Ryan Hurd Is Nashville’s Next Big Thing

Chances are you may not know who Ryan Hurd is, but more than likely, you’ve heard some of the songs he’s written. The Illinois native has earned cuts by Tim McGraw, Jake Owen, Florida Georgia Line, Rascal Flatts, Randy Houser, Darius Rucker, The Cadillac Three, Brothers Osborne and the Swon Brothers, just to name a few. He even earned his first No.1 with the Grammy-nominated track “Lonely Tonight,” recorded by Blake Shelton and Ashley Monroe.

After making a name for himself in the songwriting community, Hurd is ready to step out on his own as an artist and is currently working on a new album. Though he’s well on his way to becoming one of Music City’s hottest new artists, having a career in country music wasn’t in his original plan.

“I came to Nashville just to go to college. I didn’t do any music or anything there. I got a degree in sociology and econ[omics]. I was going to go to grad school,” Hurd recently shared with Sounds Like Nashville. However, something was holding him back from committing to that next step. “I just couldn’t pull the trigger on doing it. I went and worked for my buddy for like six months.”

That’s when he got into writing songs with his friends Joey Hyde and Aaron Eshuis.

“We all kind of got our start together. Then Joey signed a publishing deal first, then I did, then Aaron did, kind of at the same time. Then we started getting cuts together. Then last year, I had a run with like three or four things on the radio and ended up having a No.1 song with Blake. I kind of just got the bug to try it on my own.”

Hurd and Eshuis continued working together to create Hurd’s four-song EP, Panorama, and thus sealed the deal for him in his path to become an artist.

“I just picked five songs that I thought represented me as a writer. I kind of got through every step and I don’t want to stop doing it. So we made the record and did a release show and it sold out and then we did the next thing and the next thing and had agents that wanted to work with us. Every step, it was just really validating and now we’re here and starting to make our own record this summer, which is really fun. We already started and it’s been really exciting.”

The validation in Hurd’s work kept snowballing. As he prepared to release his five songs, he got a note that Dierks Bentley wanted to record one for his latest project.

“I just wrote the song for my record and we made a master recording of it. We put it out in Nashville just on a disc. As soon as I recorded it, we got the note that Dierks had recorded it, that he was going to put it on his record,” he explained of the track “I’ll Be The Moon.”

“I was sitting at a bar with Maren Morris and we both kind of had a hard day,” he recalled. “I remember, we were having a beer just talking and she got a text on her phone that was sitting in between us. It just said ‘Hey man, this is Dierks. I’d love for you to listen to a song that I’m thinking about doing as a duet and would love for you to sing on it. Would you consider it? Can I send it?’”

The two sat with each other, stunned at what had just happened, when Maren said “I bet that’s your song.”

“And two seconds later, she gets and email from Dierks Bentley and it says ‘I’ll Be The Moon.’ She obviously said yes right away. It was really cool the way they did it as a duet. I’m really proud of the recording and proud that she’s on it,” he said.

What Bentley didn’t know at the time was that Morris had also been featured on Hurd’s recording of the song.

“She sang on my version of it too, and Dierks didn’t know that. It’s just purely coincidental and circumstantial that, well actually, that’s not true. I think it was some sort of universal force that caused that to happen, but it’s really cool to have that together,” he said humbly. “That’s a huge career cut too. And it’s one of the best songs I’ve ever written. I’m really proud of it and proud of our version and it got me to this point. I’m proud of have a cut on that record, which I think is great.”

The cut on Dierks’ record BLACK wasn’t the first time Hurd and Morris had worked together either. They also earned a cut on Tim McGraw’s record Sundown Heaven Town with “Last Turn Home” and wrote a song on Morris’ debut album, HERO.

“We wrote ‘I Wish I Was’ together. I remember it was my last co-write of 2014 and it was the first song she had ever held for herself,” he explained. “She’s like ‘I want this for my project.’ To have it be the one song that kind of stuck through the first round of recordings, like that recording she made of that song is made the record basically. That’s the only one from that batch that did. To have it become what is essentially the title track is really special too.”

While pieces of Hurd can be heard in many different places, the budding country star assures fans that he’s working on a record of his own.

“I have it halfway mapped out and we can go any direction with the other half. I’m working with Aaron Eshuis, who’s going to produce it and some other people to work on some specific tracks. Matt Dragstrem and busbee are going to be a part of it. All of those people are incredible producers and writers and techs in town. So it’s kind of fun to be able to conceptualize it and say ‘this can be anything that I want. I can work with anyone that I want.’ I’ve never felt more free creatively, I suppose.  This is a really cool moment.”