Big Loud’s HARDY was already hitting it out of the park as a songwriter—penning hits for the likes of Florida Georgia Line, Thomas Rhett and his pal Morgan Wallen, to name but a few, and winning a BMI Songwriter of the Year award in 2022—before he broke out with a big record of his own. The stunning “wait in the truck” f/Lainey Wilson, a tale of domestic abuse bloodily avenged, was a full-on smash that won ACM Music Event of the Year; HARDY took the artist-songwriter trophy as well. The Grammy buzz is already loud. Speaking of loud, his fascinating album the mockingbird & THE CROW blends crowd-pleasing country gems and full-on rock/metal, sometimes—as in the hilarious “RADIO SONG” f/Jeremy McKinnon—toggling blithely between the two modes (with an airplay-quashing “FUCK” thrown in for good measure). All in all, the set finds the native of Philadelphia, Miss. (population 7,000 and change), also known as Michael Hardy doing just as he pleases. Though it can’t have pleased him too much to get a call from us.

Congratulations on all your success and on making such a terrific record. It really feels like you’re doing something new.

I really appreciate it. I was kinda trying to carve my own lane, you know?

Let’s start with that. Can you share a little bit about the idea behind the mockingbird & THE CROW?

I don’t know if you’ve ever seen this, but growing up in Mississippi you’d see a crow flying through the sky and there’d be this mockingbird flying behind it, pecking at it like it was trying to fight. The mockingbird is the state bird of Mississippi and a big symbol of the South. Then there’s the crow, which isn’t as pretty and is a little more against the grain. It all just sort of clicked in my head at that point. It’s the perfect description of who I am and where I come from. It was the last song I wrote for the record, and it ended up tying the whole thing together.

In the song, the “mockingbird with a microphone” appears to represent the journeyman country songwriter.

Yeah. There’s this line about singing songs that sound like other songs you’ve heard before. That’s what a mockingbird does, and it’s part of playing the game when you’re a songwriter in Nashville. You’re not trying to reinvent the wheel. You’re just trying to write stuff that sounds like what’s on the radio right now.

Songwriting is kind of the prelude to your career as an artist.

Prelude is a really great word. The process of writing for other people and writing with other people helped me dial in my own sound. It was definitely the prequel to my life now.

Not to belabor that beautifully artistic metaphor in the song, but the crow is loud and doesn’t give a fuck.

I guess it depends on who’s listening. Tons of people love rock & roll and metal, but for the most part, that music is dark, loud and kind of obnoxious. That’s sort of the point I was trying to make.

What kind of musical environment was around you growing up?

My dad introduced rock & roll to me at a super young age. When I was only three or four years old, I could tell you who Lynyrd Skynyrd was and all that—anything that fell under the umbrella of classic rock. By the time I was nine or 10, I was watching MTV after school and learning about nu metal and active-rock stuff like Puddle of Mudd, Linkin Park, Limp Bizkit, P.O.D. and all that. I even listened to a lot of Eminem back in the day. Whatever mainstream media presented to me is what I listened to.

In the past 10 years, it seems that country music has evolved into something that partly carries forward that active-rock tradition.

I think, to a certain extent, that pattern has continued for a long time. People tell me that when Alabama came out, they were pushing the envelope of what you could consider sounding like rock & roll. Next, it was Garth, and then in the 2000s you have Brantley Gilbert, Jason Aldean and Florida Georgia Line pushing the envelope. Now there’s me, Jelly Roll and Brantley and others leaning into the rock side of things. I think the spectrum is broadening every day.

When you sit down in a room with other writers, do you often feel like the most rock person in the room?

Most of the time, yes. That said, when I sit down with my crew of people that I’ve written the rock stuff with, like Hunter Phelps, Hillary Lindsey and David Garcia, I feel like everybody can get to that level—or sink to that level! For the most part, if we’re writing a rock song that day, I’m usually taking the lead, and everybody’s helping me figure it out.

What sparked the transition from songwriter to singer-songwriter?

It pretty much turned on a dime. In 2018, I got offered a record deal that I didn’t necessarily want or expect. Big Loud just said, “Hey, we heard all your demos and we know the stuff you’re writing with Morgan and FGL and we think you’d be a great artist.” I thought about it a lot and talked to a lot of people and signed the deal.

What’s the creative chemistry like between you and Morgan?

Creativity requires motion, and when you write with people who like to stop that motion and think about things a lot, the creativity quits flowing a little bit. Morgan is a really good writer who thinks really quickly. With him, it’s constant motion, so we vibe with each other in that way.

I’d be remiss if didn’t ask you about the development of “wait in the truck.” There are plenty of country songs about broken hearts and drinking and small towns, but you don’t hear a lot of songs about “I killed a scumbag who was abusing a woman and voluntarily went to jail for it.”

I had this idea for a long time. At first, I envisioned it being like, “I heard you got roughed up in a bar; I’m gonna go find this guy and kick his ass.” When I got in the room with the other writers, we just said, “What if we really went for a real-deal murder ballad and see what happens?” Everybody was on fire that day and we just created this story out of nowhere.

It’s unique because it’s a man’s story—as the agent of the murder--but you still have a woman’s voice very much at the center of it.

It’s a perspective shift, which is cool. The guy is telling the story and the girl is sharing her thoughts on what happened, but she’s also telling a little bit more of the story. It’s a big push-pull of emotions.

Can you share a little bit about Lainey’s role in it?

I was talking with my producer and my manager about, “Could [the featured vocalist] be this person, or maybe that person?” Then, I joked, “Should I just send it to Lainey right now and get it over with?” I knew from the beginning she was gonna sing that song with conviction and become that character people hear and believe. In the end that would help people—mostly women—better process or feel like they weren’t alone in a situation like that. Lainey delivered that day.

You got married pretty recently; how has that changed things?

Yeah, last October. It’s great and I’m extremely lucky. She’s really supportive and it’s easy. I’ve enjoyed coming home and being normal, you know? In the midst of all the craziness, it’s so nice to come home and just be married and normal.

Speaking of people who support you, what’s it like working with Seth England and the rest of the Big Loud team?

There’s a very specific type of person that works for Big Loud. Every single person who works there is just a hungry, hardworking, creative person. Never once have Seth or Joey Moi gotten remotely close to trying to steer me in a certain direction creatively. Whether that’s my music or the way I dress, or what I do, or what I say. At the end of the day, I feel like the greatest way to run a record label is to let the artist be the artist, and they’re the best in town at doing that.