Songwriter Rocky Block on Penning Hits for Country Stars Morgan Wallen & Cole Swindell and Why It’s Important for Writers to ‘Beat the AI Machine’

Songwriter Rocky Block just won his first CMA Triple Play Award earlier this year and has written hits for Morgan Wallen and Cole Swindell, but the Nashville native has been soaking in lessons and inspirations from Nashville’s musically creative community since he was a child. The son of late Western Beat radio/TV host, promoter and Americana/country music champion Billy Block, he grew up hearing the music and perspectives of artists and writers who would frequent their home.

“It made [a music and songwriting career] kind of feel attainable from a really young age. I got to ask a lot of questions and kind of learn through osmosis,” Block recalls to Billboard.

By age 12, he was playing in friends’ bands. “They are all literally writers in town now, like Jamie McLaughlin and Hank Compton,” he says of his former bandmates.

Those early bands played a range of styles, though, in a touch of rebellion, stayed away from country at first. “We played anything we were listening to growing up,” he says. “I had a bit of an aversion to [country] for a while as a teen, just because it was what my dad did and I wanted to be different. Luckily, I didn’t let that last too long.”

The CMA Triple Play Award, which recognizes writers who have written three No. 1 hits within a 12-month period, honors his work on the Morgan Wallen/Eric Church collaboration “Man Made a Bar,” the three-week Country Airplay No. 1 Post Malone/Blake Shelton collab “Pour Me a Drink,” and the Wallen/Ernest collaboration “Cowgirls.” Last year, he was also named the rising songwriter of the year winner by Association of Independent Music Publishers (AIMP) Nashville.

He’s co-written nine tracks on Wallen’s current I’m the Problem album, which spent two months atop the all-genre Billboard 200. Among his contributions are the Billboard Hot 100 top 5 hit “Smile,” “Dark Til Daylight,” “Genesis” and another Wallen/Church collaboration, “Number 3 and Number 7.” Block co-wrote four songs on Wallen’s previous album, 2023’s One Thing at a Time, as well as the Lil Durk/Wallen collaboration “Broadway Girls,” which topped the Billboard Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart.

“It’s rewarding and fulfilling,” Block says of writing songs with and for the reigning CMA entertainer of the year winner. “Obviously, the pressure’s on because you’re with Morgan Wallen, but the pressure’s also off in a sense because he’s so good as a writer. I want him to do what he wants to do and he makes that fun and easy.”

By the time Big Loud Publishing vp of A&R Mike Giangreco signed Block in 2020, following time spent playing bass with touring artists and an earlier publishing deal with Bob DiPiero’s Being Bob Music, Block already knew Big Loud artist-writer Ernest, and frequent Wallen producer Charlie Handsome, and quickly found a camaraderie with writers such as John Byron.

“The first day I walked into our first hang at Big Loud, it was kind of like that Spiderman meme where the three of them are looking at each other,” he recalls. “I was like, ‘‘You’re here and you’re here — let’s go!’ We were all still kind of new, young guys figuring it out. Meeting those guys as Morgan was starting to have a moment was just a blessing.”

Block says the creation of “Number 3 and Number 7” — a nod to the perils of drinking and driving — was the first song he wrote for I’m the Problem. “[Co-writer] Blake [Pendergrass] and I sat down in his spot over in Berry Hill [in Nashville] and we wrote ‘Number 3 and Number 7’ a week before Morgan’s last album [One Thing at a Time] came out [in 2023]. We wanted to do a song about drinking and driving and not glorifying it, obviously. But we were both itching to write something for him and we got that guitar part down and looped it and it was great.”

“Genesis” was Wallen’s idea. “He had a song called ‘Revelation’ and thought it would be cool to have them as kind of brother and sister songs,” Block says. “We didn’t need to say Genesis in the song, it just needed to be [the creation] story and we wanted to weave Morgan’s story into that. We were at the studio that day. He was cutting in the next room and he would pop back and forth between recording with the band and then coming and writing.”

Beyond his work with Wallen, Block’s writing credits also include numerous songs released as singles or included on albums by Jelly Roll (“Smile So Much”), Cody Johnson (“Whiskey Bent” feat. Jelly Roll), Cole Swindell (“Forever To Me”), Breland (“For What It’s Worth”), Chris Young (“Stop Coming Over”), Nelly and Kane Brown (“Grits & Glamour),” Ashley Cooke (“Under”) and several songs for Teddy Swims, including “Not Your Man” and “For The Rest of Your Life.”

As his career has continued to gain momentum, Block finds himself writing more frequently on the road. One of those last-minute bus trips led to the creation of Swindell’s hit “Forever to Me.” Greylan James, with whom he had written the Swindell cut “Left to Get Right,” reached out. “I didn’t know Cole very well. They were going on a bus run on a Saturday night and I got the call the day before and it was an obvious yes. So, Greylan really hooked me up with that one and I’m glad Cole decided to record it.”

Regardless of the setting, Block adheres to an early piece of songwriting advice that continues to shape his songwriting routine: the best way to improve is to write prolifically. “I still try to write at least a song a day during the week,” he says.

Though he was signed to an artist development deal at one point early in his career, Block is adamant that his career ambitions lie solely in the craft of songwriting.

“There’s no artist aspirations for me. When I was writing songs and trying to put the lens on it for me, everything was kind of that question of ‘Would I sing this?’ or ‘What is everyone going to think of me if I sing this song?’ I really enjoy not being wrapped up in much of that and just trying to write the song,” he says.

Over the years, Block says he’s shed the pressure some newer writers can feel to constantly prove their worth in the writing room, recognizing that sometimes the most meaningful contributions come from simply elevating others.

“I used to go into the room feeling like I had to convince people either that I was good or to just make sure I did enough. There’s been a couple conversations along the way where I was asking someone, ‘Why do you write with so-and-so so much?’ and they are like, ‘I’m way better when he’s here.’ That made me realize there are times where I don’t even have to do all the heavy lifting, I can just help someone else and make them better, and that’s what they need from me that day.”

Like most songwriters, he’s seeing the growth of artificial intelligence and its impact on music.

He questions what crosses over into copyright infringement with AI-generated music, but also sees the similarity between AI and human creation. “The making of new music based off of [AI]  learning everybody’s music, isn’t that kind of what I’m doing? I’m listening to a bunch of music and then making my own music,” he says. “I don’t use ChatGPT frequently at all, but I do like it as a rhymer, or maybe you need a list of idioms or something, but as far as AI starting to compete, it’s a slippery slope.”

Regardless of the swift changes in the songwriting landscape, his advice for newer writers remains the same as the advice he was given. “Write a bunch of songs. Get really good at it. Beat the machine. Have a more original thought. AI is going to get really good, but that means we need to get really good.”