HARDY: Inside the Mind of Nashville's Premier Polymath

The hit songwriter and genre-bending country star on competition, collaboration and the musical instincts that have taken him from Nashville's writing rooms to arenas.

Billy Eff is the Content Director for Rolling Stone Canada. An award-winning journalist and columnist, he has previously contributed to outlets including VICE and Urbania. A passionate advocate for underground music and a musician himself, he has conducted several hundred interviews with artists and industry professionals across a wide range of styles and genres over the past 15 years. He is based in Montréal, Québec.

Hardy moved to Nashville hoping for a 9-to-5.

Though the Mississippi songwriter has become a major country artist in his own right, being the person standing behind the microphone was not part of the plan. "I've always seen myself as a songwriter first," Hardy says. "I moved to Nashville to be a songwriter and my first love is writing songs."

Upon moving, he joined a band and, one fateful night, was introduced to Florida Georgia Line by a mutual friend, and eventually became a writing partner for the group.

For years, Hardy, born Michael Wilson Hardy, was content grinding away in the studio, writing for other artists, spending weekends on the road with Florida Georgia Line and building the kind of Nashville career that happens largely behind the scenes. Then, people around him started suggesting that he should become an artist himself. Tyler Hubbard of Florida Georgia Line, particularly, kept pushing the idea. Hardys music industry friends, meanwhile, were very clear: becoming an artist would mean giving up the life they knew he enjoyed, one that included hunting, fishing and being home.

He wasn't convinced. "I kind of felt like I got ambushed one day," he says, laughing. The ambush came courtesy of Big Loud co-founder Seth England, who invited Hardy to the office under the pretense of simply hanging out. "I show up and all the department heads are in the office. And I was like, 'What the fuck is this?'"

That ‘’fuck’’ was a record deal.

Hardy signed it, but then had to figure out what being an artist actually meant. He had already spent years learning how to write songs that other people could turn into hits. Now he had to determine which parts of that songwriting belonged to him.

The answer came gradually. He started experimenting with the different sounds he'd always carried around: country, rock, soul and the heavier music he'd loved since high school. His first releases established him as one of Nashville’s premier polymaths, while albums including the mockingbird & THE CROW and Quit!! made that range increasingly central to his identity.

But even after finding success as a performer, the songwriter never disappeared. If anything, Hardy's experience as an artist seems to have reinforced his belief in the craft itself. When he walks into a writing room, he says, he isn't thinking about whether the song is for him or another artist. If that song turns out to be a HARDY song, great. If another singer can make it work better, he is happy to give it away.

Asked whether he has ever handed a song to another artist and later wished he'd kept it, his answer is immediate. "Nope, not one time."

It helps that he genuinely enjoys the routine of songwriting and doesn't romanticize the process. He prefers the Nashville model of waking up, driving somewhere and spending the day writing before going home. On the road, he has found that the process is harder to protect. There are cities to explore, people to see and the unavoidable possibility that everyone simply doesn't feel like writing the next morning."I enjoy the seemingly non-creative part of it, treating it like a real job," he says.

Hardy talks about songwriting with the practicality of someone discussing a trade; we might as well be talking about woodworking or car mechanics. He has a structure akin to that of a company, with a regular circle of roughly 15 writers he works with, and he sees collaboration less as a concession than as the best way to make something good. Everyone fills a different space in the room.

When Hardy started touring, opening for some of his collaborators, including Morgan Wallen, his approach to performing was almost the opposite. The goal, he says, was to make the headliner nervous. "Our goal was to shit on the people that we were opening for," he says. "We wanted whoever we opened for to watch our show from side stage and be like, 'Fuck, I've got to go on after this.'"

It’s not about grudge or hubris, but rather a competitive instinct, the same kind of drive that now informs his headline shows. He wants people leaving his concert convinced they've just seen the best show of their lives. "That’s my mindset every time I step on stage," he says.It’s an admittedly bizarre duality: the person who treats songwriting like a job becomes almost obsessively competitive once the job is performing.When I ask him about country music's current dominance, which has been one of the defining stories in popular music, Hardy doesn't pretend to have a clear explanation for why or how it happened. He points to friends like Wallen and Zach Bryan as artists who helped push country beyond its traditional audience. He also credits Diplo with entering Nashville's orbit earlier than many other pop and electronic artists.

His own music, however, was shaped by more underground influences. In high school, young Michael got a burnt CD from a friend that served as his introduction to the expansive metal and hardcore ecosystem. A Day to Remember, August Burns Red, The Devil Wears Prada and Maylene and the Sons of Disaster were among the bands on it, he recalls.

Though he never joined a hardcore band, it became an integral part of his approach to music. "Had I never listened to metal, none of my rock songs would exist," he says.

Obviously, what he absorbed wasn't the lyrical content. He admits that he was often paying more attention to the music. What stuck with him was the mechanics: the tension, the buildup, the sudden release. The architecture of a breakdown could become the architecture of a chorus."To have a build-up, and then like an explosion!" he explains, enthusiastically. "I definitely learned that from metal and hardcore."

That influence has become increasingly visible as Hardy's career has developed, but he resists turning it into a neat genre narrative. "I hate saying this, but it's all Hardy music to me," he explains. "I put out a rock record with QUIT!! a couple of years ago. And then I blatantly turned around and put out a country record with Country! Country! last year. You can label something as rock or as country, but I’m kind of done with that. I think from now on, it just is what it is."

That’s probably the most Hardy answer of the conversation. He has spent his career surrounded by people trying to determine what songs will work, what audiences want and what comes next. Yet his own approach is disarmingly uncomplicated: craft the best song, put on the best show and let people contend with what they just witnessed.

Meet the 25 artists redefining Canada's musical landscape. From breakthrough voices to genre-defying innovators, these are the creators shaping the future of music in Canada and beyond.

Parazar

Rolling Stone Canada and YouTube Canada are proud to support local creatives.

The traditional trajectory of a music career used to be relatively linear. An artist would build momentum in their hometown, expand nationally, and, with enough industry support, eventually attempt to reach audiences abroad. Today, the internet has largely erased those barriers. Artists can break through and find a global audience at any time from anywhere, opening doors to the industry for anyone to reach for stardom. A song made in Montréal can resonate just as quickly in Algiers, Hanoi, or Brussels as it does locally.

Few platforms have played a bigger role in that transformation than YouTube. Over the past twenty years, it has evolved from a simple video-hosting website into a central pillar of the modern music ecosystem. For Canadian artists, its function extends far beyond distribution. It acts simultaneously as a production hub, an educational resource, an archive, and a direct link to global audiences.

To better understand that evolution, we spoke with Montreal rapper Parazar, whose growing international audience reflects the increasingly borderless nature of online music discovery, as well as Gabriel Obadia, Head of Music at YouTube Canada, about how the platform continues to reshape the relationship between artists, audiences, and visibility.

“Oh my God, when you told me that, I immediately remembered the original logo. The brown logo, the little TV,” says Parazar with a laugh when I ask if she remembered YouTube’s original logo. Like many other creators, she first discovered it as a viewer before seeing it as a space for creation and distribution.

Over twenty years, YouTube has evolved and so has the way we use it. There are more ways than ever for fans to discover, engage and participate with music, changing how listeners become fans. At the center of it all, music videos are still the medium for fans to enter an artist’s world and become superfans. “I’ve always believed that, in terms of music, it’s extremely important to keep the concept of music videos and visuals,” she says.

For Parazar, video acts as both a promotional tool and an extension of the musical work itself. “A music video is kind of like the cover of a book. When you open a story, it gives you the image. It gives you the whole visual meaning.”

Obadia sees this evolution as part of a broader shift in how audiences engage with music online. “Back in the day, you had a handful of programmers planning out a few hours of music videos a day," he says. "Digital platforms have instead put that power in the hands of music fans from around the world, and given artists new ways to express their creativity.”

That logic shapes how music is experienced. “Your song won’t feel the same live, it won’t feel the same in the video, and it won’t feel the same in your car,” Parazar adds. YouTube becomes a space where these different interpretations coexist and where a visual translation of music becomes possible.

One of the most important opportunities for artists now is to be discovered by fans all around the world. This direct access to an international audience is crucial.

Parazar has experienced this with her audience abroad. “What we notice in certain countries like Algeria is that people are always on YouTube. They really go to YouTube to listen to music,” she explains. That interest is measurable: as of October 2025, global hours of French language watch time grew over 20% year-over-year. And in just the first half of 2025, viewers globally watched more than 9.5 billion hours of French language content.

For Obadia, that global reach is central to YouTube’s role in Canada’s music ecosystem. “What motivates me most about the future of Canada’s music industry is the rapid rise of diverse genres from artists here at home,” he says, pointing to the growth of French Canadian and Arabic hip-hop, Afrobeats, and Punjabi pop. “Artists like Parazar are proving that local sounds have deep global resonance.”

Because of YouTube’s scale, he argues, artists are increasingly able to speak directly to fans without intermediaries. “A bilingual track from Montréal blending French and Arabic can instantly find a dedicated fan base in North Africa or Europe without having to go through traditional industry gatekeepers.”

In this context, the platform acts as a primary access point to music. It allows geographically distant scenes to connect without relying on the usual structures of the industry. As Gabriel Obadia notes, it gives ‘’artists the ultimate ability to reach fans anywhere on the planet, no matter how niche their music might seem locally’’

Beyond distribution, YouTube also plays a role in artists’ development. Tutorials, technical demonstrations, and archives contribute to an accessible knowledge economy.

Parazar highlights this in her own practice. “I’ve learned so many things from the tutorials on YouTube, how to record myself, how to use Logic Pro, and everything else.” The platform becomes both a workspace and a space for visibility.

Obadia describes YouTube as “the world’s biggest library,” where artists can learn everything from beat-making techniques to video editing workflows. He also points to tools like YouTube Analytics, which allow artists to better understand their audiences and build sustainable careers independently.“We want to make sure emerging artists have a ladder to climb on their own terms,” he says.

It also serves as an active archive. To prepare for performances, Parazar revisits past footage and live recordings. “I’ll do research and look at old concert footage. I get inspired by a song or something from the show we’re putting together.”

The arrival of Shorts reflects current habits of rapid consumption. Without replacing long-form content, they coexist with it and create multiple entry points to creative work.

For Parazar, this evolution fits naturally into current practices. “Shorts on YouTube are a different format, but it’s the same kind of content that finds an audience.”

Obadia rejects the idea that short-form and long-form formats are competing with one another. “We see both formats as complementary tools for artists. Shorts act as an incredible discovery engine,” he says. “They are a low-barrier way for new artists to grow an audience and test concepts.” At the same time, he argues that long-form music videos remain essential because they “immerse fans into an artist’s creative world.”

In twenty years, YouTube has established itself as a structuring space for creation around the world. It has helped redefine access to production, distribution, and learning. For local artists like Parazar, it serves as a working tool, a showcase, and a bridge to audiences beyond traditional circuits. In that environment, artists are no longer limited by the size of their local scene. A single upload could be the spark that crosses borders, finds its community, and resonates with the world.