HARDY
It’s a cloudless April afternoon in rural Tennessee and HARDY stands knee-deep in a patch of backwoods grass. Shaded by a few trees, he walks along the edge of a bone-dry creek. He digs the toe of a boot through patches of rock that line the ground.
COUNTRY! COUNTRY!
A few hundred yards away, a handful of cattle watch the scene from behind a wire fence. Not far from the livestock sits a weathered, white farmhouse where he’ll soon be surrounded by a production crew working to set the scene for a photoshoot promoting a 19-song album due out later this year.
But for now, he’s on a hunt – for arrowheads.
He occasionally picks up a rock, running his thumb along a pointed edge or tossing it in the palm of his hand. Flint’s light, like glass, he reminds a few people nearby. He hasn’t found one yet, but he’s not discouraged.
As he walks back toward the house, someone hands him a plastic cup filled with whiskey. Moments earlier, he yanked what appeared to be an ankle-high weed out of the ground. He bit into the end of the plant and chewed a few times before ensuring onlookers that it was just wild onion.
“Boil it and make onion soup,” he said, tossing the rest of the wild plant to the ground. “Poke salad, ya ever heard of that?”
Yeah, this guy’s pretty damn country.
On stage and in the studio, HARDY navigates the world of rock music and country like two sides of the same coin. One day, he may land on a headbanging riff that catches the attention of rock royalty (like James Hatfield, who – in a collision of worlds – joined HARDY backstage at the Grand Ole Opry in late April). This year, the coin landed on country music. Now, HARDY’s back on the farm, writing country songs about country shit – revenge worth getting, love worth keeping and life worth living. This fall, HARDY releases COUNTRY! COUNTRY!, his latest entry in the format where he launched his celebrated songwriting career. The album comes a year-and-a-half after HARDY released Quit!!, a full-blown rock LP that included collaborations with Limp Bizkit frontman Fred Durst and Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith, among others.
And he’s making his next country country record just as he’s done everything else in his career – on his own terms.
“I just missed it,” HARDY said. “I missed my community. My peers. Plus, I love country music. I moved to town to write country songs. Going 10 years of writing 100+ songs a year, it was a nice palette cleanser to take a step away from that. Now I’m back. I’m fresh and ready to get right back into it.”
A native of small-town Philadelphia, Mississippi, HARDY moved to Nashville in 2010, where he studied commercial songwriting at nearby Middle Tennessee State University. He spent years in songwriting circles, building his name as a behind-the-scenes talent who delivered hooks that resonated with country fans. His songbook includes hits like Florida Georgia Line’s “Simple,” Morgan Wallen’s “Sand In My Boots” and Blake Shelton’s “God’s Country,” which HARDY has adopted for his live show.
While climbing radio charts as a songwriter, those close to HARDY – including now-longtime producer Joey Moi, label executive Seth England and Florida Georgia Line’s Tyler Hubbard – nudged him to “do the artist thing.” After consulting with his girlfriend Caleigh Ryan (who he later married), HARDY decided to ink a deal with Big Loud, a label that soon became a powerhouse in Nashville.
Between shots, HARDY relives his origin story from a backyard rocking chair. He takes bites from a bag of Cheetos as he explains the decision – which he didn’t take lightly.
“I had a moment where I was like, I don’t want to look back in 30 years and be a songwriter with a handful of hits. Like, ‘I had a chance to do the tour thing but didn’t do it,’” HARDY said, dusting off his fingers before a crew member pulled him in for another shot.
Spoiler: It worked. HARDY took off. He released songs by the truckload, topping charts with “Truck Bed” and “One Beer,” among others; he produced a wildly successful side project, the collaborative Hixtape series; he played for massive audiences on tours with Wallen, Post Malone and Lainey Wilson; and he earned critical acclaim, winning trophies at the CMA Awards and ACM Awards.
Now, he’s like a kid coming back to his home turf after time away at a hard-rock summer camp. Listeners get the first taste of COUNTRY! COUNTRY! on COUNTRY!, a prequel EP that features five songs from the album. HARDY released COUNTRY! In May to give fans a few songs that are likely to appear on the singer’s expansive JIM BOB World Tour. Stops on the tour include Madison Square Garden in New York City, the Kia Forum in Los Angeles and the O2 Academy Brixton in London.
The EP features “Buck On The Wall,” a howling country-rock anthem about family tradition that takes listeners to HARDY’s native Neshoba County, Mississippi – literally. The EP artwork includes a 13-year-old HARDY, dressed in camo gear and a ballcap with the local school’s logo, holding a 10-point buck.
He returns to country radio with “Favorite Country Song,” a track that name-checks famed numbers from Merle Haggard, Hank Williams and Eric Church. In the chorus, he sings, “Gotta get back 'cause it's been too long/ That's my favorite country song.”
Like the best HARDY songs before it, “Favorite Country Song” pulls the listener directly into HARDY’s world. It breaks down the barrier between storyteller and listener the same way filmmakers often produce movies about Hollywood or authors create a lead character who writes for a living.
“I’ve always enjoyed that,” he said. “We’re all still people. Nobody’s this fuckin’ superhero or this thing where it has to be an act the whole time. Really relate to your fans. I’ve written so many songs about a song. That’s another way of keepin’ it real for the people.”
The album features a cast of songwriters and collaborators, including Jelly Roll, who sings on “Bro Country,” and Stephen Wilson Jr., who joins HARDY on “Bedrooms In The Sky.” He dips his toe into his rock influence on “Girl With A Gun,” a Chili Peppers-inspired number about well-timed revenge. On “Car That Drove You Away,” Hardy channels heartland rock heartache. On the standout number, he sings the opening lines, “I wish I was the car that drove you away/ ‘Cause if I was, I’d slow you up and slam those breaks/ I’d break down before you got halfway to your momma’s place.”
It’s the only song on the album – and the first HARDY cut – that he hasn’t written or co-written.
“I knew that I couldn’t beat it,” HARDY explained as he buttoned down a green-and-brown shirt for the next shoot, covering a sleeve of arm tattoos. He pulls back his jaw-length hair and tucks on his familiar thick-framed glasses. As a production assistant points him to the next room, he continues, “I knew when I heard it that it was one of the best songs I’ve heard in a long time and there’s nothing on this record that could compete with that.”
On COUNTRY! COUNTRY!, HARDY tackles a lot of “self-reflecting or reflecting shit,” he said. At one point, he wanted to name the project We’re All Gonna Die (Everybody Does), a title taken from one of the 19 songs on the album.
The common theme? Living in the moment, because life won’t be there one day.
“There've been so many great moments in my career and in my life that I, for some reason, have had a hard time enjoying because I was thinking about the next thing,” he said. “As cheesy as it sounds, I’m starting to train myself to live in the moment.”
At the end of the day, on a location deeper into the Tennessee property, HARDY continues his hunt for arrowheads. He catches a twitchy lizard in the palm of his heavily-tattooed hand, stroking the top of its head with his finger letting it go to scurry back up the fence pole it came from.
He never finds the rock he’s searching for, but that’s OK. Sometimes, a little time in the country is prize enough.
“Diving into the rock world was awesome and it’s very much part of who I am,” he said, “but I missed it. I missed country.”
For more information, please contact Carla Sacks or Reid Kutrow at Sacks & Co., 212.741.1000.
