{"id":1902,"date":"2018-11-29T08:00:46","date_gmt":"2018-11-29T08:00:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cmni.co.uk\/?p=1902"},"modified":"2018-11-29T08:00:46","modified_gmt":"2018-11-29T08:00:46","slug":"luke-combs-wouldnt-be-here-without-church","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cmni.co.uk\/index.php\/2018\/11\/29\/luke-combs-wouldnt-be-here-without-church\/","title":{"rendered":"Luke Combs \u201cWouldn\u2019t Be Here\u201d Without Church"},"content":{"rendered":"

Eric Church that is….<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

For Combs, watching Church tear up the stage is a huge full-circle moment.<\/p>\n

\u201cI went to a really small college in North Carolina, and my freshman year, a buddy of mine that lived on my hall came into my room and said, \u2018Hey, this guy is playing on campus tonight. He went to school here, and his name is Eric Church,\u2019\u201d Combs told reporters in the press room at the 52nd Annual CMA Awards.<\/p>\n

That campus would be Appalachian State University in Boone, N.C., also Church\u2019s alma mater. At this point in his life, Combs hadn\u2019t picked up a guitar, despite being an accomplished vocalist. But all that would soon change with one listen to Church.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t give his music much of a chance that day to be honest with you. A couple weeks later, I\u2019d had a few at that time, illegal beverages, now legal beverages, and I said, \u2018you know what? I\u2019m gonna give this guy\u2019s album a shot,\u201d he said. \u201cI listened to it front to back and it really changed my outlook and changed a lot of things for me about country music.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was just a fan for three years and when I decided to pick the guitar up I said, \u2018You know what? If this guy went to college here and can be onstage at the CMAs and winning CMA Awards and getting number one songs, I don\u2019t see why I can\u2019t do it.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

From that moment on, Combs says he set his goals and his sights on fine-tuning his artistry and career path like the Chief himself would no doubt advise. And it\u2019s all paid off as Combs returns to the top of the\u00a0Billboard<\/em>\u00a0Country Albums chart this week with his debut studio album\u00a0This One\u2019s for You<\/em>, which boasts four No. 1 hits.<\/p>\n

\"GettyImages-1061581382-1543356768\"<\/p>\n

And then there\u2019s that brand-new CMA for New Artist of the Year sitting pretty on his mantle.<\/p>\n

Still, when Combs reflects back on the last few years, all roads lead to Church.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe really inspired me to have a tunnel vision-like approach to what I want to do. I\u2019m very lucky to have run into his music because I really don\u2019t think I would be here without it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Eric Church that is….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1904,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sfsi_plus_gutenberg_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_show_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_type":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_alignemt":"","sfsi_plus_gutenburg_max_per_row":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[75,264,263,15,23,98],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/cmni.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/eric-793x526.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cmni.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1902"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cmni.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cmni.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cmni.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cmni.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1902"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cmni.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1902\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1905,"href":"https:\/\/cmni.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1902\/revisions\/1905"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cmni.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1904"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cmni.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1902"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cmni.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1902"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cmni.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1902"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}