A native of Roanoke, Virginia, Copperman played piano as a child, but began taking songwriting more seriously after he took a songwriting class at James Madison University in his college years. Arriving during the singer/songwriter boom of the early 2000s, he self-released his debut album, Believe, in 2004. A winning mix of hooky indie pop and melodic rock, it helped him net a major-label deal with Sony in the U.K. After moving to London for a few years, he released the more polished but similarly charming Welcome to Reality in 2007 and made a strong showing on the U.K. charts. Despite his success in England, he decided to move back to the States and give Nashville a go. Although he continued to occasionally release his own music, Copperman had tired of touring and shifted his focus to country songwriting and production. Already linked to an overseas publishing deal with EMI, he connected with their Nashville office and started to land a handful of cuts and co-writes.
His first charting co-write was a single called "Glass" for the duo Thompson Square, which reached number 15 on Billboard's Hot Country Songs chart in 2012. Before the year was out, he'd notched another hit, this time with Dierks Bentley's "Tip It on Back." Cuts for Kenny Chesney, Trisha Yearwood, and Florida Georgia Line followed as Copperman's star continued to rise. Meanwhile, he continued releasing his own music, turning out a pair of independent albums in 2012. Over the next few years, however, his reputation as an ace industry hitmaker was sealed with chart-topping singles for Billy Currington ("Don't It"), A Thousand Horses ("Smoke"), and a trio of hits for Brett Eldredge, whose 2015 album Illinois Copperman co-wrote and produced. 2016 brought a pair of Songwriter of the Year awards from the Academy of Country Music and BMI, along with more big hits like Jake Owen's "American Country Love Song" and Keith Urban's "John Cougar, John Deere, John 3:16." He continued to produce, working on albums for Darius Rucker, Brett Eldredge, and CCM artist Chris Tomlin, and won a 2017 GMA Dove Award for his work with the latter. The following year, Copperman co-wrote nearly half of Dierks Bentley's album The Mountain, as well as a single for Kenny Chesney and Eli Young Band. In 2019, he returned to his own work, releasing a trio of solo folk-pop singles, "All We Have Is Now," "We Should Plant a Tree," and "Stars Are on Your Side." In 2021 Copperman released the EP Somewhere There's a Light On, followed by the seasonal singles "Christmas Day" and "New Year," both of which appeared on the 2022 Holiday EP. ~ Timothy Monger, Rovi