HARDY Opens Up on Zach Sang Show About Writing "More Than My Hometown": "It Was Like Doing Surgery"

In a recent interview on the Zach Sang Show, country superstar HARDY opened up about the creation of his hit song "More Than My Hometown," a track he co-wrote with Morgan Wallen, Ernest, and songwriter Charlie Hansen. The conversation offered fans an intriguing behind-the-scenes look at the song’s development.

HARDY described the writing process as meticulous and challenging. "That was me, Morgan, Ernest, and Charlie Hansen, who's a big writer with Morgan. We wrote that song. I had the idea, but I remember it was like doing surgery. It took us forever to kind of figure out the hook."

The session took place in 2017, late at night at Big Loud’s record label—a somewhat unusual time for a country music writing session. HARDY recalled, “We wrote that song at like 10 o’clock at night, which is very rare. Not rare, but for country, it’s rare. It doesn’t happen a whole lot.”

The group faced considerable challenges while crafting the song’s narrative. HARDY explained, “I had that idea, but it took us—we had to talk about, kind of hash out all the different angles of how you could write that idea.” The song's theme revolves around a relationship where one partner is reluctant to leave their hometown, highlighting the emotional conflict between love and loyalty to home.

Despite the difficulties, HARDY and Wallen remained optimistic. “Morgan is a great writer,” HARDY noted, acknowledging Wallen's belief in the song. “He and I just like hyper-focused on it because we knew if we nailed this, it could be a really good song. We really got in the weeds on that one.”

HARDY admitted that the writing process felt like “doing surgery,” with numerous revisions and rewrites. “We would say something but then that would negate this but this was better than that, so then we would go back and fix that so it made sense for this,” he described.

The song's eventual success was partly due to Morgan Wallen's unwavering faith in it. “Did you know the entire time that like this song was gonna work? For that specific song? Yeah. Only because Morgan was such a believer in that song,” HARDY shared. “We wrote that song a few months after his debut album came out, and it ended up being on Dangerous, which means it survived like three years of great songs going, you know, him hearing great songs, him writing great songs.”

Ultimately, HARDY’s perseverance and Wallen’s belief in the track paid off, with "More Than My Hometown" becoming a significant hit. “He was always a believer. He would text me all the time and be like, ‘I still love the song.’ I’m like, ‘Me too, please, please record it.’ And it just ended up being a hit.”

HARDY’s candid reflections in the nearly hour long interview are so interesting. From reflecting on huge hits like "wait in the truck," to giving the inside scoop on writing with Post Malone, the whole interview is really worth a listen.