Luke Bryan‘s Signs, his ninth studio album, is out. The record starts with “Finders Keepers,” a song that was written by Jimi Bell, Beau Bailey, and Sam Ellis. The only duet on the project, Bryan sings “Finders Keepers” with Luke Combs.

Perhaps no one is more surprised than Bryan that he recorded the song at all, let alone with another country music superstar.

“Well, when I heard the song, it was the first time in my career where I took a song that I heard while in a studio session,” Bryan reveals on SiriusXM‘s The Highway. “I went into the recording session without having heard this song. We were going to lunch break, and my manager played it. On the way to lunch, I listened to the song like ten times, and I just said, ‘Heck with it,’ and recorded it, which historically has been like a no-no. Historically, it’s good for me to get a song [and] live with it.”

What Luke Bryan Says About Getting Luke Combs to Join Him on “Finders Keepers”

Even after Bryan recorded “Finders Keepers,” he wasn’t initially sure he was going to ask anyone to join him on it, let alone an artist like Combs.

“I went in and sang the vocal, and then I was like, I didn’t have kind of a collab or any ideas on the album yet,” Bryan remembers. “And I just texted over to Luke. I did the whole thing like, ‘Man, obviously no pressure, but just wanted to get your read on this.’ And he goes, ‘I’m in.'”

Bryan admits Combs may not have said yes to singing “Finders Keepers” if he knew what a challenge it would be to get his vocal on the song.

“What was interesting is I kind of ruined his life a little bit, because we had to run quickly to get it turned over,” Bryan recalls. “Like, he had to hustle to get the vocals done, and we got it in last minute. But I’m really proud of this one. I’m excited about it. I’m excited that he heard what I heard in the song. I’m excited; it was really fun. The writers of the song didn’t know that Luke Combs did a feature on it, so we were able to play it for them without them knowing and watching them freak out. If I can keep my career going where I get excited about this kind of stuff, it really kind of feels like I’m in the land of gravy these days. The land of cherry on top.”

What Luke Bryan Says About His ‘Signs’ Album

With eight studio albums to his credit before Signs, the 50-year-old has learned what does and doens’t work, at least for him.

“Every album has its own little things that happen throughout the making of it that you look back, and you’re like, ‘Wow,’” Bryan explains on TalkShopLive. “They all come together very, very differently, at different times. I’ve got songs on this album that we’ve had literally on hold for years that I’m finally glad I got around to recording. And then we have some other fun stories about some of the songs on there.”

Although Bryan only wrote two of the 12 songs on Signs, he is equally proud of all dozen tracks.

“I look at this album, I’ve got sad songs, the love songs, the heartbreak songs,” Bryan says. “I’ve got the good ol’ classic fun ones too. I think when you look at singling ‘Country and She Knows It’ right off the bat, it’s kind of what my bread is buttered, singing songs that girls just want to get out and dance to.”