Nashville’s most unpredictable hit maker ERNEST is “The Charmer” (MusicRow), a triplethreat talent and one of Music City’s on the rise artist/writers that’s changing the status quo. As a chart-topping songwriter, he fuses influences ranging from Eminem to George Jones, creating a twist-heavy verse style that’s become his signature, proving its mettle, and earning him six #1 hits to date.
ERNEST is right where he ought to be. Not living life as strictly a songwriter or an aspiring rapper or a Nashville-bred kid who simply wanted to get out of dodge. Sure, those may have been some semblance of his past selves. But ERNEST is right here. Right now. In the present. Writing and recording stunning country songs and creating his own world around them. Most importantly, ERNEST is having the opportunity to, at long last, fully tell his own tale.
“I realized I can be this guy because this guy is me,” the Big Loud singer-songwriter and one of Nashville’s most promising new artists says of finding his musical lane and now arriving at the most exciting moment in his life and career to date. For ERNEST, quieting that inner-doubt, and at last understanding he couldn’t deny who he truly was, unlocked doors of his creativity he never thought possible. “It was me accepting I’m from Nashville and I’m called on to do country music,” ERNEST says proudly of this moment of almost-divine inspiration. “It’s cool I finally get to be all the way myself.”
And that’s exactly who and what he’s becoming: a bold, slightly brash, oftentimes hilarious and every bit incisive and intuitive artist. Over the past decade, ERNEST had already proven himself to be one of Nashville’s go-to songwriters, having penned hit songs for everyone from Morgan Wallen (“More Than My Hometown”) to Sam Hunt (“Breaking Up Was Easy in the 90s”) and Florida Georgia Line (“Dig Your Roots”). But now the confident and upbeat singer, who recently made his debut at the Grand Ole Opry, is ready to carve his own path, to bring listeners into his “sepia-toned, polaroid” world.
