Country star Luke Combs is opening up about his forthcoming album, "Growin' Up," and giving fans a look at the collaborative process behind his highly anticipated duet with Miranda Lambert, "Outrunnin' Your Memory."
Combs told reporters at a recent roundtable that the two stars didn't necessarily set out to sing together. It all started with a co-writing session.
MORE: Luke Combs talks preparing for fatherhood: 'I'm buying all kind of clothes I didn't know existed'"We wrote that song together, and it wasn't like we sat down to write a duet. I didn't plan to have her on my album and she didn't plan for us to write a song for hers," he said. "There were no intentions in the songwriting other than, 'Let's go write a song that we both think is really good.'"
Combs said that when he started cutting songs for "Growin' Up," "Outrunnin' Your Memory" was at the forefront of his mind.
"When we were going in the studio, I was like, 'I gotta cut this song,'" he went on to say. "It was never like, 'Man, it's gonna be this duet, and we're gonna do this.' It was like, 'We gotta have her on this song, right? It's too good, and she's too good, not to do it.'"
It's not a total surprise that Lambert would appear somewhere on the album, as Combs said he's long been influenced by her writing style.
"She's somebody I've looked up to for so long as a songwriter. And what she does as an artist is, I think, super authentic and amazing as well," Combs said.
MORE: Luke Combs teases studio version of 'The Kind of Love We Make'Combs has had good fortune collaborating with megawatt celebrities in the past. His last album, 2019's "What You See Is What You Get," included "Does to Me," a duet with another of his musical heroes, Eric Church. The song was a chart-topping hit, coming in at no. 16 on Billboard's 2020 year end Hot Country Songs list.
"Growin' Up" drops on June 24.