Luke Combs’ single, “Does to Me,” featuring Eric Church, ascended to No. 1 on Billboard’s Country Airplay chart this week.

With his latest No. 1 single, Luke is the first country artist in history whose first eight singles have reached No. 1 on the Billboard Country Airplay chart. Eric, on the other hand, scored his ninth career No. 1 with “Does to Me,” his first since “Some of It” in July 2019.

Penned by Luke, Ray Fulcher and Tyler Reeve, “Does to Me” is the third single from Luke’s 2019 album, What You See Is What You Get.

Luke, 30, cites Eric, 43, as his “number one songwriting hero.” Both stars are natives of North Carolina. In fact, both attended Appalachian State University in Boone, N.C.

As Luke told Kix Brooks of American Country Countdown, he’s thankful his hero “dedicated some time” to the song.

“Number one songwriting hero, definitely is Eric Church,” says Luke to Kix. “I think there are these subtleties that he has in his music, just different ways of saying things that have been said a million times that I’m such a huge fan of. It’s something that I try to emulate. And, when I asked my management to reach to his management, you know, I didn’t know him personally at that time. I was definitely nervous, you know, ’cause he’s a very selective guy about things that he’ll attached his name to. So, I made it clear to my management like, ‘Hey, no pressure. I don’t want him to do this if he doesn’t like the song. You know, it’s not gonna hurt my feelings.’ [Luke whispers] It totally would have hurt my feelings, by the way. [Luke stops whispering] But, it would not hurt my feelings. As a man, I would have stomached it. But, I’m very thankful that he dedicated some time to it.”