Over the last couple of years, Michael Hardy, known professionally as Hardy, has earned a rep as one of Nashville’s hottest songwriters.
The Mississippi native has co-penned recent No. 1 singles “God’s Country” (Blake Shelton), “Simple” (Florida Georgia Line) and “Up Down” (Morgan Wallen). Hardy also had a hand in writing FGL’s “Talk You Out of It” (currently No. 11) and Chris Lane’s “I Don’t Know About You” (currently No. 14). In addition, Hardy is a co-writer on Blake Shelton’s new single, “Hell Right,” which drops on Aug. 16.
Blake recently shared some high praise regarding Hardy’s songwriting chops.
“The first time I ever heard ‘Hell Right,’ [producer] Scott Hendricks sent it over to me—and we had pretty much decided that we were finished recording for a while, and I wasn’t even thinking about it,” says Blake. “But he said that Hardy had written a song and he wanted me to hear it, so with the success of ‘God’s Country’ and just knowing how talented that guy is, I thought, ‘Man, I better at least listen to it even though I don’t see myself going in and recording.’ About three-quarters of the way through the song, I decided, ‘Oh, my god, I’m not done recording. I’ve gotta go cut this song. It’s just so much fun and just so infectious. It seems like something that would be great to have out this summer, like, let’s do this thing, let’s get it out now.’ It’s one of the reasons that I’ve been so excited about not releasing an album because it’s awesome to be able to react to great songs and just get em out there to the fans.”
Hardy is also a talented singer. His debut single, “Rednecker,” is currently No. 28 on Billboard’s Country Airplay chart.
Watch Hardy perform an acoustic version of “God’s Country,” a tune he penned with Devin Dawson and Jordan Schmidt that Blake Shelton took to No. 1 in July.
