“I Love Those Boys”: Lainey Wilson on Her Friendship with Morgan Wallen and HARDY

Lainey Wilson has reflected on her experience touring with Morgan Wallen and HARDY while all three artists were coming up, with Wilson underlining her love for them both.

Wilson and Wallen have been touring since 2019, with some fantastic videos existing online of two of modern country's biggest stars performing to tiny, sparse audiences. Similarly, Wilson and HARDY have been buddies for years too, with HARDY often joining Wallen's tours too. Wilson and HARDY famously dropped ‘wait in the truck’ in 2022, a song that arrived as the ‘Country's Cool Again’ hitmaker was beginning to cement herself as an Entertainer of the Year winner-in-waiting.

During the newly shared video, recorded during one of Wilson's live shows, the Louisiana native explains, “I'll say, touring with Morgan and HARDY. The first time I got to tour with them was the top of 2019, and it was just me and my guitar and we were playing 1,000 capacity rooms. So it's crazy to see just how far that they have come, really in a short amount of time. I mean, it has not taken any time”.

The ‘Heart Like a Truck’ singer-songwriter shares how she'd warn them that she was hot on their heels, “But I tell them all the time, I'm like, ‘I'm coming for y'all. Y'all better sit down’”.

Now, of course, Wilson is one of the most well-known names in today's Nashville landscape, with many considering her the modern-day Queen of Country, meaning she certainly followed through on her promise to catch up to Wallen and HARDY.

Wilson goes on to stress how much she appreciates their lasting friendship, “I love those boys. They're something”. They're still good buddies to this day, with Wilson joining Wallen in 2024 for a spellbinding duet rendition of the latter's ‘Lies, Lies, Lies’.

The 2023 and 2025 CMA Entertainer of the Year then recalls the amusing - and admittedly bizarre - way in which Wallen and HARDY would hype each other up ahead of their performances, “Before they would go out on stage, they would smack each other as hard as they possibly could on the back of the neck, so they were ‘rednecks’”.

She jokes that she told them to watch themselves and be careful not to ever try something like that with her, “I dare y'all to hit me on the neck...Y'all gonna be going out there limping”.

Given how Wilson and Wallen are two of the primary flag-bearers for contemporary country music, while HARDY remains a cornerstone of Nashville's songwriting scene and a key pioneer in the intersection between country and rock, we'd love to see these three trailblazers joining forces once again very soon.

In particular, a collaboration between Wilson and Wallen would surely be a momentous event for country music. Given how beautifully their voices complemented one another during their 2024 duet, we think a joint song would sound incredible.