Michael Hardy, known professionally as Hardy, is climbing the charts with his debut single, “Rednecker,” which is currently No. 28 on Billboard’s Country Airplay chart.

Before his success as a singer, Hardy earned a rep as one of Nashville’s hottest songwriters, having co-penned recent No. 1 singles “God’s Country” (Blake Shelton), “Simple” (Florida Georgia Line) and “Up Down” (Morgan Wallen). Hardy also had a hand in writing FGL’s “Talk You Out of It” (currently No. 11) and Chris Lane’s “I Don’t Know About You” (currently No. 14).

In fact, news broke on Aug. 12 that Hardy is a co-writer on Blake Shelton’s new single, “Hell Right,” which drops on Aug. 16.

Hardy’s first cut came in 2017 when Tyler Farr released “I Should Go to Church Sometime.” While the song didn’t have much success on the charts, peaking at No. 56, Hardy told Kix Brooks of American Country Countdown that it was an “incredible feeling” that gave him the confidence to continue his craft.

“My first cut was ‘I Should Go to Church Sometime’ by Tyler Farr,” says Hardy. “It ended up being a single for like a month [laughing], but it was an incredible feeling getting a song cut because that was all that I ever wanted for forever—I just wanted a cut. And your goals change, but at that moment that’s all that I wanted. I was just like, ‘I got it! I finally got one!’ It’s hard to get songs cut in Nashville. It really is, so anyway, it was really cool. I went straight to the bar to celebrate [laughing]. Me and my friends and everybody went straight to the bar. Gosh, so much has changed since then too. That was a good time.”