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I am super pumped for Hardy today. I have been a fan of his since I first heard him... and I really feel like I can use the cliche' "since day one" in this case and truly mean it! It was several years ago and I was in Greensboro, North Carolina. An at-the-time new-ish artist by the name of Morgan Wallen was playing at a small club and I went. A friend of mine from Morgan's record label was there and told me something along the lines of "wait until you hear this brand new guy we just signed. Tonight is the first time he's ever played on stage in front of a crowd, but I think we have something here. He's going to do a short set before Morgan. His name is Hardy." Fast forward an hour or two... Hardy went out and pretty much OWNED his set. I remember looking at my friend and asking "are you SERIOUS when you say he's never played in front of a crowd?"
Several months later, Hardy's first song "Rednecker" was released to Country radio, and the rest, as they say, is history. Hardy followed "Rednecker" with the number one hit "One Beer" featuring Lauren Alaina and Devin Dawson. That was followed by a highly underrated song "Give Heaven Some Hell" and now his current hit "Wait In The Truck" featuring Lainey Wilson. He was also a featured artist on Brantley Gilbert's "The Worst Country Song of All Time" and Dierks Bentley's "Beers On Me." And as much as I love those songs, they don't even begin to speak to the true scope of Hardy.
Hardy has put out two EPs, 2018's This Ole Boy and Where To Find Me a Year later. He released a couple of fun albums in Hixtape Vol 1 and Hixtape Vol 2. His album A Rock was phenomenal, and today he released the mockingbird & THE CROW, which may be my favorite project yet! In between all of this, he's also been a writer on some of the biggest Country hits of the last several years, including Blake Shelton's "God Country," Chris Lane's "I Don't Know About You," Cole Swindell's "Single Saturday Night," "Some Girls" by Jameson Rodgers, "Simple" by Florida Georgia Line, Morgan Wallen's "Sand In My Boots," "Up Down," "More Than My Hometown," and plenty of others.
And it's not just his music that is great. In conjunction with the release of the album the mockingbird & THE CROW, he put out a Claymation video to the title track. The video takes a bit of a dark turn right at the time that the song segues from Country to Rock, but in the end, everything works out just fine for all involved and it's a great video... annnnd it's Claymation, so nobody was actually harmed!
Check out the album the mockingbird & THE CROW and definitely check out the video too, which is below!!! It has been so fun to watch Hardy go from that newest-of-the-new artist that was put on stage at a small Morgan Wallen show one night to a true force in Country Music. I CANNOT WAIT to see what Hardy has up his sleeves for us next!!! I bet it's going to be pretty spectacular.