What Happened to Luke Combs' Brother? We Uncover the Mystery

Ever since country singer Luke Combs’ song “Where the Wild Things Are” topped the charts, fans have had one question on their minds: “What happened to Luke's brother?”

This isn’t an unusual question, considering the emotionally charged song is sung from the perspective of a man paying tribute to their older brother’s wild spirit. Sadly, by the end of the song, the free-spirit brother meets his demise in a motorcycle accident.

Here, we undercover whether Luke had a brother, plus the story of how Luke almost lost the hit song to Eric Church.

Luke does not have a brother. He is the only child to parents Rhonda and Chester Combs. They had Luke in 1990 in Huntersville, NC, and then relocated two hours away to Asheville, where they currently reside.

In the past, Luke has shared how his parents' hard work afforded him a humble lifestyle where he could focus on his passion for music. “Obviously, my parents worked super hard to give us everything that we needed," he said on The Marty Smith Podcast.

He continued: "I was definitely not a kid that got everything that he wanted."

Luke is incredibly close and grateful for his parents. Once Luke’s country music career took off and the big checks began rolling in, he paid off his parents’ mortgage and helped them retire early.

“Where the Wild Things Are” is one of the singles off Luke’s album, “Gettin’ Old.” As soon as it was released, it began to climb the charts, topping off as Luke’s 18th number-one single.

The storytelling in “Where the Wild Things Are” is so emotional and poignant that rumors began to swirl that Luke had a brother who died in a motorcycle accident.

But that couldn’t be true since Luke doesn’t have a brother. He also wasn’t the one who wrote the song. The track is credited to songwriters, Randy Montana and Dave Turnbull.

They wrote the song from the perspective of a man who recalls memories of their free spirit older brother.

“My big brother rode an Indian Scout / It was black like his jacket / American Spirit hangin’ outta his mouth / Just like our daddy / He kicked started that bike one night and broke mama’s heart,” Luke sings in the opening verse.

The lyrics take an emotional turn in the end when it’s revealed that the brother lost his life in a motorcycle accident. “They said he hit that guardrail at half past three / Lit up those streets that never sleep when the sky goes dark / We buried him out in the wind ‘neath the West Coast stars / Out where the wild things are,” Luke sings.

Much of Luke and Eric’s lives mirror each other. They both are from North Carolina and attended Appalachian State University. Luke has shared in the past that Eric is one of his musical inspirations. After admiring each other from afar, they collaborated in 2019 for the hit duet, “Does To Me.”

So it’s not surprising that both Luke and Eric felt a connection to the song. But it was Luke who recorded the song first after it had been available for several years.

“He almost cut it…I couldn’t believe that song couldn’t land somewhere,” shared Dan Isbell, one of Luke’s frequent collaborators, to Country Now.

“At the time, nobody was cutting story songs at all, really. I mean, outside of Eric Church, probably,” Luke added.

Listen to “Where the Wild Things Are” below!