49 Winchester found out that Luke Combs was a fan of theirs in a pretty unique way. Isaac Gibson of 49 Winchester stopped by the Whiskey Riff Raff podcast to talk to us about why the band doesn’t do pre-show rituals, the inaugural 49 Winchester show being the first time anyone ever heard him sing live, how many years it took for 49 Winchester to go “full time,” how their band name came to be, hunting trips that he’s gotten to go on because of his music career and much more. It’s been a long time coming for 49 Winchester. They’ve been together for close to a decade, and remember their humble beginnings, and even the period of the band where everyone was still working regular, full-time jobs and trying to help their music career take off. Gibson says that Chase Chafin, one of the band’s founding members and bassist, has always done a lot for 49 Winchester’s merchandise department (he currently handles a lot of their concert poster artwork). He at least used to do a lot of the merch work, considering he was running most of it out of his own house in the band’s early days. And 49 Winchester has some great merchandise options, and you can really tell that they put a lot of thought and work into what they sell to fans. If you are to go to their online merch shop, you’ll likely notice that a country music superstar is a model for one of their more popular shop items. This particular shirt design, to be exact: Pretty good model for your merch, if you ask me. So how did that picture come to be, you might be wondering? Well, according to Gibson, it was all rather organic, and involved a little bit of luck. The 49 Winchester frontman says that they had heard the “Beer Never Broke My Heart” singer was a fan of theirs, but they weren’t ever 100% sure. That is until an order came through on their merch store: “We had sort of heard through the grapevine that he had heard our music and had liked it. I think maybe at the time, our agent had started (to get the wheels turning) on that first Luke support tour that we did in Europe. But we actually saw an order come through the merch store, and Chase was like, ‘Yo, I just got an order for a 2XL black horse and rider t-shirt and the guy’s name is Luke Combs. I was like, ‘There’s no way it’s the same guy.’ Come to find out, it was him. And I was highly honored that he just bought that on his own dime.”  So 49 Winchester didn’t send it over to him… Luke Combs sought out the shirt and ordered it himself. Then, Combs just so happened to pick it out of his closet (which I’m assuming is just full of PFG fishing shirts) and wear it when he was interviewed for Rolling Stone: “He wore it for a shoot in an interview that he did for Rolling Stone, and that was really the first moment that I knew that he was familiar with our music and had been listening to it. Then just a couple of weeks later, we got that tour offer, and I remember just standing in my living room and just crying – (I) broke down. I was like, ‘This is the biggest thing that’s ever happened to us.'” Crazy to think that a t-shirt order could have been one of the first steps in Luke Combs and 49 Winchester getting connected. Thanks to the country music superstar, Isaac Gibson and the rest of his band got to go and open for Combs on one of his Europe tours. Gibson says he remembers being awfully nervous to meet Luke, since they hadn’t ever crossed paths prior to the t-shirt order or being asked to come out on tour with him. Gibson says that, in his experience, meeting bigger stars has always been great, and often times they are down to Earth and humble. Combs was no exception, and he’ll never forget how they finally met: “Luke Combs was the big one where, I was kind of nervous to meet Luke. I was like, ‘I wonder when we’re gonna meet him on this tour.’ The first day at soundcheck, we were in this huge arena, and we’ve only played a room like that two or three times before. There’s a guy that’s out on the arena floor and he’s jogging and doing laps. He does a lap, then comes back around and does another lap, and then I see it out of the corner of my left eye. I pop my glasses down and I’m like, ‘That’s Luke Combs.’ He stops in front of the stage and he’s like, ‘Hey boys, really glad to have you out, this is gonna be a great tour. I love y’all’s music man. I’ll see you guys around.’ Then we talked a whole lot throughout the tour.” @whiskeyriff Listen to the Whiskey Riff Raff podcast. @49 Winchester #whiskeyriff #whiskeyriffraff ♬ original sound – Whiskey Riff Always meet your heroes… especially if they’ve ordered a t-shirt from your website, and their name is Luke Combs. You can download the podcast on Apple Podcasts by searching “Whiskey Riff Raff” or click here. We’re also available on Spotify and wherever else you can listen to podcasts. Cheers, y’all. Audio Video The post How A T-Shirt Order Became The First Sign That 49 Winchester Would Tour With Luke Combs first appeared on Whiskey Riff.