HARDY Shows His Country Roots Run Deep With ‘Country! Country!’: ‘I’m Not Going Anywhere. This Record Is Proof of That’

HARDY’s caller medium Country! Country!, retired contiguous (Sept. 26) connected Big Loud Records, gives fans a potent reminder that his caller stone tilt hasn’t erased his state bona fides successful the slightest. This is, aft all, the aforesaid creator who saw 1 of his earliest successes with a swaggering, tongue-in-cheek anthem called “Rednecker.”

Across the past decade, HARDY has go 1 of Nashville’s astir prolific, versatile voices, a songwriter and creator who tin enactment distant a twangy state anthem arsenic easy arsenic a bone-rattling stone song. Thus far, his vocation arsenic an creator is marked by 3 No. 1 hits connected Billboard’s Country Airplay illustration (“Truck Bed,” “Beers connected Me” with Dierks Bentley and Breland, and “One Beer” with Lauren Alaina and Devin Dawson) and a trio of No. 1s connected the Hot Hard Rock Songs illustration (“Psycho,” “Rock Star” and “Sold Out”). That’s successful summation to the galore songs he’s penned for different artists including Morgan Wallen, Carrie Underwood, and Blake Shelton.

After releasing Hixtape Vol. 1 in 2019, followed by his debut state medium A Rock successful 2020, HARDY spent the past fewer years diving headlong into his hard stone influences. In 2023, helium unveiled the mockingbird & The Crow, a split-down-the-middle hybrid of state anthems and fury-fueled stone with lyrics that inactive held state signifiers. That grounds paved the mode for 2024’s Quit!!, which leaned adjacent harder into his stone and metallic influences, with collaborations alongside Fred Durst (Limp Bizkit) and Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith.

He embraces the state of genre-bending, saying, “At the extremity of the day, euphony should not travel with a regularisation book. I deliberation it’s chill that radical are bouncing astir [genres]. A batch of radical rotation their eyes like, ‘Oh, so-and-so’s doing a state medium now.’ But euphony should person nary rules, and I’m present for it.”

His caller medium not lone declares his passionateness for the state euphony genre hasn’t dimmed (most notably connected songs specified arsenic “Take the Country and Run” and “Keep It Country”), but gives glimpses into his earliest songwriting, portion offering a clear-eyed purview of the shifts the state euphony dependable has seen implicit the past fewer years.

The Mississippi autochthonal studied songwriting astatine Middle Tennessee State University. In 2018, helium was 1 of the archetypal songwriters to beryllium portion of Relative Music Group, formed by Dennis Matkosky and his lad Jesse Matkosky. HARDY earned his archetypal No. 1 Billboard Country Airplay deed arsenic a writer with the Morgan Wallen/Florida Georgia Line collaboration “Up Down” and went connected to motion with Big Loud Records.

The caller album’s “Dog Years,” written from the position of a faithful canine companion successful its twilight years, looking backmost connected his beingness with his quality friend, is simply a decade-old solo constitute from HARDY. “It’s 1 of the oldest songs successful my catalog,” helium says. “That was connected my Schedule A, a database of songs you bring into your publishing deal. I can’t judge cipher ever chopped it, and I conscionable ne'er had a spot for it beforehand,” helium says, adding that the opus resurfaced aft Miranda Lambert heard it and asked him to execute it astatine a MuttNation foundation event.

The caller album’s “Bro Country” finds HARDY and his vocal collaborator/ co-writer ERNEST revisiting the bequest of the philharmonic benignant that dominated state vigor successful the 2010s, portion besides acknowledging however philharmonic tastes person shifted since then. As a writer, HARDY cont...