Morgan Wallen released One Thing at a Time in 2023, an album created with the help of co-writers ERNEST and HARDY. During an interview with the All Country Podcast, the musician detailed working with the artists, calling it an “easy flow of creativity.” Here’s what wek now about the “I Wrote the Book” songwriter.
Morgan Wallen works on music with ERNEST and HARDY
Wallen has several impressive songwriter friends, ERNEST and HARDY being the most notable. Recently, ERNEST and HARDY earned songwriting credits on Wallen’s One Thing at a Time — the chart-topping album with 36 tracks.
HARDY is credited under his real name, Michael Hardy, as a co-writer for “Tennesse Fan,” while ERNEST is listed as a co-writer (under Ernest Keith Smith) for the album’s title track.
HARDY, Cameron Montgomery, and Wallen worked together for one of the most popular songs from One Thing at a Time, “I Wrote the Book.” For one podcast interview, the “Last Night” singer described working with ERNEST and HARDY.
Morgan Wallen describes working with his team as an ‘easy flow of creativity’
While discussing his collaborative process, Wallen noted other songwriters’ impact on his music, calling it an “easy flow of creativity” during an interview with the All Country Podcast.
“You can look at my album, you can look at HARDY’s album, you can look at Ernest’s album, and it’s just a lot of music that’s coming out,” Wallen said around the 7-minute mark.
“I’m just fortunate to be in a group of people like that,” he noted. “This record is just a representation of all of that camaraderie, that friendship, and everything that comes from that.”
Other songwriters on Wallen’s team include Miranda Lambert, who co-wrote “Thought You Should Know” off the 2023 release.
How did Morgan Wallen meet Ernest and HARDY?
Wallen and ERNEST met each other before their music stardom. As noted by Billboard, ERNEST and Wallen met in 2015 at a party thrown by Craig Wiseman — the Big Loud co-founder and songwriter.
The artists followed one another on Instagram and, according to the same source, learned they “had competed against each other on opposing high school baseball teams — Knoxville’s Gibbs High School (Wallen) against Nashville’s David Lipscomb High School (now Lipscomb Academy) (ERNEST).”
“They beat us and went on to win State [in 2010], and then we beat them for State [in 2011],” ERNEST said in the Billboard interview. “So, technically, we met in 2015, but we had been rivals before we were friends.”
HARDY and ERNEST met through Florida Georgia Line around 2017, around the same time Wallen and HARDY began writing together.
Today, each songwriter continues to release music as a solo artist, sometimes featuring one another on originals. That includes 2021’s “Flower Shops” by ERNEST, which features Wallen.
