ERNEST reintroduces 'Nashville, Tennessee' to the world with his latest country album

More than any other performer, ERNEST best represents how, in the next decade, the communal spirit driving country music in Nashville will likely redefine popular culture worldwide.

At present, he's written songs that have achieved over 25 times more sales success — somewhere in the range of 50-times platinum — than singles on which he has appeared as a vocalist himself.

However, on April 12 — via his sophomore album appropriately titled "Nashville, Tennessee" — ERNEST is prepared for a moment of breakout superstardom that could eclipse all prior success for himself and others.

It's an audacious moment, for sure. But it also arrives — as have all of his previous hits — with the caveat of ensuring that he's extended his hand deeper into Music City's seemingly almost never-ending well of creators. This collective is motivated by expanding the breadth of potential for Nashville and country music to redefine America's pop cultural expectations overall.

"Country music is going to do for America what Taylor Swift did for the NFL," jokes the performer, 32, born Ernest Keith Smith in Nashville's suburbs.

A circle closes, a star rises

"Nashville, Tennessee" represents "the most selfish" that the artist — who counts "Flower Shops" (featuring Morgan Wallen) and a co-writing credit on Kane Brown's chart-topper "One Mississippi" as part of his breakout two years ago — has ever been in his creative process.

It is impressive for a songwriter of his caliber to be crafting a 26-track artist album in plain view of a town that has come to depend upon his pen to fuel its commercial expansion.

A process that involved getting his songs quickly written, recorded, mixed and mastered before they were even known to be written — plus intentionally limiting his closest circle of songwriting clients to Jelly Roll, Post Malone and Wallen for the past year — was noteworthy.

Contemplating the heights to which 2023 found the connective power of his work arriving, he may have crafted an album for himself that has a group of songs capable of eclipsing multi-diamond level sales certification. He's done this while working with artists whose appeal, at present, is in the equivalent of over a third of a billion albums and singles sold.

'I Went to College / I Went to Jail'

The album starts with ERNEST's latest Jelly Roll collaboration, "I Went to College / I Went to Jail."

The bluesy, outlaw and countrified drinking anthem does not merely celebrate honest songwriting. Impressively, a song that arrived while ERNEST and Luke Bryan were conversing about the former's long-standing friendship with the Grammy-nominated Nashville native chart-topper and enjoying a drunken round of golf could also be the song that catapults Nashville over the top and allows the city's national popularity a downhill-traveling snowball of momentum.

The song highlights dropping out of college, incarceration, marijuana use, and an homage to the 2021 smash hit they wrote together, "Son of a Sinner."

Another moment in the song highlights something deeper.

ERNEST says he "could've been a doctor." Jelly Roll replies that he "should've been dead."

"It's a light-hearted but true tale of both sides of Nashville's imperfections," says ERNEST.

In short, the song is 2024's most unexpected post-millennial unifying cry.

Golden era revival

ERNEST's mindset is to meet and exceed Nashville's vaunted standard of excellence without resorting to "fads."

You'll be sadly mistaken if you look for trap's TR-808 drum machines or the considerable influences of contemporary pop's many flavors on this album.

"Trying to throw a dart at a moving target is a waste of time," says ERNEST.

Instead, he's writing with country's golden era in mind.

Given that he name-drops Merle Haggard, Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Mel Tillis, Lefty Frizzell, George Jones, and Roger Miller and then adds that he hasn't attempted to listen to any country songs released since 1995 in the past year, he's aiming for a five-decade golden window that opens in 1945.

A soulful father, husband and creator

A trio of ERNEST's interests — as a father, husband and modern soul music aficionado — coalesce alongside a guiding love of five decades of country music on the release.

Ask him about the Venn diagram space between Delaney Royer, his wife of seven years, their almost 3-year-old son, Ryman, and 1995's "Space Jam" soundtrack, including songwriter Dianne Warren, producer David Foster and All-4-One, D'Angelo, Monica and Seal (among many) — something hilarious happens.

"You see, it's like when your kid takes all of the colors out of all of the Play-Doh containers, then shoves them all back into one container," he starts.

Uproarious laughter arrives as ERNEST realizes that being a doting parent — as much as the "Space Jam" soundtrack featuring Seal's cover of the Steve Miller Band's "Fly Like an Eagle" — now defines much of his humanity.

To wit, that's Ryman Saint Smith singing "Twinkle, Twinkle" alongside his father — live at Boston's Fenway Park, no less — on the album.

On multiple occasions during the conversation, he cites his "infatuation" with how this maturation has enhanced his personal and professional existence.

"Great country music is the combination of blues, folk, gospel and soul music," says ERNEST, diving back into a point.

"I've got a lot of colors mashed into that Play-Doh container, that's for sure."

Multi-generational work

ERNEST's latest album and related work aim to maintain Nashville's tethering to its legendary history while wholly embracing the soul of the city's future.

Lukas Nelson's appearance on swinging Western honky-tonker "Why Dallas," HARDY joining for a bluegrass-tinged cover of Radiohead's "Creep," plus a revival of his 2023-released cover of John Mayer's hit "Slow Dancing in a Burning Room" highlight the dynamics allowed by leaning deep and long into Nashville's past, present and future.

The historical revival of five decades of Nashville influences is more deeply multi-generational, too.

Dean Dillon penned ERNEST and 2023 Country Music Association Entertainer of the Year Lainey Wilson's love ballad duet "Would if I Could" three decades ago. The writer, also famed for co-writing "Tennessee Whiskey" and George Strait's "The Chair" (among many classics), is present on the album alongside the work of his daughter, 2024 Grammy-nominated Songwriter of the Year Jessie Jo Dillon.

As well, Nashville Songwriters Hall of Famer and 2000s country favorite Rivers Rutherford (2001's "Ain't Nothing 'Bout You" for Brooks and Dunn and "Real Good Man" by Tim McGraw a year later) and his son, Rhys (Bailey Zimmerman's "Is This Really Over?" among a growing catalog), are among many creators "critical to Nashville's DNA and (thus) deserving to be featured" on "Nashville, Tennessee."

Continuing the legacy

Alongside his work as a singer and songwriter, for the past 18 months, the Big Loud-signed performer has been managing Ern's Cadillac Music, his publishing venture, in partnership with his record label.

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The previously mentioned Rhys Rutherford joins skilled songwriter — and his in-studio and touring steel guitar player — Chandler Walters, Kentucky-born artist-writer Cody Lohden, and his friend Mitchell Tenpenny's highly touted brother and Nashville native Rafe Tenpenny as early Ern's Cadillac Music signees.

He met Tenpenny on an elementary school football field. As for Walters and Lohden, he connected with them via social media. To ERNEST, local ties with personal impact inspire national hits with global appeal.

The depths of ERNEST's talent development aims and iconic Music City cosigns do not stop there.

During CMA Fest week 2024, ERNEST replaces 2000s-era ACM, ASCAP, CMA, Nashville Songwriters Association International-awarded and multiple-decade-defining songwriter Craig Wiseman as the creator behind the decade-plus-old Stars for Second Harvest benefit. The event supports Second Harvest's mission to provide food to people facing hunger and advance hunger solutions in Middle and West Tennessee.

Regarding his work at present, he counts it as a "mind-blowing blessing" to be able to serve as both an A and R and mentor to "special" talents whom he feels can become influential contributors to the family-style community he hopes to continue to foster in Nashville's pop-aimed country music realm.

'Anything can happen'

"For years, I've had a chip on my shoulder as a creative (hustling to prove themselves). It's allowed me [to arrive at a place] as an artist where I still humbly show up every day," says ERNEST about what remains of the motivations that led him to his initial success just over a half-decade ago.

About how swiftly a multitude of hit songs and being seen worldwide by nearly 3 million fans while headlining tours and opening for Morgan Wallen has accelerated his arc toward superstardom, he points at April's forthcoming "Nashville, Tennessee" release.

"My album might not hit the way it's about to if it were dropped any sooner," he continues.

He believes he manifested the record to completion.

However, that still required one fundamental piece of effort.

"Nothing happens if you don't show up," he says, "and anything can happen if you do."

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: ERNEST's newest album has Jelly Roll, Post Malone, HARDY collabs