Luke Bryan had a lot of not fun jobs before becoming a singer. Bryan can laugh about them now, although he says one was so awful, it actually turned his hair green.
Videos by Wide Open Country
"At age 12 through 13, I worked at Rubos IGA Supermarket in Leesburg, Georgia," Bryan tells his record label. "I worked during the summers on Monday and Tuesday. I stocked and cleaned up the produce. They paid me under the table...I peeled off all of the brown lettuce."
When Bryan was 15, he worked as a cashier at K-Mart for two months, before going back to Rubos. The grocery store was more convenient, but he admits there was one big perk he missed by working for the retail chain.
"The benefits were great though," Bryan remembers. "You'd get an hour-long on the blue light special. So I started back at Rubos, and then I quit Rubos and worked for my Dad."
The son of a peanut farmer, Bryan now describes that job as "just awful."
"[I was] driving tractors through cotton all day, and spraying pesticides that eventually would turn your hair green," he remembers. "And then at some point, I started playing guitar. After college, I went back and worked for my dad and continued to spray and haul fertilizer around."
Luke Bryan Becomes A Country Music Singer
Bryan's aspirations were always bigger than being a farmer in Georgia. His plans for moving to Nashville were delayed, when his brother Chris was tragically killed in an accident. But at the encouragement of his father, Bryan ultimately moved to Music City, to fulfill his lifelong dream of becoming a successful country music singer.
Still, not even Bryan could have predicted how successful he would become. The 49-year-old just celebrated his 32nd No. 1 hit, with "Country Song Came On." Perhaps surprisingly, he still has a lot he wants to do.
"The thing with me is, I'm just enjoying every aspect of my career," Bryan tells Billboard. "I still love trying to be a better singer, songwriter, and performer. And then, the main thing is, get out there and try to keep having hits, and bringing the fans in."
