Luke Combs‘ “Fast Car” has motored to the top of Billboard‘s Adult Pop Airplay chart — but if things had turned out as he’d originally planned, he’d have traded that “Fast Car” for a cop car.

While Luke’s distinctive voice has turned him into a country, and now pop, star, he said it wasn’t until he was in high school that he realized he could sing, thanks to his music teachers.

“They were two of the most instrumental parts in me building my confidence as a singer. And they really kind of let me know that what I had was, I guess, different than … what a lot of people had,” he told reporters. But despite that reinforcement, Luke had no plans to become a singer.

“I went to college and I didn’t really pursue that at all … I was going to get a business degree and then I switched to criminal justice. I wanted to be a homicide detective. That’s really where my heart was set on,” he said.

But one fateful summer between semesters, Luke finally found his calling.

“I’d had a guitar my parents bought me in seventh grade that I never really played at all … besides one or two guitar lessons that I hated because my parents wanted me to do it,” he said. “And [I] picked it up, sat on the porch all summer teaching myself how to play when I wasn’t at work and just loved it.”

Luke noted that he “knew that if I sang good enough, nobody would care how bad my guitar playing was. And it really worked out for me.”  

It sure has. Thanks to “Fast Car,” Luke is now the only solo male artist who’s ever hit #1 on Billboard‘s Adult Pop and Country Airplay charts.

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