Luke Combs shares two sons with his wife, Nicole.
Luke Combs is opening up about the painful experience of missing the birth of his son.
On Thursday, the 34-year-old "Where the Wild Things Are" singer sat down on The Zane Lowe Show to talk about his new album, Fathers and Sons, and discussed the inspiration for the body of work, including how he missed the birth of his second son, Beau, in August 2023. At the time, Combs' wife, Nicole, went into labor two and a half weeks early while he was still on tour and thousands of miles away.
"I'll never forget the craziest day, probably, in my life -- close to it. One of the best and one of the worst days in my life at the same time," he began, telling Lowe how he woke up on Aug. 16 in Sydney, Australia, to a devastating message from his wife of seven years.
"I probably woke up at around 8:00 a.m. or something like that, Australia time, and I had a text from my wife and it said, 'I'm so sorry, I really tried to not have the baby while you're gone.' And God, dude, it sucked," the "Fast Car" singer explained, adding that Beau was born on Aug. 15 in the U.S.
Luckily for the three-time GRAMMY nominee, he didn't fully miss the birth as -- through the magic of technology -- he was able to be at least virtually present to see the birth of his second son. Combs and Nicole are also parents to 2-year-old son Tex.
"I got to see him be born, which was awesome. He wasn't born yet, but my wife went, she texted me on the way to the hospital and he was two and a half weeks early and I was supposed to be home and I wasn't," he said, holding back tears and taking pauses to collect himself.
Combs and his team had actually scheduled his final show in Australia for Aug. 26, 2023, in Perth. The concert would be followed by more than a month off as he planned to be home for Beau's birth before picking the Luke Combs World Tour back up in Norway in late September.
Almost a full year later, the singer says that even though his album is titled Fathers and Sons, the story is a hard one for him to look back on. Combs also added that it was too painful a memory for him to write and pull from for his latest project.
"And that was real hard to do and I haven't really told anybody that," he shared. "But I didn't cover that too much in this album because it's really hard for me to deal with."
Combs said that he was "lucky" to be surrounded by friends in that moment -- 9200 miles from his wife and their newborn son -- who lifted him up and assured him that everything would be all right until he would be able to get home and meet his baby boy.
The couple ultimately waited until Combs was back stateside to announce Beau's birth, which they did in a joint post on Instagram on Aug. 31. "8.15.2023 - Beau Lee Combs. Welcome to the world. We couldn’t love you more 🩵," they wrote at the time.
ET previously spoke to the country singer at the 2023 ACM Awards where he discussed how they were preparing to welcome their second child within a year and a half of welcoming their first.
"Two under two is gonna be interesting," Combs shared at the time. "We got it though. I'm excited."
He joked that they would figure out how to juggle two babies when they got to that bridge, saying there's "not much time to worry about anything when you got a 10-month-old at home."
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