Luke Combs’s smash hit “Where The Wild Things Are” from his album Gettin’ Old was almost cut by a different superstar in country music.
Combs and members of his creative team, Dan Isbell, Jonathan Singleton, Ray Fulcher, Chip Matthews, and Rob Williford sat down and talked about the origins of the track. The song was written by Randy Montana and Dave Turnbull almost five years ago and they were surprised that no one had cut it yet.
“I’m curious. Why did somebody not cut? Because it was like a death song?” Dan Isbell said.
The song had been going around inner circles in the industry for a while and Combs’s team had been waiting for the right time to produce and release it. Randy Montana recorded a demo for the song and had writers and producers in Nashville blown away. “Randy’s demo is so good. Like the blueprint’s already there. There’s a sick demo right there,” Combs said.
The team even goes as far as to reveal that Eric Church did have the rights to the song at one point. However, Church never cut and released the song, but the belief was that if anyone would, it would be him. “At that time, nobody was cutting story-songs at all, really. I mean, outside of Eric Church,” Combs said.
Despite the sensitive subject matter for the song, there were concerns about the vocals and live performances. The song requires the singer to go up and down the octave and hold many long notes, especially during the bridge.
“I was like, well, we can’t do this because I’m not going to be able to sing this thing live like this. And he was like, dude, he’s like, we can’t dumb down the record. But like, you’ll figure it out. Yeah. like, we got to make it as good as we can. And you’re gonna figure it out. I promise” Combs said. “You have to let the crowd sing,” Jonathan Singleton added.
Combs and Church have collaborated in the past, and hailing from the same southeastern region of the country, it’s not a shock that they would be gunning for the same song. Even though Combs felt that personal connection to the song, there was concern that he wouldn’t be able to deliver it vocally.
Church sang with Combs on the song “Does To Me” from his 2019 sophomore album What You See Is What You Get.
“Where the Wild Things Are” impacted country music radio on October 16th after being an immediate fan-favorite over the summer. Combs is wrapping up the European leg of his current run with plans to go back on the road during the summer of 2024 for his “Growin’ Up and Gettin’ Old” tour.
