The U.S. Army is making major changes to enlistment rules, expanding who can serve and easing some restrictions. Continue reading…

Jeff Webb, founder of Varsity Spirit and a key figure in modern cheerleading, has died at 76 following an accident. He was also a former mentor to late activist Charlie Kirk. Continue reading…

Luke Combs is taking a stand against the industry's networking game, prioritizing family over awards and fame. What does this mean for his future in country music? Continue reading…

One of my favorite singles from Luke Combs…and it almost never happened. Luke Combs scored his 18th straight #1 song at country radio back in 2024 with “Where The Wild Things Are.” The nostalgic hit, written by Randy Montana and Dave Turnbull, was featured on Luke’s Gettin’ Old album and quickly became a fan-favorite, going viral on TikTok and becoming a staple of his live shows. But the song had been floating around Nashville for a while, waiting on somebody to pick it up – and even Luke didn’t plan on recording it when he went into the studio. During a recent appearance on Therapuss with Jake Shane, Luke revealed that he had heard the demo of the song as far back as 2016: “That song had been kinda famous in town. There’s a demo of Randy [Montana] singing that song… That song, it ended up in my phone probably in 2016, maybe? I mean it’s been around a while, and it had already been around sometime at that point I believe. It wasn’t like, ‘Hey I wrote this yesterday, check it out.’ I didn’t even get it from Randy.” Well Luke obviously loved the song, but at the time he had never recorded a song that he wasn’t a writer on himself. Fast forward to around 2022, and Luke was in the studio putting the finishing touches on his fourth album, Gettin’ Old. Shockingly, nobody else had recorded the song yet – despite Eric Church apparently coming close to cutting it at one point. Luke finished up a session in the studio for the album and he realized they had some extra time left, so he threw out the idea to try “Where The Wild Things Are.” “We had like an extra hour, and I was like, ‘Well what if we just cut it?’ It wasn’t on the plan, it wasn’t on the sheet of stuff that we were going to cut. And I was like, ‘Man, I’ve just always loved this Randy song.’ And I played it for Jonathan [Singleton], who’s best buddies with Randy, who produces my records with me, and he was like, ‘We oughta do it man, that song’s awesome.'” Even after recording it, Luke says that he wasn’t sure that it was going to be a massive hit because it’s a “story song” that requires a lot of attention from the listener to understand. But as he says, “people just gravitated towards it.” I’ve gotta say, the song is perfect for Luke and his voice, but when you hear it you’ve gotta wonder why nobody had recorded it when it was up for grabs for nearly a decade in Nashville circles. But Luke has a couple theories on that. One potential explanation is that, at the time (remember it was around at least as far back as 2016 or so), nobody was releasing story songs – other than Eric Church. Another reason, though, is that it’s so damn hard to perform live: “It’s not the easiest song to sing, from a breath support standpoint. You have to have a lot of breath to be able to sing that song live. I think that was probably some people’s hesitance with that song. It’s like, well if I put the song out and it’s a big hit and I have to sing it every night, can I even sing it every night?” Luke says it took him a few days of rehearsals to learn where he could breathe during the song to get through it on stage, but I think that perfectly explains why it’s become such a fan favorite at his live shows: It’s one you scream at the top of your lungs until you’re out of breath. Not only that, but it’s got an incredible storyline as it tells the story of a free-spirited brother who takes off for the west coast on his Indian Scout motorcycle, before he ultimately passes away due to that same wild spirit: “Oh, it’s hearts on fire and crazy dreams Oh, where the nights ignite like gasoline And oh, them Indian Scouts, man, they’re built for speed And oh, 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” It’s a common saying around Nashville that a good song always eventually finds its home, and I firmly believe “Where The Wild Things Are” ended up right where it belongs with Luke. But as it turns out, it was only because he had an extra hour in the studio… The post Luke Combs Reveals How “Where The Wild Things Are” Almost Never Even Happened first appeared on Whiskey Riff.