As thrilled as Luke Combs might be about Category 10, the country music superstar still hasn’t shown off the multi-level entertainment complex inspired by him to his two children — and he’s planning on keeping it that way.
“I don’t even think they know what I do,” Combs, 35, tells PEOPLE in a recent interview in April, mere minutes before he took the stage at his sold-out concert at the Nashville-based bar, restaurant and live music venue. “My son Tex is almost 3 now. He’ll recognize my voice on the radio, and he will know ‘That’s Dad,’ but he doesn’t understand all of this.”
Combs throws his hands up in the air and looks around the Category 10 space known as the Five Leaf Clover Sports Bar. “He probably just thinks everybody’s dad has a single on the radio, you know what I mean?” Combs jokes. “To him, it’s normal — and I kind of want to keep it like that.”
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Luke Combs with his sons
‘Keeping it like that’ might be easier said than done, as Combs’ star power continues to be illuminated via No. 1 singles, award nominations and groundbreaking albums. But Combs’ admits that now, as a father of two — his second son with wife Nicole, Beau, is now 20 months old – the decisions he makes regarding his career have never been more important.
“We’re only doing festivals this year,” says Combs, who headlined the Stagecoach Festival in California last weekend. “We got 20-something shows this year. I’ve already done 10 of them. I got 14 more shows for the rest of the whole year. I want to be home with my kids. I want to see my kids grow up and I want them to know that they’re important to me.”
Granted, Combs admits he would have had a whole lot more trouble making that sort of decision earlier in his career.
“I feel like country music for a long time has been, ‘Let’s tour every year as hard as we can tour’ while it’s hot,” says Combs. “But I’m now like, ‘Why can’t you tour really hard, build a really great fan base, care about them, support them, give them exclusive things, give them great experiences and let them understand that you care about them,’ and then if you do want some time for you, you can tell them, ‘I can’t tour this year.’ I wanted to get to the point where I could do that, and it not be career suicide.”
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Luke Combs performs at Category 10 in Nashville in April 2025
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Those are the kinds of professional decisions Combs says he probably will continue to make going forward. “I want my kids to know that my job is not more important than they are,” continues Combs, who scored his latest number one single last year courtesy of “Ain’t No Love in Oklahoma” off the wildly popular Twisters soundtrack. “You know what I mean?”
His impactful words seemingly float in the air for a little bit before he begins speaking again, this time about his 2024 album Fathers & Sons, which had Combs offering up an intense and somewhat emotional look into his very soul.
“At its core, it was probably more of a selfish endeavor for me,” says Combs about the critically acclaimed album. “It was something that I felt like I wanted to do and something that I wanted to say. And it’s my favorite thing that I’ve done because it so personal to me, but commercially, it’s easily my least successful album that I’ve had. It’s not really something that bothers me, though, because of the reason that I did it.”
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Nicole and Luke Combs in Nashville in March 2025
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Nevertheless, Combs says he’s currently readying a brand-new project that will get him back on the musical lane he has been known for since coming out of the country music gate in 2016 with the No. 1 hit “Hurricane.”
“I want to go back and just do the stuff that people probably have been missing for a little bit,” Combs concludes. “I want to get back to some fun stuff. It’s not going to be nothing weird. We’re not doing no jazz album. We’re just doing a kick-ass country record.”
Read the original article on People
