#1051 - HARDY - The Personal Pain of Country Music

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0:42Work hard and be nice. Is that basically your career philosophy? Yeah. Have I said that exactly before? I feel like I have. I feel like that's like the number one. You know, honestly, if I put them in order, it would be nice first and work hard second. Not like, you know, don't dismiss working hard, but man, being a good hanger, just being somebody that somebody wants in the room will take you so far, I feel like, in any sort of, any job atmosphere at all. Why? I would have assumed, especially in music, if you're some virtuoso guitarist. Nobody likes an asshole, dude. It doesn't matter how good you are or something.

1:27I just, nobody wants that person in the room, I feel like. And I just, how many times, I cannot tell you how many times I've done podcasts or we've gotten a VIP tour of something or we had a driver, you know, in LA or in New York. And then we've been like, you ever had anybody that was just terrible to work with? And people just remember that, man. And it's a lot of times it's people that are like really famous and really successful and very talented. And there's just, I know that people like drivers and, you know, people that give Disney World tours and stuff like that are not people that are going to, you know, help advance your career.

2:06But I think that transcends stuff like that. And just being nice to people and making sure everybody is appreciated and feels comfortable around you. And I just think it's important. There's a guy called Paul Graham who's an investor and a writer from the UK. He lives in the UK now. He's got this great idea. Famous jerks are not role models. Some talented people are jerks. And this sometimes makes it seem to the inexperienced that being a jerk is part of being talented. It isn't. Being talented is merely how they get away with being a jerk. Wow, that's really good. I think it's true. Yeah, totally, 100%.

2:39The success is not because of them being an asshole. The fact that they are successful is how they get away with being an asshole. Yeah, 100%. Would you call it a paradox? A little bit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, it's certainly surprising because it gives people this idea that, oh, ego is where the success has been cultivated from. Right. As opposed to the fact that the success gave them this buffer zone where people are like, I can't be too mean to Hardy because look at all the songs he does and stuff. He's a bit of a dick. Whatever. Yeah, right. So, I mean, it's kind of surprising because I think a lot of people in jobs, they see it as being transactional.

3:18That if you are good at X, you will get Y. but there's the packaging that your talent comes in, which is like, well, you were good hang. How are you on the bus? What's your morale like when you've done three shows in three days and everybody's tired? It's like, are you the one that brings everybody up? Or are you the one that's like, oh, dude, this is so tough. This is so hard. I'm missing the, it's like, everyone's doing that. Yeah. Yeah, no, it's very true, man. And it's just, I've always just kind of thought that it's like, it takes way more effort to be, you know, like an asshole than just to be nice.

3:52And there's, I mean, I've had my moments, I mean, for sure, where I just, I'm exhausted or mentally drained or my meter is at an all time zero. And those are moments where I feel like I just get more quiet more than anything. But man, it's just so much easier to be just nice to people and just keep a smile on your face and keep it light and just do what you got to do. And even if it's something you don't want to do, you do it anyway and have fun with it. And I don't know, it just seems way less effort to do that. In your experience as being a good guy, a performance enhancer, rather than trying to be ruthless and screwing people over?

4:30What do you mean by that? If you're a nice person, are they the ones that end up winning in the end? Because there is a sense that ruthlessness and being cutthroat and, you know, sort of like going for it, aggressive, lean in. Oh, well, that's how you achieve success. I don't think there's a real true... answer to that because I think there's tons of people I think I would like to think that more nice people win certainly but um I don't think it's true every time by any means well I'm interested for you especially about the tension between being a songwriter and an artist right because you've got you're part of the Nashville engine I was talking to a friend yesterday who put you as like one of the best three songwriters in Nashville which is probably about as competitive as it can be that's very nice um but you're behind the scenes you were behind the scenes then you become in front of the scenes and now you've got to try and balance these two worlds uh what's the what's the tension like between being artist and also being uh like contributor to other artists at the same time i try not to think about it really um you know i mean i'm very thankful to have started out as a songwriter because i feel like I can jump right in and never skip a beat you know I can tour for six months or whatever and barely write a song and then just jump right in and write for somebody else and it's like not difficult at all but um I've never really thought about the balance or like the pressure between the two at all I mean to be completely candid touring is a lot more lucrative than songwriting so it a little bit of that takes the pressure off of like having to make a career out of songwriting but I I just want to write hits for other people so bad that I will just never not want to do that.

6:18It's why I moved to town. It's my first love. And I just love having great songs and giving that song to somebody and hoping that it helps their career and all that. But I've never really felt pressure. There's definitely been times where I have been like, okay, I'll hit up my management or link my management and my publishing and be like, hey, guys, we need to find a balance. It's like I need to write more songs because it's just it's a tank that I have that if it's if it's empty, I, you know, I feel a little bit less sense of purpose if I haven't been writing songs, whether no matter what they may be.

6:49And and so, you know, there's times where I become a little more aware that I need to I need to sort of redistribute my my time. But I've never really felt the pressure to do one more than the other or like, you know, once one's falling behind, you know, I try to keep them even or anything like that. it's just I don't know I try to try to take the pressure off myself and I think it makes for more creativity and better better creative moments and stuff when you don't feel pressure to write hits or like you know pressure to write so many songs or anything like that what if you write what if you write a real slammer there must be a sense in your mind where you go what do I is this a me do I just like keep this one in the in the hardy folder or is yeah that happens a lot it happens all the time um they uh it's funny i uh there's a lot of songs though that i just it's a slammer but it's just not for me and and and uh there's a lot of time a lot of writers that i have even friends of mine that i'm that are like you sure or like i can tell i'm like man this would be good for this would be great for you know blake shelton and and they're like oh yeah cool you know and maybe you was yeah yeah um but even that is very i usually know but by the time we get like verse chorus if I'm going to cut the song or if I'm going to give it to someone else or hopefully give it to someone else.

8:09I was talking to John Bellion, he was on the show a couple of weeks ago, and obviously he took this big hiatus from being an artist to just do the songwriting thing. And he said he knew when he was ready to get back to producing music because he would have this list of demos or whatever, he'd have 15 demos and he'd be showing it to whoever was in the studio with and there would always be one or two tracks that he would just like he'd skip over the top of he'd leave that one to one side he'd never show that yeah i thought that was so cute because he was like oh i really really like that yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah for me i the la approach is very different i think and but i will say like i don't ever play anybody my best stuff like ever until it's until it's out i just like the big reveal of them and uh you know the the keeping it a secret i just feel Like it's more of like an explosion when it comes out, even with your friends and stuff, you know, it's to get Nashville talking about a song is very, it's just as important as like the public hearing about it.

9:09I think I just think that people buzz about a song and, and I don't know what it is, but there's just something about Nashville buzzing about a song that, that just helps it always. What do people not understand about how the Nashville scene works? In what way? Generally. I mean, it is a, it's a fucking engine for music. It's a factory for music. But at least from my perspective, the fact that you have a room where anybody who typically you've got like the writer credit of, dude, you're over the far side chewing on a toothpick or whatever, like, thank you for being in the room. you contributed to this the fact that you will have multiple different rooms going at one time and artists will bounce between those if they're really really trying to crank it um it seems to me like there aren't many scenes like nashville when it comes to to writing music maybe anywhere on the planet it's very different i mean i think nashville's work ethic is better than other cities i've written in um i think that top liners like lyric and melody or at least lyric writers storytellers, I think it's the best in the world.

10:19I think that Nashville has the greatest storytellers in the world. And it is, it's a machine. And it all starts with the song, which I think is really cool, man. And like right now, today, what time is it right now? It's 10, 11 right now. There are more, there's probably 300 rooms of people writing songs right now in Nashville trying to get the next hit. Excuse me. And there's a lot of those songs that are going to be, have potential to be the next you know and within the next year a big old hit and it's it's it's kind of off to the races from there you know and i think it's the coolest thing ever is there something about country as a musical style which affords storytelling uh more room than other genres do yeah sure i think that can go back to a long time ago and i you know like and what's much of country music's biggest songs have been stories and so i just think it's a pattern if that's kind of what you're getting at um are you i mean basically are you just saying like why why is why why is it easier or more common to write stories in country than any other any other thing to a degree yeah and then is there something to do with the structure of country as a genre which affords more more room for storytelling like a rock right or like just very unique ways to piece a story together and then keep on looping things back um i don't know that's a really good question if i was to like put my total amateur uh theory forward uh it's so lyric driven it's so vocals heavy yeah but are there many country songs where people go dude i just love the riff right well no but with something like um caramel by sleep token that plucky little intro thing that it has is as yeah exactly like it almost the first time i ever heard it i thought is this like some like reggaeton jamaican inspired because it almost does have that sound like yeah so i'm like all right well that is as much a part and if you move into metal or more hard stuff well the riff actually can be the lead that's what people love but with country very rarely is it going to be that it's much more about it's yeah it's way less about the music for sure like the arrangement um i think that producers would argue you know like you my producer joey is Like you got to fill the space and, and, uh, you know, takes a lot of time to in the studio to make sure like the parts are right and that everything is catchy.

12:57And there's just a bunch of that, all the spaces are filled, but, uh, no, it is very much, it's, it's, it's, it's all about the, um, the lyrics. You're right. And very, I mean, the vocal is out front and that's everything. At least right now, people can argue that like that, that sub genre of country that's like whiskey Myers and, And a lot of the sync countries, which is like S-Y-N-C, a lot of the stuff that you hear on the TV shows and stuff is more about music and less about lyric. But I don't know. I can't really speak to that. But no, you're totally right. It's just the way it's always been.

13:31And the country has never really been about anything other than the lyrics and the vocal, or both at the same time. Talk to me about where inspiration and creativity comes from for you or what sort of your creative process looks like because you've got a bunch of stuff going on, high volume writing for other people. I've heard you say it's between sort of two and three days a week that you're cranking that out. Yeah, on a good, like in a good, yeah. When you're not on tour and you've got a little bit of time, maybe not on your dad. But then you've also got your own stuff. You've got your own obligations.

14:08But then you've also got this balance between volume of output and quality of output. you can't be doing five songs a day three days a week and maximizing in the same way that you would if it was sure spending a little bit more time so i'm interested in this balance yeah inspiration and creativity with uh output i mean you know the one cool thing about nashville before i even get into this is we all stand the songwriters all stand on each other's shoulders and you know So thankfully there's so much like collaboration and, and, um, um, camaraderie within that, you know, in Nashville that like, you know, you go into a room with some people and, and, um, like I might be exhausted.

14:51I might have not been in a good like idea headspace. And, uh, you go in and like your buddy or whoever you're writing with has the idea. And it's just like, Oh, thank God. You know what I mean? That pressure is off. And now I can just latch onto of this idea and help write this in the room. But, you know, um, so that, you know, so your collaborators always make it a lot easier on you. It's like if you and I, or it's like, if you asked me to move this table across the room or we got six people to do it and the weight is a lot lighter and that's what it's always felt like for me. So, um, first and foremost, if you don't have an idea, Don't let your panic or your inhibition put the cloud over your creative bubble because you just have to always trust that somebody's going to have something if you don't.

15:40And that helps with the creative process. But, man, for me, I have a running list of – I'll scroll fast and nobody steals my shit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We can blur it. I'll see. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll see because I'm writing after this today too. Amazing. um but these are just all song either lines or notes or whatever and it dates back to like probably 10 years ago it's just a running list of notes mine mine is short i see people scroll through theirs and they're super long and i'm like damn bro well you keep on turning them into songs which is true that's true and then you have to delete it sometimes it's like sad you're like damn i've been looking at that idea for you know two or three years and you delete it but um man yeah and you know i i know this is not exactly what you were getting at but i love talking about this because it's so like any other office or whatever it may be it's like you walk you you everybody has their ideas and then you walk into a publishing house or somebody usually a lot of times these days it's either somebody's studio or their home studio but like you just walk in and you know everybody now so it's just like it's there's there's not it's not this like light a candle kumbaya you know like somebody's like man i just went through this horrible heartbreak let's blah blah blah you know it's just it's not like that and but i love that it's that we can like take a moment where we're we're walking in and we're like well you know and and you get down to business and you know i'm a big deer hunter and most a lot of nashville riders are big deer hunters so right now we're just talking about deer hunting and then everybody goes oh well let's see here and then somebody's like heart you know hearts on fire and you just start throwing out random ideas and uh and it's just one of them sticks and then you write it because everybody in the room is a professional songwriter and then a year later it's like a seven week number one dude it's like it's just crazy to me but it's it's but what i'm getting at is how not um it's not like it's not as you would never think that it's like not a creative you know from the heart kind of thing because it's country music and like these the stories are so good and they make people cry.

17:44But, but the songwriters like myself and other people, it's like, we're not crying in the room, but when we write a line, we're like, this is going to, this is going to hammer somebody. It's going to make like, you know, but, and we mean that not in a funny way, but like in a very, like, you know, like this is going to help a lot. Like when I, when we wrote wait in the truck, when we like finished that song and Jordan Schmidt and his home studio, like played that song top down, we all looked at each other and we were like, dude, this is going to destroy some people. And that's like, we did our job that day, you know?

18:12And But anyway, it's just I love the creative process. I probably went way off on a tangent, but I just I love talking about how not creative the creative process looks, you know, and we're not sitting in a vibey room. And some some places are like that. And that's totally fine. Like I know L.A. it's a lot about more about getting in the mood and waving sage, burning some sage, waving that around. Yeah, you know, and certain candles that smell a certain way and all that. But man, in Nashville, it's truly just a bunch of normal guys and girls, normal looking people that are just their brains are just wired different and they're incredibly good at what they do.

18:47But they, you know, and it just you just would never know it. And I just think that's the coolest thing ever. Some of the most creative people in the world, some people in the world, some people in this town have the ability to make people like ball their eyes out that live anywhere that anywhere that can speak English, you know. and they just are like a chubby dude that just goes to the grocery store every other day and lets his dogs out every night in the afternoon. Like it's just, it's cool to me. It's like the coolest thing ever. That's sick, man. If you struggle to stay asleep because your body gets too hot or too cold, this is going to help.

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21:31It is such a terribly long time since I last wrote to you, almost two years, but I know you'll excuse me because you understand how I am, stubborn and realistic, and I thought there was no sense to writing. But now I know, my darling wife, that it is right to do what I have delayed in doing, and that I have done so much in the past. I want to tell you I love you. I want to love you. I will always love you I find it hard to understand in my mind What it means to love you after you are dead But I still want to comfort and take care of you And I want you to love me And care for me I want to have problems to discuss with you I want little projects with you I never thought until just now That we can do that What should we do?

22:13We started to learn to make clothes together Or learn Chinese Or get a movie projector Can't I do something now? No I am alone without you. And you were the idea woman and general instigator of all our wild adventures. When you were sick, you worried that you could not give me something that you wanted to and thought I needed. You needn't have worried. Just as I told you then, there was no real need because I loved you in so many ways so much. And now it is clearly even more true. You can give me nothing. Now, yet, I love you so that you stand in my way of loving anyone else. But I want you to stand there.

22:55You, dead, are so much better than anyone else alive. I know you will assure me that I am foolish and that you want me to have full happiness and don't want to be in my way. I bet you are surprised that I don't even have a girlfriend, except you, sweetheart, after two years. But you can't help it, darling, nor can I. I don't understand it, for I have met many girls and very nice ones, and I don't want to remain alone. But in two or three meetings, they all seem ashes. You only are left to me. You are real. My darling wife, I do adore you. I love my wife. My wife is dead. P.S. Please excuse my not mailing this, but I don't know your new address oh my god jesus man yeah yeah yeah i'm that's that's insane it's it's it's like is that real that's a real thing he did for his real wife so like there's still there's so much poetry and and that i mean i there's so much to me part of the the gag or the like the the trick is is not revealing the thing until it's like the perfect time right so like that's the thing you don't understand i struggle to know what it means to love you after you are dead yeah and in and the songwriting from a songwriting you would probably wait to the very end you know to do that but even still like it's waiting on that is such a poetic it's such i mean it it's it's a simple you know we call it a trick but but uh yeah that's that's beautiful i I mean, I'm trying to think of a song that I have or that I know of that has like a twist at the very end of a song.

24:45But you kind of have to like, oh, shit, I got to listen to that again. You know, like I missed it. It's like an M. Night Shyamalan movie and you miss the six cents. Yeah, like Christopher Nolan or whatever. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you're like, wait, he was dead the whole time, but he was talking to that person. Wait, he wasn't talking to her. She was talking to nobody. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Those are the best, man. So for me, finding something like that is the kind of equivalent of going into the room and being like, fuck, like, is this right? And then you finally find something and you go, this deserves to get out there.

25:14Like, this is, how can I craft this in a way? There's other little bits and pieces. Most of the time, it's not a big chunk, right? It's you tell a story and then you repurpose it. You rework it around. I've heard you say dark songs tell the truth in a way happy songs can't. Yeah, it's weird. How so? I don't know because people, maybe it's just me. Maybe I'm just like just darker than maybe I even think I am. But like I have just like songs about dark things, even if there's a hopeful, like a weight in the truck, you know, that's like a very, it's like a hero story. But people just gravitate towards that more.

25:54I've always found, I don't know why, but like I'm trying to think of another, a good example, but, um, I don't know. I mean, again, maybe I haven't done a study. I haven't done, you know, I haven't surveyed a thousand people, but it just seems that like sad songs or like really, really good heartbreak songs or death, you know, people dying songs. Um, even if they are, they have a happy, uh, lesson in them, like a live, like you were dying kind of thing. There's just people, people attach themselves to that stuff more. Um, I do think that there's a lot of like a lot of dark moments in people's lives.

26:34And I think that, you know, if you, if you can find a way to relate to that and that be a song, then you're going to probably attach to that, you know, pretty, pretty hard. But, um, I, yeah, I don't know why, but I just, I feel like, and it's so weird. Dark songs are so much easier to write. You think? Yeah, for me. I mean, for me personally, and it's like if you have a, you know, if somebody threw out a song called The Best Day Ever or whatever, you know, I'd be like, I don't know, man. The worst day ever. Yeah, I'd be like, how would you do that? How would you spend, would you spend that a certain way?

27:06Or like, you know, yeah, exactly. It's weird. Maybe that's just me. My wife kind of, she kind of gives me hell a lot. And, or let's just say gives me encouragement. because this last record I had spoke a lot about mortality, like a lot, and a lot of it was in a very positive way of like appreciate your life now because, you know, one day you won't be here. But she was like, you need to write happier songs. Stop fucking whining. Yeah, dude, you're so emo. Yeah, like write some happier stuff. So maybe I should, but it's just it's not as easy. Well, I guess Luke Combs, maybe the one before last, that was everything's great and life's going well and you know dad's getting a bit older but my son's growing up and he misses we when I'm away but my wife's good and you're like okay well that's that's a pivot right from like this is broken and that's not so great yeah true yeah he kind of had the emo in his own way and cut the fringe off yeah yeah yeah um yeah it is a it is a really interesting blend to think about why people resonate here's one thing i think people feel alone in their sadness in a way that causes them to try and seek uh companionship or comfort so like fuck like somebody else feels that yeah as opposed to if everything's going great and if you're happy like yeah sure it's nice that someone else is also happy along with you it's just hard to like relate to somebody that's it's so weird i don't know why that is a thing but you're totally right you're like you're having a great i'm having a great day you know like nobody ever says that but if somebody's having a bad day you're like oh my god come here let me yeah exactly um yeah every man knows god when he's at his lowest right you reflect so much more uh there's this cool story from a coach of mine joe he talks about his daughter she was like nine at the time and she was crying in the bathroom.

29:05And the way that she was crying, he said, you don't sound that sad to me. You sound pissed off. And she's like, I am. He said, well, you know, when you're crying in the bathroom, how often are you pissed off and how often are you sad? He says, about half the time. He's like, well, how can you cry? Like, why are you crying if you're angry? Half the time, if you're pissed off, how come you're crying? And he says, well, when I'm angry, everybody runs away but when i cry my sister comes and looks after me i just thought it was such a brilliant insight into this sort of the pro-social not seductive but uh like attractive gravitational force of sadness and i think a lot of the time even when people are mad they sometimes turn it into being sad because when people are mad others run away but when they're sad people come and help them yeah i wonder if that's maybe a little bit.

29:59I don't know. That's a weird, not a strange dynamic grooves of your brain. Like, because nobody, nobody is outwardly thinking like, maybe if I just act like I'm sad, that's like some caveman brain thing. That's been around a long time, but people do it for some reason. That's crazy. Yeah, I think so. In other news, you've probably heard me talk about element before, and that is because I'm frankly dependent on it for the last forever in my life. I've started every single day the same way, which is with this in a cold glass of water. Element is electrolytes. It's got no BS in it. It's got everything that you need and nothing that you don't.

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31:06If you don't like it for any reason, they just give you your money back. Plus, they offer free shipping in the US right now. You can get a free sample pack of Elements' most popular flavors with your first purchase and that money back guarantee by going to the link in the description below or heading to drinklmnt.com slash modern wisdom. That's drinklmnt.com slash modern wisdom you said new album a lot of mortality what inspired that i don't know it's just that maybe a headspace i've been in of uh appreciating life a little bit more um you know we we i was in a pretty bad bus accident a couple years ago and it kind of opened my eyes to a lot of, uh, just how, how it can kind of go like that.

31:51And, uh, it's a miracle that any of us survive. We all survive. It's a miracle that any of us did. And, and, uh, I don't know, I feel like since then, just my mortality or the fragility of my mortality or my life, whatever that, however that's supposed to be worded, um, it is, it just has been a little, a more apparent thing, for me recently. And, and so I think that's why I don't really know, but, and I've already like the songs I've written since that record, like nothing, nobody's died. I haven't died. I'm not going to die, you know, but it just, I had to get it out. I don't know what it was, but there's, you know, there's songs about like, there's, there's songs about appreciating it.

32:32And there's songs about like, um, I mean, I don't know. I have to kind of go back and read the track list now, but there's, it kind of touches just on different, different ways to approach your, uh, your mortality. Um, and, uh, yeah, I just think it probably has to do a lot with the headspace that I've been in post bus wreck. It's been three years, but, but I've kind of been writing this record for a year and a half or two years. So it was still pretty fresh at the time. Would you mind telling the story about the bus? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, we were, we played a show in Bristol. It was a sat saturday night in bristol um i was opening for morgan and then we decided to leave early so we could get to back to town because bristol tennessee is only like four hours away um and you gain an hour so it doesn't feel like you get in quite as late you know um so we were 20 miles from town maybe less we were like 15 miles back from town and my tour manager at the time was already sleeping in his bunk.

33:34And, um, my photographer and I were awake in the front lounge, listening to something, listening to music. And, uh, my bus driver pulled over on the side of the road and got, he came and went to the bathroom. He stayed in there like five minutes, which was really weird, especially being this close to town. But we didn't, you know, we were drinking. We didn't really think anything about it. We were just like, it's kind of weird. and came out of the bathroom and I was like, Ricky, you good? And he ignored me, which we were like, what is he? But he had his Bluetooth thing in, so we always wonder if he was on the phone.

34:08So I stepped up and I was like, Ricky, you good? And he was like, yep, all good. I was like, all right, man. We'll be there in a minute or whatever, I guess. And anyway, we started going back down the road. And then we just, just the bus just went off in this like bottom. We flipped like three times over. And you're still in the front lounge? Mm-hmm. So you're not strapped in at all? somebody said like shoes in a washing or shoes in a dryer uh and uh so what just because you must be sat and then feel the bus we got well we felt the rumble strips and then we felt us like going off the road like you know every now and then your driver will hit like rumble strips and you're everybody's like oh but we felt the left side hit the rumble strips and we knew we were going off the road and um it just i don't know what it was but when it flipped it got airborne for a second I could just, there was a moment of like silence before the thing.

34:59And me and Tanner looked at each other and then just, we both just like, boom. It was like the hardest force I've ever felt in my life just got thrown to the other side. And then we both were like instantly knocked out. So I don't remember anything else, but the way the bus was laying, it's like, if it's driving down the road like this, right, it flipped here and then it flipped here. And then it flipped here. And that's where we like ended or whatever. but I woke up, I was the first one to wake up, which sucked. Uh, and I, my head was like wedged under this, the window, which had busted out. And, um, and I, there was like glass everywhere.