His Past Is Hidden No More: Hit Songwriter Ross Copperman Opens Up as He Releases a Surprising Pop EP

In the dozen years that Ross Copperman has risen to become among Nashville's most successful songwriters and producers, he had a secret — and he hid it from Kenny Chesney, Dierks Bentley, Keith Urban, Kelsea Ballerini and all the other stars who've sought out his gifts.

He was a pop star has-been.

How could they not know that the guy who co-wrote Chesney's "Get Along" and Urban's "John Cougar, John Deere, John 3:16" was once a signed recording artist with a couple of bona fide hits? It was an easy thing to hide: His entire career, in his early 20s, took place in the United Kingdom.

But more to the point, why did the 38-year-old Copperman, who's notched 30 No. 1s as a country songwriter, want to keep this a secret?

"I had this odd thought that Keith Urban and Dierks Bentley can't know that I'm an artist, too," Copperman tells PEOPLE. "Then they won't want to write with me, or Dierks would never let me produce his album. I fully shifted my focus to being taken seriously ... so I buried it."

Self-reflective days in quarantine, however, had a way of focusing Copperman's mind on his hidden past and neglected passion. And so it is that he is finally excavating his former life and pushing it into the present with the Friday release of Somewhere There's a Light On, a pop EP coming out 14 years after his last heyday as an artist.

"This has been my dream," he says, "since I got out of my last record deal."

This time around, though, is a lot different, Copperman notes. Back then, he knows now, he was too young, too green and — he readily admits — too full of himself to navigate the high-stakes career.

A native of Roanoke, Virginia, he studied classical and jazz piano in college before setting his sights on pop. At age 22, he struck pay dirt in a Los Angeles audition with a British label, ending up with a record deal, a cushy stipend and a London flat.

At the time, his goal was "worldwide superstardom," at least according to a 2007 print interview that's still floating around the Internet. When Copperman hears his long-ago quote, his jaw drops, and he claps his hands to his face.

"I'm so embarrassed!" he finally blurts. "But that's how I felt. That's how I was. That's also kind of what it takes. You've got to have that crazy attitude."

He fed the craziness, he says now, with a rock 'n' roll lifestyle that he thought was a requirement. He recalls the wild times — hanging out backstage with The Who's Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey, getting wasted with Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder, leaving a show with a passed-out Amy Winehouse in the van seat beside him. He winces remembering how he swigged from a wine bottle onstage, performing drunk.

"I wasn't the best version of myself," Copperman says, "and I just was kind of caving into myself."

Then, after two top 15 hits, his career stalled out. "I didn't know what it took to keep it going forward," he says. "I probably panicked and just left. I went back to Virginia and moved in with my mom."

It was, he says, "probably my lowest point." But within a couple of months, he had regrouped and set his sights on becoming a country singer-songwriter in Nashville. The performing part of that plan, however, fizzled soon after his move.

"I'm not a country artist," he says pragmatically. "I guess I figured it out pretty quickly. I just looked inside of myself and realized it's not authentically who I am. I couldn't go do a radio tour, and I just knew I couldn't sing those songs."

But Copperman soon discovered he'd moved to Nashville at a time, in the late 2000s, when country music was undergoing a sonic shift. A new generation of songwriters was beginning to infuse country with a pop vibe — and that, he knew, was in his wheelhouse.

Hearing Keith Urban's songs, he says, was a turning point: "I'm just like, wow, that's country music? I like that. I can do that. And I hit the ground running a gazillion miles a minute."

Songwriting mentors plugged him in to the Nashville scene, and he hustled for the next four years, finally breaking through on the charts with Thompson Square's "Glass." Two years later, in 2013, he scored his first No. 1 with Brett Eldredge's "Beat of the Music." The hits have just kept coming, and he's moved on to experience comparable success as a producer.

Though his artist aspirations lay dormant, he realizes now he's been absorbing lessons for years from the masters. From Keith Urban, whom he's written for and produced, he's learned "basically how to push the envelope, how to keep fighting musically, and how to not be afraid to try crazy things."

From Dierks Bentley, he says, he's learned "authenticity — how to truly know who you are as an artist and a human and how to set your mind to something and just go after it with every ounce of your spirit. I've learned how to make albums from that guy."

Kelsea Ballerini, whom he's written with frequently, has offered lessons "in lyric and melody and confidence. I've learned a lot about confidence from her in seeing how confident she is."

Eldredge, who's relied heavily on Copperman for both writing and producing, has taught Copperman "how to trust myself. Brett's always believed in me as a songwriter, so I've learned how to believe in myself from Brett."

And from Gabby Barrett, whose debut album was produced and co-written by Copperman, he's learned "how to know what you want and how to make it happen. She knows exactly how she wants something to sound, and she knows how to communicate it."

Serendipitously, it was a British pop idol, Ed Sheeran, who offered Copperman perhaps his greatest lesson from an artist — that he didn't have to let go of his original dreams after all. The two co-wrote several songs during a Sheeran foray to Nashville about three years ago. Sheeran's goal at the time was to write country hits, and in fact, one song from the sessions has ended up on a Ballerini album ("love and hate") and another on a Chesney project ("Tip of My Tongue").

But for Copperman, two other co-writes, titled "Electricity" and "Therapy," grabbed at his heart. "It was the first time I had songs that felt like me as an artist," he says. "I was like, this is everything that I want to say and sound like."

Yet ever the songwriter-producer, Copperman aggressively pitched them around Nashville. "I sent them to every artist," he recalls. "I'm like, 'Do you guys realize how good these songs are? These are great songs, man!'"

Last year, with still no takers, Copperman found himself with quarantine time on his hands and an itch he finally had scratch. He recorded his own version of both songs. Then he did something out of character: He sent them to his manager. In turn, the manager did something unexpected: He told Copperman he thought the songs should be released.

"He believed in me and believed in my voice," says Copperman. "That's all it takes — one person believing in you."

But there were still hurdles. Copperman needed Sheeran's blessing, and he says he lost several nights' sleep worrying that he wouldn't get it. "That was the scariest email I'd ever written: 'Hey, Ed, what would you think if I put these songs out?'" Copperman recalls. "He wrote me right back: 'Dude, I'm so excited! You're going to be in the artist seat again, man. It must feel so good. I'm so happy for you.'"

"I couldn't believe it," says Copperman.

He cleared yet another hurdle when he attracted an independent label. "I'm 38 years old," Copperman says incredulously, "and I signed a record deal."

He relished surprising his artist friends with the news. "They didn't even know I was an artist," he says, "and I was like, 'Guys, I got a record deal.' They're like, 'What?'"

Bentley, Copperman says, was "the most excited." Chesney teased Copperman that he'd now be hoarding his best songs for himself. Urban astutely observed, "This must be the most cathartic thing you've done."

"That just made me cry to hear him say that," says Copperman, "because it was such a cathartic process — just making music for myself again."

Along with the two Sheeran songs (also co-written with Snow Patrol's Johnny McDaid), Copperman has rounded out the EP with two more unrecorded treasures long socked away and one song written during last year's lockdown. All five percolate with the hooky tunes and sunny lyrics that have long attracted country fans to Copperman-composed songs. But this time, it's Copperman in command, laying his warm and breezy tenor vocals over electronic accompaniment to create a distinctive pop sound.

All the songs are love themed. As always, Katlin, his wife of 11 years and the mother of their three children, has provided his muse (and she even appears in the recently released "Electricity" music video). He credits her for much of his Nashville success. "When we got married, good things started happening," says the obviously still smitten Copperman. Without her, he wryly adds, "I'd probably be living with my mom right now!"

Copperman says he has realistic hopes for his new music. Unlike his first stint as a pop artist, "I'm not trying to get famous," he says. "My goal has always been to put out songs that uplift people. I just want to get to the point where I can put out songs that mean something."

He imagines the EP as a "launch pad" to release even more music and eventually do theater touring, perhaps emulating the career of Lori McKenna, the "Humble and Kind" songwriter who's recorded several critically acclaimed albums and also tours occasionally.

"It's something I've always wanted to do," Copperman says. "I've always wanted a platform where, if I write a song that I love, I could sing it. I want to put it out for me. I want to reap those rewards."

Still, Urban, Chesney, Bentley and the rest need not worry that Copperman will be forsaking them for this new branch of his career. He's clear about where he draws his professional identity from the most.

"It all flows from being a songwriter," he says. "That's what I love. I'm a songwriter. I'll always be a songwriter first."