Luke Combs has been one of country music’s hardest-touring headlining acts over the past few years, but in 2025, he booked only 20-something festival dates, and no full headlining tour.
The reason why he scaled back is simple.
In a new interview with People, Combs says that his focus this year is on being a dad to his two young sons, almost-three-year-old Tex and almost-two-year-old Beau. As much as he wants to perform for his fans, he also wants to be with his family on a day-to-day basis.
“I want to be home with my kids,” the singer explains. “I want to see my kids grow up and I want them to know that they’re important to me.”
He also says that his thinking has evolved from earlier in his career, when he felt that he had to tour each year in order to maintain his country music superstardom. “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,” Combs reflects.
“But now I’m like, ‘Why can’t you tour really hard, build a 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,'” he continues, “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,” Combs adds.
Combs has missed out on big moments with his kids in the past because he was on tour. In fact, when his second son Beau was born in August 2023, he wasn’t there: He was overseas on an international run of dates.
Beau arrived two and a half weeks early, and Combs was hoping to make it back home before he was born. But he didn’t make it in time, and after the fact, the singer admitted it was “one of the best and one of the worst days in [his] life,” and even got emotional talking about how devastated he was to miss the birth.
Read More: Luke Combs Cries As He Talks About Missing the Birth of His Son
“I want my kids to know that my job is not more important than they are,” the singer says now.
Combs has frequently spoken about how important his children are is to him, and in 2024, he even released a full album inspired by fatherhood, called Fathers & Sons. That project didn’t make a massive chart impact like his other albums have done, but the singer says he doesn’t mind.
“It’s my favorite thing that I’ve done because it’s so personal to me, but commercially, it’s easily my least successful album that I’ve had,” he acknowledges. “It’s not really something that bothers me, though, because of the reason I did it.”
See Pictures of Luke Combs’ New Nashville Bar, Category 10
Luke Combs is ready to join the ranks of country artists who have opened their own bars in Nashville’s Broadway district. The honky-tonk will be called Category 10, playing off of his debut single “Hurricane.” Although true hurricanes are categorized no higher than a Category 5, Combs opted to double the intensity with a 10 ranking. It’s a nod to his career, really.
Category 10 will be anything but small: The bar will be the largest entertainment venue on the strip, featuring the area’s biggest dance floor and rooftop. Combs is also including more intimate spaces to accommodate young talented singers and songwriters.
