Luke Bryan Knows He’s Past His Peak

Superstardom doesn’t last forever.

For those who are lucky enough to achieve it at all, the pinnacle of mainstream country music success is a fickle thing, and it typically doesn’t last more than a few years. Luke Bryan has been one of the genre’s most successful modern artists, staying squarely at the top of his game for well over a decade.

But Bryan knows that his very biggest years in country stardom are probably behind him.

“Every artist hits their peak,” he says in a new installment of the Joe Rogan Experience podcast.

“I was selling out football stadiums first day, [the] three or four years I did it. I know that’s my peak, probably.”

“F–k, I’m not even gonna say probably. I know it is,” he goes on to say. “I’m a realist.”

The topic of Bryan’s wavering superstardom came up during a larger conversation about today’s news cycle. Both Bryan and Rogan voiced complaints about “clickbait” headlines that amplify negative or controversial quotes, but take them out of context.

Bryan says that he knew he might become a target of those kinds of headlines while doing press for his new album, Mind of a Country Boy, which came out in September. He was hesitant to release the album at all, he says, because he wondered whether the potential for negative press might outweigh the benefits of promoting an album that wasn’t likely to sell well due to declining sales and a downturn in his overall celebrity.

“I didn’t wanna put the damn album out, because the reality is, I’m not at the height,” he reflects. “… So we put the album out, and I said, ‘You know what, no albums sell. Nothing sells anymore.”

“So I knew there was gonna be a negative take on the album. I knew something negative would come by me putting the album out, based on, it may not sell. And it sold …. it did what I thought it would do,” he continues.

“… Well, dude, I did 40 hours of, you know, all the [media promotion.]'”

Watch the full interview below. This portion of the conversation begins at around the 2:22 minute mark.

Bryan spoke about being in a situation where “you know it when you’re getting baited,” and when Rogan replied that interviewees have to publicly call out “gotcha” journalism, Bryan responds, “I did.”

He didn’t directly address the situation in question, but it seems likely that Bryan is referring to an interview he gave on SiriusXM’s Andy Cohen Live, during which he fielded a question from Cohen about Beyoncé‘s exclusion from the 2024 CMA Awards nominees list.

• In that conversation, Bryan said “everyone [in the country music industry] loved” the fact that Beyoncé made a country album.
• He suggested that her lack of nominations may have come from a lack of initiative on her part to get to know the country community.
• Bryan subsequently clarified his statements, calling headlines surrounding the situation “clickbait” and saying his viewpoints were taken out of context.
• He also said, “I respect Beyoncé and I love how loyal her fans are. I spend a lot of time supporting other artists. I want everyone to win.”

Elsewhere in his Rogan interview, Bryan speaks about his continuing tenure as an American Idol judge, reflects on a few past controversies that he’s been at the center of, and carries on an extensive conversation with Rogan about their mutual passion for hunting, fishing and life outdoors.