PARKERSBURG, W.Va. (WTAP) – Self-taught guitarist Luke Colombo, 17, was hand-picked by casting directors after they found him on TikTok.
Luke Colombo did not grow up dreaming of a spotlight. He grew up watching his father and grandfather play music, wondering if he would ever pick it up himself.
Now, the 17-year-old Parkersburg native is heading to Hollywood after earning a golden ticket on American Idol.
Colombo was one of 360 people selected to audition in Nashville out of 250,000 applicants, and he was hand-picked by casting directors who found him on TikTok before he ever submitted an application.
Colombo’s path to American Idol began during the COVID-19 pandemic, when school shutdowns gave him time to sit down with a guitar that was already in the house.
“It wasn’t until around COVID when we were all out of school for a really, really long time, where I just sat down and started watching YouTube videos and picked up a guitar that was laying around the house, started playing,” Colombo said.
He kept the new skill mostly to himself, until a guitar sitting in his football team’s locker room before a game changed that.
“By the end of that song, the whole entire locker room was there. We all had flashlights in there. We were all singing. I just knew right then and there, this is something I want to do. This is a passion,” he said.
His mother, Jaime Colombo, said the guitar itself was purchased with money Luke had saved on his own.
“He had straight A money because I’d give him money when he made straight A’s and so he had saved that and he bought a guitar and then he started just playing all the time and taught himself how to play,” she said. “This was all Luke, like 110% Luke.”
His father, Mark Colombo, recalled the moment the purchase was made.
“I still remember taking him, we went and met some lady at a Speedway, meeting this random lady in the parking lot where Luke was buying his first guitar, his own money,” he said. “He got his first guitar and it was just full tilt from there.”
After his football teammates encouraged him to post online, Colombo began sharing his music on TikTok under the handle C2LukeMusic.
The response came quickly — and so did American Idol.
“I got messaged by one of the casting directors for American Idol and they said, hey, we want you here. And I was like, okay, I’m in,” Colombo said. “My mom at the time, she didn’t even believe it. She was like, go back to bed. It’s a scam.”
Jaime Colombo confirmed her initial skepticism.
“I 110% thought that it wasn’t real. And then as the summer progressed, there was lots of interviews and different kinds of things he had to do, and it kept getting closer and closer,” she said. “I have to admit, driving to Nashville, I still wondered if it was actually all true.”
The summer leading up to the Nashville audition included a series of Zoom calls and pre-production interviews. Luke said the process moved fast.
“I went from in the summer preparing for it, doing Zoom calls, to then literally walking into the doors and seeing their waiting room for the first time,” he said.
When Colombo entered the audition room in Nashville, he faced judges Luke Bryan, Carrie Underwood and Lionel Richie. Cameras followed him throughout the process.
“The whole time all I’m thinking is, this is my one shot and I got to give it everything I got,” he said.
Colombo performed an original song he wrote called “Hometown” — a track he said is less about a place and more about the people in it.
“I don’t consider a hometown to be about a town necessarily, but more the people,” Luke said. “The song’s basically just about getting to play for a hometown crowd and everybody knowing me personally rather than being on a big stage where nobody knows anything about me.”
The judges asked to hear more. Colombo’s backup song was “Foolish Pride” by Slater Naley, a former Idol contestant who reached the show at age 17 and has since built a music career.
What Colombo did not know was that the show had arranged for Naley to appear in person.
“He walked out and we ended up singing his song together and it was just awesome,” Colombo said. “Sometimes you put yourself in a place and you want to fit in, but you don’t really know if you do. But the second he walked in the room, it was just right there. We’re playing a song, we’re both performing, and it was just perfect.”
After the performance, Colombo waited through what he described as a window of silence that felt like an eternity.
Carrie Underwood spoke first, expressing uncertainty about whether Colombo was ready given his age. The judges ultimately reached an agreement.
“One by one, I got the yeses,” Colombo said. He received three yeses and was handed a golden ticket to Hollywood Week.
“You don’t realize till after it happened. I was like, I haven’t really processed it yet and now I’m sitting at home really starting to realize, that really did happen,” he said.
After receiving the ticket, Colombo walked out to find his father and host Ryan Seacrest waiting. Naley followed him out.
“I thought I was going to be funny and hold it behind my back and go sad walking out the door,” Colombo said. “They had already told him. So he was cheering. Everybody’s just got smiles all around.”
Jaime Colombo was not present for the Nashville audition due to a work conflict. She said Luke called her with the news.
“He FaceTimed me. But then I was able to go to Hollywood Week with him,” she said.
After returning to Parkersburg, Colombo said keeping the outcome secret was one of the hardest things he had done.
“When it finally was able to go public about how it happened, I couldn’t keep my mouth shut,” he said. “I was telling everybody because I felt proud of myself, but I was just more so hoping that the people that believed in me felt like their word really worked, because it did.”
Jaime Colombo said arriving at the Hollywood Week set brought the full weight of the experience into focus.
“It was when I first arrived and saw the stage was when I started to cry, just thinking of my little boy that was going to play on that big stage and that this was all him,” she said.
Jaime Colombo said she sat among the other performers while they waited for their turns.
“I just kept sitting there and thinking, wow, because there was so much hope and so many dreams,” she said. “I thought, wow, Luke gave me this experience. This wasn’t an experience that I provided. This was all him based on him living out his dreams.”
She said her reaction when he took the stage was clear.
“No matter what happens today, this is the first time of many times I see him on that stage. I have no doubt,” Jaime said.
Colombo said he grew up listening to both rock and country music, and that Zach Bryan was a major influence when he began writing during COVID. He said he has since worked to develop his own sound within a modern country style.
“I think I slowly evolved to become my own artist, but off of that, modern country style,” he said. “I just want to do my best to be me while still relating to everybody.”
Jaime Colombo said Luke’s songwriting stood out to her early on.
“He writes like you’re a 40 year old with all this life experience,” she said. “I would hear his songs and then I’d be driving down the road and I’d have a song in my head that I wanted to play on the radio and then I’d try to think like, what is that song? And then I’d realize it was Luke.”
She said one of her personal favorites is an unreleased track called “81 Chevrolet,” which has not appeared on TikTok.
Colombo said he has written more than 60 songs and that his best work comes without forcing it.
“Songs that really connect with people are songs that come from deep emotion. You have to really mean what you’re saying,” he said. “I write when I feel like I need to write, not when I want to write.”
Mark Colombo said his son’s songwriting reflects a depth that surprises people given his age.
“He’s 17 years old and you listen to his music and you think, oh, this is some twice divorced, recovering alcoholic, just all this stuff that, you know, life experiences that he pours into his songs,” Mark said. “It’s like, where do you get these life experiences from?”
Beyond American Idol, Colombo said he has been playing at local businesses on weekends since gaining traction online.
“Local businesses started hiring me to play music and now some of my favorite things to do are just go out on the weekends and play some music for some people,” he said.
Luke said he hopes the American Idol opportunity helps him progress further as a musician.
Mark Colombo said his advice to his son is straightforward.
“Just keep going. Give it your all. He’s already got a heart, his heart’s in it,” he said. “Just keep giving it your all and see where you go.”
Jaime Colombo said her advice centers on protecting the work itself.
“Stay true to the art of the music and his writing abilities,” she said. “Just keep writing, making the art, creating and recording it.”
Luke Colombo can be followed on TikTok at C2LukeMusic and on Instagram and Facebook at C2LukeColombo.
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