When he was a budding songwriter with a new editorial deal, Michael Hardy was hanging out with his father and a friend at the Nashville Tin Roof beverage establishment. He had only a few dollars in his name, so he bought a tall PBR for six dollars and took care of it as slowly as possible. Across the room, he saw a pretty young woman looking at her phone and looking for someone. Gathering his courage, Hardy approached and asked if he would like to sit with them until his friend arrived. To her surprise, she accepted. She went to buy her a beer.
“At the time, I knew I only had $ 4 in my bank account,” Hardy recalls of the encounter. “However, she didn’t know, she had no idea.”
It seems like the setting for a romantic comedy: The ruined and unlucky boy wins over the beautiful woman just by ingenuity, and they finally live happily ever after. There is a song called “Broke Boy” on Hardy’s next album that sets this victorious story on a country-rock soundtrack.
Except in real life, it didn’t happen that way. Hardy and his companions left the bar as soon as the woman saw her friend. While he had enough money to buy her that drink, he didn’t want her to know he had busted it.
“I will never forget it,” he says. “I was so broke and so embarrassed that I left.”
A rock, which arrives on September 4 via Big Loud, shows Hardy, who publishes music under his last name, celebrating the value of a good story, even when it’s not entirely his own. The Philadelphia native, Mississippi, made her art debut with “Rednecker,” a 2019 braggart (and polarizer), a cheeky and fun single whose ironic tone might have been lost on many listeners. Also a prolific songwriter with hits like Morgan Wallen’s “Up Down” and Blake Shelton’s “God’s Country”, Hardy refines those skills to tell different kinds of stories and adopt new sounds in A rock.
Hardy’s vision for the album became more focused after writing “Boots,” a dirty and muddy issue released in the early 2020s, about a boy who has a final bang when their relationship explodes. “I woke up in my boots this morning / I fell asleep in my boots last night,” he sings. It has an almost metallic edge, with some thick, muted guitar riffs.
“It’s something I really haven’t done before: really experiment with more rock and roll music,” he says.
Strong guitars and drums are a great feature in A rock, which was, like Hardy’s previous work, produced by Joey Moi (Florida Georgia Line, Morgan Wallen) with the co-production of collaborators Derek Wells, David Garcia and Jake Mitchell. Most of the album was cut during quarantine, with various players recording their parts in their home studios. Most of the tracks navigate languidly, then, like in “Hate Your Hometown” or “Truck,” they break down into half-time breakdowns that emphasize Hardy’s love for heavy rock.
“‘Half time or die, friend.’ That’s my saying, “he says.
In 2019 Hardy released Hixtape, vol. one, a collection of antique engraved material with guests such as Thomas Rhett and Keith Urban. Her current single, “One Beer,” featuring Devin Dawson and Lauren Alaina, originally appeared there and returns A rock. Where that song followed the story of adolescent innocence that grew into increasing responsibilities, the album’s title track takes a look at the stages of life and how various iterations of a “rock” appear: jump stones, a ring of engagement, a tombstone and The planet itself. Hardy calls the premise a “stoner idea” that occurred to him one day. He developed it with co-authors Smith Ahnquist and Jake Mitchell.
“We wrote that half of the night on a whim because we decided, after going to the bar, that we would go home and hang out,” he says. “We stayed awake until five in the morning. It ended up being probably my favorite song ever written. “
Hardy does not completely abandon his bluster “Rednecker” in A rock, However. In “Unpologetically Country as Hell”, she bows down completely, disguising herself in good faith as vernacular country. “I climb my hanger with a spoon / The dirt stays on my shirt / And if you can’t immerse yourself in the church, you can’t immerse yourself anywhere,” he sings. It’s fun and more than a little over the top.
“I didn’t want to fill my record with overly nasty country songs,” he says. “I love those kinds of songs, but I wanted people to know that I have a little more to say than just that. But that one is definitely for the people. “Elsewhere, he laments the end of a relationship in the Ashland Craft duo” So Close, “and kneels down to make a proposal on” Boyfriend. “
As is the case with Hardy’s storytelling, there’s always a grain of truth when you slide into redneck mode (“It’s definitely a big part of who I am”), but it may not tell the whole story. In “Give Heaven Some Hell,” Hardy and co-screenwriters Ben Johnson, Hunter Phelps, and Ashley Gorley say goodbye to a recently deceased friend in hopes that he “thunders / makes them wonder how he got in.” He was not inspired by the death of a specific friend, but do imagine the funeral of that wild acquaintance or relative we all have.
And that’s Hardy’s gift: synthesizing the biography with imagination to create true stories. Instinctively, he knows when he hears a story that he likes.
“I know I don’t do it with every song,” he says. “But it’s always fun when I do it. Some of the first songs I started to like, especially country songs like ‘Ole Red’, I gravitated towards. I guess unconsciously I also wanted to do that with my writing. “
Courtesy of Big Loud *
Hardy’s A rock September 4th arrives. Here is the track list:
- “Truck” (Michael Hardy, Ben Johnson, Hunter Phelps)
- “Boyfriend” (Michael Hardy, Zach Abend, Andy Albert)
- “Give Heaven Some Hell” (Michael Hardy, Ben Johnson, Hunter Phelps, Ashley Gorley)
- “Boots” (Michael Hardy, Hillary Lindsey, David García)
- “Where Ya At” (Michael Hardy, Jessie Jo Dillon, David Garcia)
- “It’s not a bad day” (Michael Hardy, Jake Mitchell, Hunter Phelps)
- “A beer” [feat. Lauren Alaina and Devin Dawson] (Michael Hardy, Hillary Lindsey, Jake Mitchell)
- “So close” [feat. Ashland Craft] (Michael Hardy, Mark Holman, Hillary Lindsey)
- “Broke Boy” (Michael Hardy, David García, Brett Tyler)
- “I hate your hometown” (Michael Hardy, Hillary Lindsey, David García)
- “No Apology Country Like Hell” (Michael Hardy, Smith Ahnquist, Nick Donley, Jake Mitchell)
- “A Rock” (Michael Hardy, Smith Ahnquist, Jake Mitchell)
