke Combs’ upcoming wedding.

Combs and his fiancé Nicole Hocking have been planning their wedding since they were engaged in the fall of 2018.

Then, you know, COVID-19.

So during this never-ending quarantine, Combs told Bones that he has only left his house a few times for essential things. And that while he’s in lockdown mode, he’s been busy writing songs, even the one that was inspired by the social-distancing side effect of the pandemic, “Six Feet Apart.”

But back to the wedding. It was originally planned for this fall — so perhaps just a few months away — and Bones came right out and asked, would they go through with the nuptials even if they had to do it in a private ceremony? “Absolutely,” Combs said. He still has tour dates scheduled for this fall, but it’s likely that just like the rest of us, Combs is taking things one day at a time with cautious optimism.

When the talk turned to songwriting, Combs shared that he has a pretty strong gut instinct about a song’s potential and whether or not it’s right for him. “I usually have a good feel for what I really like. After I write it it’s a pretty easy decision about is this something that’s for me? Because sometimes you write something really great, but it’s not the direction that you’re trying to go,” Combs said about writing songs for other country artists. “I do do that, but nobody does. So this may be my call out: that if you want to cut one of my songs, you’re more than welcome to.

“There can be a stigma in Nashville that if I write something and it gets pitched, that I think that it’s not good enough. There has always be that problem in Nashville. If they hear my name on it or they hear me singing on it, they think, ’Well it must not be good enough for him, so it’s not good enough for me.’ That’s gonna immediately gonna turn them off to doing it.”

That said, Combs did co-write a song that Carly Pearce and Lee Brice cut — “I Hope You’re Happy Now” — that went right to the top of the charts. “I’m super pumped about that. My first real cut outside of myself. And I’m lucky it went No. 1. That didn’t hurt,” he said.

Combs will be doing a live stream show on Friday (July 24) at 6:00 p.m.