Luke Combs claims his eleventh consecutive number one this week, as “Forever After All” reaches the pinnacle of the country chart. But it’s a significant milestone for another up-and-coming country artist as well.
“Forever After All” is the second number one for Drew Parker as a songwriter, after Jake Owen topped the chart with “Homemade” back in March of 2020.
Drew confesses writing a number one initially seemed like the last thing they were doing, the day he and Luke landed on “Forever After All.”
“He was barely moved into his brand-new house,” Drew recalls, “and he had me and his guitar player, Rob Williford, over there — a frequent co-writer with us — and I just remember we actually started on another song. I have no idea what that song is called.”
“And we were working on it, and it just wasn’t going anywhere…” he admits. “I was like, ‘Man, I feel like we’re wasting our time, like this just don’t feel right.'”
As with so many of Luke’s hits, inspiration came once they considered his relationship with his wife, Nicole.
“We started throwing out other ideas and somehow landed on this idea of ‘some things last forever after all,’ and talking about how to write it into a love song,” Drew tells ABC Audio. “And it just was special because it was the house that him and Nicole were gonna live in, and it just felt really special to write that song and it be the first song that he had written there.”
“So it just all came together the way it was supposed to,” he adds.
Drew’s career as an artist seems to be coming together as well: stations all across the country are starting to play his debut single, “While You’re Gone.”
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