On this week's episode Bart talks with Luke Mills about his early years in music, from sneaking in to play his Dad’s guitar to going to see Chris Ledoux at the County Fair. Luke brings us through his transition from Christian music into the Country music scene with his first and biggest record, “Heartbeat”, that is about his now wife. Luke covers various aspects of this day to day operations being an independent artist and how COVID affected his schedules.
Meet Luke Mills:
Luke Mills is a singer/songwriter, performer, and recording artist from Holdrege Nebraska. He will be inducted into the Nebraska Country Music Hall of Fame in October 2020. Luke has been writing and performing music professionally since 1999 and has seen regional and national radio success with multiple songs over the last 20 years. He has toured across the United States and has become a staple in the independent artist scene with his unique and professional performances and songwriting.
While performing some of the biggest festivals in the country, Mills has shared the stage with a number of A List acts including Grammy Award Winners such as DAN+SHAY, Lee Brice, Dustin Lynch, Chris Janson, Ashley McBryde, Chase Rice, Phil Vassar, Doug Stone, and many more. Some of Luke’s biggest influences have been Chris LeDoux, George Srait, Keith Urban, Collective Soul and Def Leppard.
In 2017 Luke was nominated for Album Of The Year for his independent release of his record titled Reboot at the iHeart Radio Rocky Mountain Country Music Awards in Fort Collins, CO where he performed one of his strongest radio singles “Heartbeat.” Luke Mills is very passionate about being as authentic as possible in his songwriting and surrounds himself with very talented and professional friends to ensure the best songwriting and stage performances that will keep an audience engaged and even singing along.
Luke’s passion for music started at a young age as he was performing special songs at churches with his family when he was 5 years old. The first concert Luke ever saw was a Chris LeDoux concert at the Thomas County Fair in Colby, KS when he was 11 years old. After seeing that performance Luke was hooked on making music to entertain spectators the way Chris did. Luke takes pride in presenting clean entertainment that the entire family can enjoy and has even donated performances to help raise money for Nebraska’s 2019 flood victims. Luke Mills is a true hearted talent that will leave you entertained with his performance and inspired by his songs.
What Bart has to say: Luke is from my hometown of Holdredge, Nebraska. He’s the epitome of the hard working, self starting, I’m going to play music til I die whether I’m Garth Brooks or not.
In this episode, you’ll hear
Bart talks to Luke about when he decided to get into performing Country music for a living was when he saw Chris Ledoux at a County Fair
The biggest song he’s ever wrote and recorded is called “Heartbeat” which was about his wife.
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