Morgan Wallen has shared a touching tribute to one of his closest collaborators and friends, ERNEST, via a segment on the Sneedville native's Morgan Wallen Radio on SiriusXM.

Wallen and ERNEST have a formidable repertoire of hits together, both through co-writes and collaborations, with the duo linking up for ‘The Dealer’, ‘Cowgirls’ and ‘Flower Shops’.

Aside from that, they've joined forces in the writing room countless times, with ERNEST and Wallen penning now-iconic chart-toppers such as ’More Than My Hometown’, ‘Wasted On You’, ‘I Had Some Help’, ‘You Proof’, ‘I Got Better’ and ‘Somebody's Problem’.

Through their friendship and collaborative history with HARDY, another long-time buddy of both Wallen and ERNEST, the trio have established themselves as cornerstones of the contemporary country scene. Few artists or songwriters boast the number of smash hits that these three have in their arsenal, and what makes their partnerships in the studio all the more compelling is the fact that, even when they're not writing or recording, these country trailblazers are genuinely good pals.

Via Morgan Wallen Radio, Wallen reflects on what ERNEST means to him, “ERNEST, one of my best friends, one of the craziest, most talented in the world, and he has made such a huge impact on me as a performer [and] as a songwriter”.

Wallen goes on, “But also just as always being my friend, always someone that we can call each other. I know that we're gonna, you know, be here for each other at any moment”.

Wallen outlines how he and ERNEST became fathers at roughly the same time, with the ‘Last Night’ hitmaker citing their respective journeys into fatherhood as strengthening their bond.

The ‘Love Somebody’ crooner muses, “Also having children that are around the same age, you know...[It] seems like over the last ten years everything that's happened in our lives has just leant itself to us being close, and I'm glad. I'm happy for that”.

These new words of praise mirror Wallen's homage to these two Big Loud team-mates, ERN and HARDY, back in May, when he explained why he felt they were able to cultivate a unique songwriting blueprint and sound, “Me, HARDY and ERN have kind of just come up together from Day One almost. Just to see how far all three of us have come, it's really impressive. I'm proud of all three of us, you know”.

Wallen fondly expanded, “And I don't think we lack confidence in ourselves. Which has honestly helped, I would say, the confidence that we have in ourselves and in each other. The way that we've been not scared to try what we wanted to try, and a lot of times people try to prevent you from doing those things and no-one was able to do that with us. And I'm just really proud that we did what we wanted”.

We're still hoping that one day, we'll get a full collaborative song where Wallen, ERN and HARDY are all vocalists, as well as writers. When we asked the latter in 2022 about the prospect, he made it clear there was an appetite for this, sharing, “Yeah definitely - I kind of can't believe we haven't done that yet. But it's definitely going to happen...I can't wait for it...I feel like the three of us are doing something really cool, both together and separately. We've got to do a song together”.

Whether or not we ever get this collaboration, we're sure that Wallen's next chapter of music will bring with it a plethora of brilliant new co-writes with ERNEST and HARDY. And as with their previous material, we're sure that the most enchanting element will be the way in which their clear friendship radiates throughout each track.