Jeremy McComb’s path stems from Northwest roots

Hearing the details of the journey that led Jeremy McComb to a full-time music career, you almost feel like you’re listening to one of his country songs.

“It’s an insane path,” McComb said. “People ask, ‘Well, how do you get involved in the business?’ And I’m like, ‘Do you have a half-hour?’ ”

The Idaho native performs Friday at Nashville North, a country music club in Stateline that he co-owns. It’s a location that plays heavily into McComb’s upbringing, much of which was spent in venues and concert halls where his musician father, Bob McComb, played gigs every week.

“I was sleeping behind my dad’s amps in these clubs, and I was thrown out of most of the bars in North Idaho before I was 10,” McComb said. “I just remember thinking, ‘This is it for me. This is absolutely what I have to do.’ ”

As a teenager, McComb was encouraged to pursue his interest in music – he credits his teachers at the New Vision alternative high school in Post Falls for the inspiration – and he got a job running lights and occasionally performing at Kelly’s, a club operated by Idaho country musician Kelly Hughes.

“It was only open two days a week, and it was only open for a few hours a night,” McComb said of Kelly’s. “They’d have concerts there that you couldn’t see anywhere else. It was this destination. I loved that building, and it’s where I became what I am now.”

In his early 20s, McComb became the music director for the Spokane radio station KIX-96 Country, which is where he was introduced to Larry the Cable Guy, the redneck alter ego of stand-up comic Daniel Whitney. McComb left his position at the radio station to be the comedian’s tour manager, right around the time when the Larry the Cable Guy persona was increasing in popularity.

“When I started, he was an opener making $4,500 a night,” McComb said. “When I left that tour, we were selling out arenas and he was making $300,000 a night.”

McComb also wrote music for some of the concert films starring the Blue Collar Comedy Tour, a troupe that featured Whitney, Jeff Foxworthy, Bill Engvall and Ron White. That gig eventually led to a record deal, which finally allowed McComb to tour full time as a solo country artist.

While on one of those tours, McComb was notified that the club once known as Kelly’s – it had since closed and re-opened as Big Al’s Country Club – was vacant. McComb purchased the building in 2014 with his longtime friend Bob Kreaman and rechristened it Nashville North. Kreaman, who first met McComb while working as a beer and liquor distributor, oversees the club’s daily operations; McComb handles the booking.

“We just wanted to make a home for touring artists to feel comfortable when they were coming through, to bring that magic back to Stateline,” McComb said. “I’d like to think we brought a new, cool vibe to the building.”

McComb’s most recent album is titled “FM” (McComb enunciates it as “F ’em”), and it’s the artist’s third independently produced LP. It’s an album about grit, determination and, in McComb’s words, “being too dumb to quit.”

“If you can fail at something you hate, why not go out and try to fail big? Put it all out there and chase the dream and say to hell with everybody,” he said. “There’s no plan B for me; there never has been. And I think this album portrays that.”

McComb has been living in Nashville for a little more than a decade, but he says he still returns to Idaho every few months to check on his business and to see his family. Many of the songs on “FM” reflect McComb’s Idaho roots, and he wants to be sure that his background is always front and center in his music.

“The Northwest is my home, and it’s a big part of who I am,” McComb said. “It’s important to show people how much the Northwest means to me, and while I’m not a full-time resident, my heart is 100 percent there.”