Dan + Shay sit down with Bobby Bones and share an inside look of everything going on in their lives. They get vulnerable and share why they almost broke up, the moment they hit rock bottom and started to resent music, until a 3am talk saved the duo and their friendship. Dan also shares why he cut his hair and Shay details how getting sober and cutting sugar out of his diet changed his life. They also give a behind the scenes look of them joining 'The Voice' and what it's like being the first duo chair, and they talk about their new album Bigger Houses, out September 15th and more!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
Guy knew he was burnout.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
I didn't know the extent of what was going on,
but he texted me and was like, hey, man, you
want to come over tonight in my heart of heart.
So I was like, I think that this might be
the end of our band.
Speaker 3 (00:16):
Episode four thirteen with Dan and Shay your thoughts on
this interview, Mike.
Speaker 4 (00:22):
They seem like completely different people, like the same people,
but like just so much like better and nicer and cooler.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
Like healthier. Yeah, and then you get jealous that you're
not as healthy. I get jealous I'm not as healthy,
But yeah, I agree. And they both look different too,
they do, so I guess maybe that's part of it
as well. And we go to that just at the
very beginning, because it's like, let's get all the really
superficial stuff out of the way. Dan, you cut your hair,
what the heck, Shae, you cut your body or you
(00:50):
lost all the weight, and what the heck, let's go.
We talked about that a bunch and they were very
open about it, and I do feel good about our
conversation about how they really got to a point in
their relationship where they almost broke up. Yeah, my wife
and Dan's wife are very close and so I knew
a lot of that stuff as it was happening, but
not my business. I didn't know what they were gonna do.
(01:12):
I don't know if they were going to break up.
I don't know if Dan was like I'm retiring, we'll
hold off for a while. But you know, I'm glad
they really went into it here with me, and I
think that since we kind of have that relationship, they
were able to do that a little safer.
Speaker 5 (01:27):
Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 3 (01:28):
So we do an hour over an hour with Dan
and Shay. Listen known these guys forever. They have a
new record that's out September fifteenth, so by the time
you hear this, it may already be out. The week
it's released, it's not out yet.
Speaker 5 (01:42):
But I don't know.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
I don't know what else to say except let's just
get to it. They are two of the judges now
in the Voice, but they're one judge. They're each half
a judge. How does that sound?
Speaker 5 (01:50):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (01:50):
One button, one button, two people. You guys went here,
and Shay was very honest about how you know, he
never really thought about being on the Voice and was like,
I don't know if that interested me, and then when
they said, hey, it may be an option, like it's
all I ever wanted to do in my whole life.
That Yeah, that's kind of how it works in my
head too. So okay, here we go. The new album,
Bigger House is coming out. They got a bunch of
new great music. They have a mini documentary called The Drive,
which came out in July on social media. Check it
(02:13):
out here. They are Dan and Shay. I've got allergies
pretty bad and I'm not hurting. But if I sound
like I'm about to cry.
Speaker 5 (02:20):
It's because we made you so much, not because you're here.
Speaker 3 (02:22):
I mean, it could be because you're here.
Speaker 5 (02:24):
Look at that picture looking over your shoulder, man, and it'll
do it to you.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
Yeah. I look at that in that states here all
the times just happened to come in here.
Speaker 5 (02:31):
But this picture is always up a you cho. I
saw it in TRS interview. I was like, what's that picture?
Speaker 3 (02:35):
Other people come over and it's just they're like, why
is there always a picture of Dan and Shay in here?
So so it's the allergies I was in. I was
in therapy two days ago, and I have a real
problem with crying. Not because it's a masculine thing, but
because it's a vulnerability thing. And so I always tell
my therapists like, I would love to cry more like,
(02:55):
I would love to not be embarrassed of crying. Not
because it's a masculinity thing. I don't have a dad,
but because again, I'm just scared of like being weak
and vulnerable. And my allergies got so bad that my
therapist thought I was crying and I was like, breakthrough.
Speaker 5 (03:11):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
It was like.
Speaker 3 (03:14):
It was like, see, look see how easy this is.
This is working, and I'm like, what see, how see
let's see your emotional nobody's judging you. I'm like, I
got allergies, bro. So that's where we are right now.
Good to see you guys too.
Speaker 5 (03:25):
Man, thanks for having us.
Speaker 3 (03:26):
It is I mean, I'll start Danielson closest. I guess
I haven't seen your hair in real life since you
cut it. I saw a video that maybe Caitlin had
where there's a deer in new yard and your dogs
were chasing it. It was the first time I saw
your hair because you ran out the security.
Speaker 5 (03:44):
Yeah, that was ridiculous. That was ridiculous hair.
Speaker 3 (03:46):
That was good.
Speaker 5 (03:47):
Thanks man. I'm just trying to steal your hairstyle.
Speaker 3 (03:49):
I don't do the thing. How big decision to cut it?
Or was it we're finished with this season? This hair
was growing for this season, let's cut it.
Speaker 5 (04:00):
Yeah. I feel like it was just a fresh start. Honestly,
like the music sounds a little bit different. It was
just it was an opportunity to, you know, start from scratch.
And the long hair was really a hassle. It was
a pain. I mean it was.
Speaker 3 (04:10):
It was a whole thing, just a routine you had
to do.
Speaker 5 (04:12):
It had a routine, especially before shows or before like
a TV thing. It's like over an hour's worth of
you know, you wash it and you put something in it,
let it curl up a little bit, and then you
curl it a little more. It was just a process.
I was calculating the amount of hours a year I
was spending on my hair. It was just way too much.
I was getting weeks back when I cut.
Speaker 3 (04:30):
It, and probably a lot of money because you have
to buy products are not cheap. No, even for my hair,
they're not cheap. And I don't have I mean to have.
Speaker 5 (04:37):
See, I wish I was a hat guy. I look
at all these other acts in their hat Guys, I
feel like that takes so much pressure off. You leave
the house, you just throw on a hat. It's like, man,
that guy's killing it.
Speaker 3 (04:44):
Or even just a temporary hat guy or an occasional
hat guy. Yeah, So if you're not feeling it, you
still had on. Yeah, But guys, then you're committed to
hat because if you're like a like Dustin Lynch, I'm
always like, you know, Dustin hates one of the Keble
hit every single freaking night he's performing, and.
Speaker 5 (04:57):
He's carrying it around in that verse.
Speaker 3 (04:59):
Somebody, and you know, he'd sometimes like to be like
I just like to either have my hair or wear
a ball cap.
Speaker 5 (05:04):
And he has good hair too, yep. But you either
got to be full hat.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
Yeah, you can't.
Speaker 5 (05:09):
You can't. You can't be.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
Somewhere in the middle. It's it's like Eric Church and sunglasses.
When do you see him without it, You're like, what
is what do you? How dare you? You're almost offended?
Speaker 5 (05:17):
How are you not wear sunglasses?
Speaker 1 (05:19):
In here?
Speaker 3 (05:19):
We were at Pebble Beach together, Eric Church and I.
We were there was before a part three. We were
both playing this part three like Championship, and I was
talking to Eric because he lives near me. I'm gonna
say where anybody lives. Nobody knows where I live. So
we were talking about that and I just remember thinking,
this is not the Chief. This is a guy in
a golf shirt that's just like Eric is there on
(05:43):
the Chief one the Chief.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
You know, it's the most like it was the most
relatable when I saw him golfing, which I feel like
when you first get into golf, I know that you've
seen this before too. When you're first getting in, it's
super intimidating because you just think everyone's way better than you,
and then you get in, you're like, so everyone just
kind of sucks. And I remember watching him I think
it was out the Pebble Beach one and it was
just like they went to him right on camera on
(06:06):
TV and the broadcast and he just hits, you know,
a stinger, but.
Speaker 3 (06:10):
It was it was like it was yeah, that's what
the kids say, you know, yeah.
Speaker 5 (06:12):
This is a stinger.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
And he just hit it like on the ground, like
thirty free feet in front in front of him, and
it was incredible.
Speaker 5 (06:18):
I remember the most relatable.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
Thing like what's your handicap? And when he said it,
I was like oh you're You're like me. I remember
thinking I don't really consider interest me anything like me.
But I was like, oh, you're like me. I just
want to do all the superficial questions up front. So Shaye,
at this point, you freaking ripped you fit?
Speaker 1 (06:36):
What's the deal like trying to get there?
Speaker 3 (06:38):
What are you doing now?
Speaker 2 (06:39):
So it kind of started out I was just fasting.
Speaker 5 (06:42):
I just i'd cut out alcohol.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
So I've been a year sober and I didn't really
set out to do that. And I was talking to
Jake on about this because I he went sober and
asking him kind of about that and my life is
just better without it. And I started six months was
kind of my goal of like, I'm not going to
drink and I'm going to do some fasting and just
eat whole foods and cut out sugar and all that,
and that worked. I In six months, I think it was,
(07:05):
I'd lost about sixty pounds and I was like, well
that was awesome, and I just felt better mentally. And
so after that, I kind of started actually going to
the gym with a trainer and started trying to put
on muscle, and that's kind of where I'm at right now.
My goal is like by next you know, summer, if
we go on the road to just be offensively ripped,
you know, like a Riley Green, he's.
Speaker 3 (07:26):
Offensive, annoying, like we have to Yeah, we can't even
address it. We're so annoyed by it.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
You can't even talk about it.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
Where it's like I don't understand why you even walked
into this room, like you should have wore long sleeves,
like we were all talking about it. It's the elephant
in the room, kind of ripped, like a temagraw ripped.
Speaker 5 (07:40):
I love the comments when Riley Green posts a picture,
it's like, yo, man, my girlfriend's on this app. Yeah,
like that's the level you gotta get to.
Speaker 3 (07:45):
Well, it's also too it's Riley or any of the
even Sam or whomever. You're just sure they get it
all the time because they are so ripped and so
good looking. You're like, I don't want to talk about
how good looking or even mention it because they have
to get it all the time.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
It wasn't the first time they've heard it, and maybe
in that hour right like people probably just like tech,
I imagine they get texted of like hey dude, like
what's the deal you know what I mean, why are
you so ripped.
Speaker 3 (08:08):
Just cutting all that stuff? Just as an I fasted
a bunch depending on I try to healthily fast depending
on what project I'm working on, or even for clarity
in my mind, Like I do find that when I'm fasting,
I do think clearer. And I don't know if it's
because of what I'm not eating or because of what
I am eating or the hours that I'm eating. And
I've read a lot of different studies and read about
(08:30):
European soccer teams that have done a lot of fasting. Yeah,
because it's way more of a European thing than it
is an American thing. But Mike d who produces this,
and it's like my main guy. I mean, he lost
one hundred pounds by by just going I'm not drinking
sodas anymore and walking and he went from there. Were
you able to see small growth like that? And that's
(08:50):
what kind of kept you in.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
It was for sure. The fasting thing is super interesting
because I've read a lot on it.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
You know, you do all this.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
I did research on it of like what is fasting?
What are you getting from it? Is it just to
lose weight? And there was At first, it was just
like the weight loss, and I was also walking.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
I would walk.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
I told myself if I could walk seven miles a
day that that would do something, just to see what
it would do.
Speaker 5 (09:12):
So I was.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
Walking seven miles like on a treadmill or outside, depending
like weather, and I would usually end up just walking
on a treadmill for seven hours and I'd catch up
on my shows and all that kind of stuff because
I never had that time to just be in one
place and it just kind of.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
It fell off.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
But yeah, I saw just a small growth, you know.
Mentally was the first thing. I think that kind of
was improved where I was like I can It sounds stupid,
but like I was remembering stuff a lot better, and
I didn't think that I had like a bad memory,
so like short term especially, like I was just like, oh,
that's kind of strange, Like I know I can remember
(09:48):
that whatever it was, like phone numbers from back in
the day.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
Like my brain was just functioning at a higher level.
Speaker 3 (09:53):
Maybe no sugar though, too, Like that's a big one
because sugar is such a freaking and I would eat
all day every day and sometimes I do, but it's
the worst and it's gonna in my what I've said
for a long time about this is and I could
be wrong, but in ten fifteen years, we're going to
look at sugar maybe twenty the same way that we
now look at cigarettes. But we're like they just all
(10:14):
doctor smoked cigarettes, and like I said, this is a
cigarette I would recommend, like sugar is awful and awesome.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
I could literally talk about that all day long because
I went down the rabbit hole of like sugar and
what that is and just and I won't spend too
much time talking about this because I'll spend an hour
talking about it. But the processed foods and things that
we have on the shelves, I mean, it's ninety nine
percent of the stuff that we have. It's so much
junk because it all turns into sugar at the end
of the day.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
And it was wild going down that rabbit hole.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
And my sister did a diet called like the candy
to diet, which is like basically cutting out all sugar,
and she had Crowns disease. And she's talked about this
publicly before, like she's like had Crowns disease, limes disease,
and ulcerative colitis, and she did that with the cutting
out sugar completely and anything that turned into sugar, and
she got rid of literally all of those things.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
And it's pretty wild.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
To look at, you know, using food as medicine rather
than kind of the first instinct to go to, you know,
straight medicine.
Speaker 5 (11:08):
It was wild to just cut out sugar.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
What that did for her personally and what it did
for me, I mean just thinking clearer and being motivated.
And I think fasting also has a lot to do
with a lot of the energy I was feeling and
just like the focus. But there's all kinds of science
behind that. But it was really I started to see
it in small ways, and then after six months it
was a massive I mean a little bit every day,
(11:30):
a small percentage. You look back in six months and
I just didn't recognize myself now, you know, it being
a little over a year, I literally don't feel like
the same guy. It's kind of why, I mean, I
look completely different. But it also just like the way
that I think and approach life and the way I
approach music, like I'm obsessed now where it's like I
want to take this whole deal as kind of a
(11:51):
athletic feat you know, to be able to be a
musician and we're playing shows, we're running around on stage
like I want to take that kind of approach like
athlete would, taking it very seriously of like, all right,
our fans deserve, you know, our best performances, and to
do that, I need to be at my peak performance
of whatever that looks like. It doesn't have to be
(12:11):
getting shredded, but just being prepared and making sure that
I'm you know, taking the time to work on myself
in those ways and mentally is a big part of that.
Speaker 1 (12:20):
All those things go together.
Speaker 3 (12:21):
I think, yeah, health, mental health. You feel like it's
affected your mental health in a good way.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
One hundred percent.
Speaker 5 (12:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:25):
And I think one thing I noticed and learned is
that your gut health and your mental health there the
two are so connected that I just didn't realize that
ever in the past. And as I kind of gone
down that rabbit hole, it was like, Okay, I'm eating
healthier and now I'm thinking clearly, and I haven't had
a panic attack in a year and a half, and
it was like, there's probably something to that, you know.
Speaker 3 (12:48):
There was a little relief probably a month or so ago,
because Mike then this will be when the album is out.
A week before it comes out. Okay, so most people
listening to this, they won't have heard the record yet,
but some of it's out. And so Dan had sent
me the record and was like, hey, he did the
thing that I just love the most. He was like,
(13:09):
don't tell me how good or bad it is. She
tell me what song sticks out? Because I hate when
people are like, is it good? All they all they
all they want is whomever it is. We all want
this as humans, right, yeah, validation, yes, like and so
then I have to be like, it's good.
Speaker 5 (13:23):
Yeah, and you know what.
Speaker 3 (13:24):
It's gonna be fine regardless of who is sending it
if it's at this level. But Dan was like, tell
me what songs stick out. So I definitely take my
time with it because I don't really do that. I
don't listen to a lot of music that before it
comes out. Hey, I was in a lot of music
anymore now because there's just so much. So I just
really have my stuff. But I do love you guys
and definitely respect you guys a bunch. And so Dan's like,
(13:46):
check it out, don't tell me what's good, tell me
what sticks out, just straight up and I was like, oh,
so I told Caitline. I was like, I'm so glad
Dan asked me to do it that way.
Speaker 5 (13:53):
Hey, you have permission always to be honest, though you
know that I do what I do.
Speaker 3 (13:56):
Yeah, but it's like everything's gonna be good because you
guys want you guys aren't going to spend the time,
not that you're not gonna write that songs. You may
write a bad song, but then you may not cut
the bad song. Then if you do cut a song,
then maybe isn't good. Somebody's gonna go I don't think
that should make the So there's just a lot of
gates to get through. So I knew what I was
gonna hear was gonna be good. So I listened to
the record three times all the way through, and I'm
just like, what pops?
Speaker 5 (14:17):
What pops?
Speaker 3 (14:17):
So I sent Dan a couple of songs. I was like,
this is my favorite song, this is my second favorite song,
and then I just kind of waited for Dan's response,
and the one that I sent him, I said, and
you'll vouch, I said, save me. The Trouble is like
the best. It's it's it's the best. YEP, Like that
is such a single. Had no idea.
Speaker 5 (14:36):
We announced it as a single like three days later, had.
Speaker 3 (14:38):
No idea, And so I I just I love that song.
I mean that it feels sonically different enough to hear
a maturation, but not that you're running from creatively who
you guys have been.
Speaker 5 (14:59):
Yeah, that's exact factly why we chose it as the
first single, Like, that's what it felt like to me.
It was honestly, it was so validating when you said
that was one of your favorites, because we've got so
much respect for you as a friend. You know, your
ear for music. You took a chance on us before
anyone else, you know, and you take a chance on
a lot of new music, and you've broken a lot
of artists and country music in your time here. And
not just trying to guess you up, it's just the truth,
you know.
Speaker 3 (15:18):
To keep keep on them.
Speaker 5 (15:19):
I will, I will. The shoes look great, shirt looks great.
House man, it's awesome. But yeah, that song when you
said that was one of your favorites or you know.
Speaker 3 (15:26):
Favor that was number one to me. Yeah, it's amazing.
Speaker 5 (15:29):
We felt the same way. We felt like there was
this moment we were trying to go back and forth
pick the first single, and that one was always at
the top of the list to us. And there was
this one epiphany moment sitting there. I've got the phone
on the island kitchen and it's playing and I heard
Save Me the Trouble, and I was like, how could
this not be the first single? And that was what
I texted everybody. I was like, how could it not be?
It was just something about that song that stood out,
(15:50):
maybe not necessarily above all the rest, but it felt
like it didn't alienate what got us here in the
first place. You know, if you've loved Dan and Shay
records in the past, it has that. It has the harmonies,
it has the you know, big explosive chorus. But I
feel like it was a taste of the evolution what
the rest of the album sounds like. There were some
other songs on there that may have been a little
bit more organic or maybe more country than some of
the stuff we'd done in the past, which I think
(16:11):
it fits cohesively on the project when you hear it
in context. But if we had come out of the
gate with something like that with no context, I feel
like it may have been too much of a shock,
Save Me the trouble just felt like the right first call.
And man, it's it's been flying up radio charts crazy.
Speaker 3 (16:25):
So yeah, definitely a graduation, but also you didn't change
countries totally, still in the American school system, you know.
I mean, it's so yeah, I loved that, and then
it's called Bigger Houses, So what's why? What's the why?
Speaker 5 (16:42):
Just why?
Speaker 2 (16:43):
As far as the the album, sure, well, whenever I'll
go back, I guess to that song to give it context.
But the first time that I heard that song, we
were kind of done with the record.
Speaker 5 (16:54):
At this point.
Speaker 1 (16:54):
We had kind of had all.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
The songs were done, and Dan had written the song
Bigger Houses with our buddy Andy Albert, and I don't
know was it who else was in that.
Speaker 5 (17:04):
Song, Andy, Jordan Minton and Jordan Reynholms.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
Yeah, so a bunch of more core writers that the boys.
And I hadn't heard it yet, and he was like,
had sent it over. And usually Dan, you know, prefaces
any song that he writes that I wasn't on. He'll
preface it like I don't know if it's like that
good or whatever, But then he'll send it and I'm
like it's probably gonna be phenomenal. You know, if he's
sending it to me, I know it's gonna be good.
And I was actually back home in Arkansas and I
(17:28):
was visiting my family and I was on the farm
that I grew up in, and there was just something
about hearing it in that context of a place that
I learned the lesson the first time of the lesson
that is in that song from that was what I
was taught growing up, you know, of where happiness lies.
And it was just a really it hit me really hard,
and I was like, man, we have to have to
record this song, like this is it's my favorite song
(17:51):
that we've ever done. I can say that now after
we recorded it. There's just something about it that is
so genuine and authentic to my upbringing and kind of
where I came from that I just connected with it
on a really deep level. Even though I didn't write
the song, it was just like, man, this is I
would have liked to think that if I was there
in that room, like these are the things that I
(18:11):
would have wanted to say, And it just resonated really
hard with me, which I feel like on this entire album.
Speaker 5 (18:17):
It was just very representative.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
Of like where we're at in our lives, and even
the heartbreak songs are the fun songs. It just felt
very much where I'm at, you know, songs like then
Again and always going to Be. It's just where I'm
at my life, and.
Speaker 5 (18:29):
It just I feel like bigger houses.
Speaker 2 (18:31):
Sonically, it was pretty stripped back of how we you know,
that song was written of how kind of we write something.
We wrote this entire project kind of just on acoustic
guitars and a piano, and like there wasn't any tracks
like the entire time and nothing against that, you know
that pendulum swings back and forth always, but we just
wanted to kind of do it how we had done
it in the.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
Very beginning of just getting together and telling stories.
Speaker 2 (18:52):
And I feel like that that song in particular, really
it connected the entire album was a song that was
very representative of what where we were at in our
career and our life and the things that we had
been through and where we were focused. And I feel like,
I mean, the overall message of the song is, you know,
the thing about happiness I've found is it don't live
in bigger houses. And obviously it's not just talking about
(19:15):
bigger houses. It's the things that we chase after. You know,
there's nothing wrong with you know, having nice things and
whatever it is.
Speaker 1 (19:20):
We all like those things.
Speaker 2 (19:21):
But it's when you start to set that bar and
you start chasing after that high, when you're chasing after
a feeling that is an unattainable goal because you're that
bar is always going to get raised. It's like, all right,
you win three Grammys, you can win six, somebody's one twenty.
You know, somebody's won thirty Grammys. It's like, there's a
bar that you can set for yourself and these experiences
that you almost come to expect that are just you're
(19:43):
never going to reach that goal. And I feel like
we had to have that moment where we looked around
and we're like, Okay, you know what, we need to
bring it back, reel it back a little bit. Step
one is to appreciate what we've gotten to do in
this incredible career that we've had and thankful for that,
and know that moving forward, if we can find joy
in the process of making this album and getting to
(20:06):
do something that we love, we can't control what happens
after that, but we can control the process and if
we can find joy in that, we don't have to
worry about what happens after that and winning these awards
and having all these hits and streams and whatever it is.
If you can find joy in those small moments, you
don't have to worry about the rest of it. And
I just feel like that song, it just really resonated
(20:29):
with me, and we just felt like it was the
perfect representation to kind of place the badge of Okay,
this song represents this entire project as a whole, and
that just needs to be the name of the album.
Speaker 1 (20:40):
And it's been really.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
Cool so far. I feel like just the badge of
Bigger Houses. I'm really proud to put that song as
almost a stamp on the album to let people know
what this album is going to be about and what
it represents.
Speaker 4 (20:55):
Hank Ty the Bobby Cast will be right back, and
we're back on the Bobby Cast.
Speaker 3 (21:09):
I remember watching the Drive, the social media document whatever
you gonna call it content. I text Dan I was like,
hey man, that was awesome. Like I felt a little uncomfortable.
Knew a lot of the stuff that was going on too,
you know, our families are close, but I was like, wow,
you got that that felt, so I'll just say good
(21:30):
because it was real and it was honest. But sometimes
you can see when it is a bit strategized. Sure,
but that was uncomfortable and in the best way. So
I guess my lead into that is, you guys were
going through a lot. You decided to share it a
lot with each other. Why did you why did you
(21:51):
decide to share that then, and why was it important
to put that out there?
Speaker 5 (21:54):
I think selfishly, it was good to share it, the vulnerability,
putting your vulnerability out there to the world. I feel
like it's helpful to us, you know, for personal growth,
for growth in our relationship with each other. But you know,
if you look back on the course of our ten
year career, everything's been pretty squeaky clean, you know, And
for the most part, that's what it is for artists.
I think there's a big authenticity movement right now, which
is amazing. You'd love to see it. I'd love to
(22:16):
see people putting their actual heart out there on the line,
and I think that's important for fan connection. But for
ten years, it was like only posting the best of
the best in the highlight reel, you know, on social media,
and I know, that's the nature of the beast, but
we felt like if we were going through that, there
was likely somebody else. And also it gave context to
this music that was about to come out, so I,
you know, there is a little bit of that, but
(22:37):
we felt like if we were going through this, there
was somebody out there, one of our fans, somebody in
the industry, and that was the most reactive piece of
content we've ever put out there, not necessarily in views
or virality, but the amount of industry people, managers, artists, writers,
just friends, friends from back home texting me like, man,
that was really brave you guys, Like that was inspiring
to me, Like that, you know, inspired me to speak
(23:00):
up or communicate with somebody that I hadn't communicated with
in a while. And I don't know, it was just
like the messages that we got. There were long messages too.
It wasn't just like love you guys, come to Cleveland.
It was like paragraphs, like people explaining what that meant
to them. That was a powerful piece, but it was
it was true, It was honest, it was genuine. That
moment that night we talked about, you know, my house
(23:21):
and what was at March twenty twenty two or whatever.
That was the most pivotal moment in Dan Shay's career,
like more so than any award, more so than any song,
any show that we've ever done. That moment changed at
all because for ten years, you know, life gets in
the way when that when you're going so hard. You
know how we were working hard, and we started out
one hundred and fifty shows a year. You're on the
(23:41):
road constantly, and if you're not going out of your
way to work on that relationship, especially in a duo,
a duo was such a difficult configuration. I mean, historically
a lot of duos fall apart because it's fifty to fifty.
I think it's harder than a marriage. It's like it's
equal split and you're on public display at all times,
and if you're not being open with each other and
going out of way being proactive with communication, things can
(24:02):
fall apart. And you know, we say in a trio
there's a tiebreaker. Solo artists kind of pays their own way,
but a duo you really have to work at it,
and we weren't working at it. You know, there was
nothing people are like, So was there like a specific
incident or was there a fight. There really wasn't. And
we've said that before too, that there maybe that was
the problem that there wasn't a fight. We weren't communicating,
you know, if something was bothering us, or you know,
(24:24):
I was being an idiot or whatever, Sha was doing something,
we weren't speaking about it in real time, and we
were just like letting things fester. And I think that's
where things kind of got in the way. And then
throw in COVID where you know, we're on and off
the road for that two year period and it was
just such an emotional roller coaster. It was a lot
of story to tell. And you know, Shane and I
once we got to this place after that we can
(24:45):
talk more about that in a sec two that come
to Jesus night at my house conversation. After that, we
were just it just felt like the air had lifted.
We were like in such an amazing place, the closeness
of our relationship, of our friendship stronger than ever before.
And we would get on the phone, Shae would come
over the house for what we said in the drive
is true, Like we made this goal to hang out more,
to spend more time together. Three days a week. Whatever,
(25:08):
Shaye comes over, we pick up a guitar. Right. If
we don't have an idea, we just hang out, you know,
just whatever, watch a movie, do it, do something, just
hang out, spend time together like we did when we
first started, and then Shae would leave and we'd call
each other be like, dude, today was sick, you know,
like or if we wrote a song, it'd be like
that song sick. And we didn't even know we were
making an album at the time. It was just like
(25:28):
and we didn't know if we were going to still
be a band. It was like, let's just see how
this goes, like let's reconnect, let's be friends again, you know.
And we would get on the phone for an hour
and a half. Like there were some nights we were
I remember pacing around my backyard getting bit up by
mosquitoes and we're talking for like I think it was
like ninety minutes or something. When I'd look down at
my phone just like, dude, this is like just feels
(25:48):
like a new era, a new chapter, like these songs
were writing. You're so fun, Like what if we like
told this story to the world, you know, and then
you get asked when when you put out a record,
the label says, hey, let's do a day where we
go do liners. Hey I'm and I'm Shay and we're
Dan and Shay, and this is what our album's about.
For each song is track by track. I was like,
I think it'd be really special to tell our fans
to give context to this album, like what we just
(26:10):
talked about. I was like, if somebody had been recording
this phone call that we just had, just us talking
about what we had been through, we're going through, what
we're dreaming of, you know, like that is that sums
it all up. And we just one day was like, dude,
we should just like go for a drive, Like, get
in a car, go out to Kingston Springs. We spent
a lot of time out there when we first got going.
You know, we couldn't afford a meal, so we had
(26:32):
friends who would feed us out there and you know,
beautiful place to hang. So we got in a car,
they rigged it up, put a couple of GoPros in there,
put some mics in the car, and we just drove.
No managers, nobody sitting there like saying prompting any of
the conversation. We just I don't even remember where we started,
but it was you.
Speaker 2 (26:48):
I think we got lost about six times on those
back roads and we legitimately drove for hours. Yeah, it
was like it took a second to it going because
we were you know, we knew that we were being filmed,
and so we had to like settle in and we're like,
let's just talk. And then we talked for like three hours,
and we used so little of the content it probably
took them forever to go through and find easable pieces
because we really just ended up having that conversation of
(27:11):
just like talking through exactly what. Because that that conversation
literally sparked I was like, man, I wish people could
just hear that is the context of the album what
we just had on this phone call. And I was
just like, let's just go for a drive. And it
really one of these days we'll probably put out some
more footage of the drive because it was director's cut
all of it. The director's cut all of it. There'd
be a long that'll be a movie.
Speaker 5 (27:32):
Half of us is like that a cop behind us,
you know, like stupid stuff like that.
Speaker 1 (27:36):
Yeah, half of it was there was like this big
camera like going on.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
I was making sure I didn't hit anybody while filming this.
That would have been really bad, but it was awesome
to kind of also rehash that. It was another one
of those moments and our just our personal lives that
we were just a couple of guys out in the
middle of nowhere driving talking through the craziness that was
our career over the last ten years.
Speaker 3 (27:57):
Sometimes when I make a change in my life, it's
got to be because it gets to a point that
is so drastic that I can realize it where it's, oh,
I'm not in a good place. I mean when I
went to on site, I wasn't in a good place.
So it took me to actually hit we'll call bottom.
Speaker 2 (28:14):
You know.
Speaker 3 (28:14):
My mom would go to rehab, she would hit bottom,
and then she would go would you say in you guys' relationship,
because you got to hit a bottom to get to
actually have the desire to get out of it or
to get back in it.
Speaker 5 (28:25):
That's a great point. If you never hit that rock bottom,
you might not realize something's wrong or that you need
to make a change. And I hit it for you, guys,
I absolutely hit rock bottom. I'll you know, speak on
my side of the story and you know, shake and
speak on his But that date was December. It was
like first week at December of twenty twenty one. So
this was when we finished the arena tour. You know,
(28:46):
you work your whole life to get to a place
where you can sell out an arena tour. We did.
We put that on sale in October of twenty nineteen,
you know when ten thousand Hours with Bieber came out,
put this tour up, sell out MSG We sold out
Staples Center, two nights at Bridgetone, like all these bucket
list milestones. We're riding high, it's amazing, and then boom,
COVID happens. It's all gone, and it's like, man, what
(29:06):
that'll mess with your head? So we're juggling that for
a couple of years. We finally get back out there.
We did the tour. Shout out to our team and
you know everybody out on the road, the promoters, you know,
in the fans for hanging out of those tickets. Like
it was a tremendous success given the circumstances. But I
think I was chasing a lot of the wrong things,
you know, speaking to the bigger houses thing a little
bit comparison, we all know that comparison is the thief
(29:28):
of all joy, and I think we all get caught
up in that, especially when everything is so on display
with social media. You know, you can look at stats,
you can look at likes. Everything is just so right
there for you to compare yourself to the best of
the best of what somebody else is putting out. And
I think I was caught up in that in a
crazy way. On social media. I was, you know, being
a content guy because we're too stubborn to have somebody
(29:49):
help us with it, which we need to change that
at some point. But you know, we're on the biggest
tour of our lives and I'm like, well, crap, you know,
we sold out last night. Let me make this video
of us doing you know, we're in tall set at
the Bok Center, and like we got to get this
content of us like jumping in the crowds here and
that stuff's all cool. But it was like all to
like let the industry know that we're out here doing well.
(30:09):
And I was chasing that too much and not enjoying
the moment. I was like maybe looking forward too much
to what was next, and I just really spiraled. It
made me resent music because I wasn't doing anything that
was related to music. It was like all in the
name of trying to get content, and it was like
I was not appreciating the fact that there were fans
there singing the words back to us, and that wasn't
appreciating the fact that I was getting to sing with
(30:31):
my best friend or play with our band who we
grew up with. Like all these incredible, incredible moments passed
me by, and December, you know, came around twenty twenty one.
We finished the tour in Boston and I got off
stage more like defeated than I had ever been. And
you know how it is, It's like it's really hard
to be in this position. And I don't want to
sound like I'm complaining about it, but I think that's
(30:52):
why a lot there's a lot of mental health issues
and depression in our industry, because if you're really struggling
with something to the public, you feel this responsibility to
be a superhero. You feel this responsibility to be unbreakable.
You know, like on stage you have to be like,
this is the best night of my life, when in
deep down you could be like, I'm really hurting right now.
(31:12):
You know, and this was before we knew to talk
to each other, to be open about it with our fans.
You know, this is a whole new chapter in an
amazing era. But that moment I got off stage and
I was like, I'm done. I don't know if I
could ever do this again. And I didn't really say
that to anyone. I think Abby kind of knew it.
But she is so patient, so incredible, so encouraging with
me to kind of work through these issues, you know,
(31:34):
work on myself. And I came home from that and
I like literally laid on the couch. You know, I'm
always going, always doing something, just like you man, always
on the move, always grinding, And that was like the
first time in a long time that I just kind
of laid there for like two weeks to process everything.
I was like I might be done, I might retire whatever,
moved back to my hometown figured out, but like I've
(31:56):
I'm burnout. It was like the most extreme burnout I
had ever felt, and I felt like I needed to
get myself right first before I made any progress with
Shay and our relationship, whether we were going to keep
the band together or whatever. It was like I needed
to get myself right on a personal level, I need
to fall back in love with music, and I you know,
after doing a lot of soul searching, I realized that
(32:17):
previous year I'd written four songs total. Two of them
were Christmas songs, two of them were for another band.
And that is the thing that brings me the most
happiness and fulfillment is creating being in the studio making music.
And I wasn't making any music, and I was like,
maybe I start there. So I went out on this
little trip for There's a band called the band Camino
good Buddies of Ours killing it right now. They did
(32:38):
a little writing retreat for their album out in Colorado.
I was like, you know what, I'll head out there
with the boys. It's no pressure, you know, like not
writing for Dan and Shade thing where we're saying like, okay,
we've had these kind of hits. We need this thing.
It's like just a little bit more free form. And
if I don't get a single song out there, I'll
get to go skiing. Like it'll be fun. So I
did wrote a couple songs and I was like this
is fun, Like there's no pressure. We're not writing for
(33:01):
a specific you know, Dan and Shay thing like just
making music for the sake of making music. And I
came home, did the same thing with a couple other buddies.
I was like, just trying to do it a couple
of days a week, and I was like feeling so elated.
I was so happy once you know, that went on
for a couple months, and I just got to this amazing,
amazing place and I was like, you know what, I
got to get myself right with Shaye. We were about
(33:22):
to go out on tour with Chesney, which is Stadium's
bucket list tour. I mean that's like for a support slot,
that's the pinnacle of it. And we had that booked
and I came to this place. I was like, I
got right with myself. I owe it to myself, I
owe it to Shae, and I owe it to Dan
and Shae the entity to figure this out. Whether we
end this band and we right off into the sunset,
(33:43):
we should go and enjoy playing in these football stadiums,
or this could be a launching off point for the
next chapter. And I was like, I got to hit Shae.
We got to have this conversation tonight. So I called
Shay and I was like, yeah, that's what I was calling.
Speaker 2 (33:54):
You did no, I mean, and I hadn't talked to him,
you know, and yeah, this was a this It was
kind of a conversation. I had kind of knew his
kind I knew he you know, kind of how he felt,
of like I knew he's burnout. I didn't know the
extent of what was going on, but he texted me
and was like, hey, man, you want to come over tonight.
And I was like, okay, he wants to talk about something.
Speaker 1 (34:15):
I thought.
Speaker 2 (34:15):
It was like this is going to be kind of
it honestly in my in my heart of heart. So
I was like, I think that this might be the
end of our band. And I was like, yeah, man,
when you know, when do you want to do this?
Speaker 5 (34:25):
You know?
Speaker 2 (34:26):
And he was like, I can come over there right now.
And I was like, oh, okay, he wants to talk
like right now. And then I was like, I mean,
you talk about a full blown panic, you know, because
all this stuff started coming up and I was like,
oh no, Like I was not prepared.
Speaker 1 (34:39):
This was like a normal.
Speaker 2 (34:40):
Sunday night or something, and I'm like, I'm gonna I
told my wife. I was like I'm going to meet
with Dan and I and we didn't really talk about it,
and we both kind of looked at each other like
I think I'm going to go in my band with
my best friend that I haven't been close with in
several years. It was just kind of this whole understood
like this, we'll deal with this when we'll do the
wreckage when I get back, you know. And I just
(35:02):
remember driving over there just like sweaty palms, be like dude,
this is this is heavy, you know. And I was like,
this was giving me emotional right, this is to teach
you how to this is just.
Speaker 3 (35:10):
Paying you forgive me an example people.
Speaker 2 (35:13):
But I was like, man, this is like the last
ten years of my life is about to end, you know,
and this is about we're about to you know whatever.
And I get there and it was just like this,
you know, what's up, dude, you know. And I remember
we sat there and Dan just like starts to apologize
for like the last ten years. That prompted me to
apologize for stuff. And you know, that's the long and
(35:34):
short of it. That we sat there until I think
I got over there, like maybe I don't know, seven
thirty after I put the kids to bed.
Speaker 1 (35:39):
I went over there.
Speaker 2 (35:40):
We stayed up and talked till like three in the
morning and just hashed through all of these things, and
a lot of that was like, all right, we need
to really appreciate like what we've gotten to do, whether
we continue to do this band. It wasn't like we
were dancing around the fact that we both were kind
of feeling like we don't know if we're going to
do this anymore. But it was like, like, man, let's
(36:01):
let's ride off into the sunset. Either way, let's Dan
and Shay. Is always going to be was something that
Dan said. He was like, We're always going to be
a tattoo on somebody's arm, always gonna be a first
dance song.
Speaker 1 (36:11):
And I was like, that's great.
Speaker 2 (36:12):
I remember, like because this was kind of after we
had had our like really heavy talk, you know, and
we had kind of gotten the tears out and all
that kind of stuff, and I remember like watching him
like grab his phone and type in that title, you know,
and I was like, that's a great title, and and
it was just it.
Speaker 1 (36:30):
Was just an incredible night.
Speaker 5 (36:31):
Man.
Speaker 2 (36:31):
It's like, you know, I feel like a lot of
people are scared to say you know, like, oh, yeah,
we got together and we cried, like just a couple
of friends. That's that's pretty lame, Like no one would
want to say that out loud, but like it was, man,
a lot of tears were shed and a lot of
stuff was really figured out. And it wasn't like we
figured out all of our problems, but acknowledging that.
Speaker 1 (36:52):
It mattered enough to both of us that we would try.
Speaker 2 (36:55):
And it was just after that, it was our plan
of action was to all right, let's hang out through
times a week, let's get together, and let's have no agenda.
Speaker 3 (37:03):
It's just the relationship more than what the relationship could do.
Exactly was let's make sure we do the relationship.
Speaker 2 (37:10):
Let's be let's be friends again. Because I feel like
that's something that people don't see from the outside to
be very easy to be like, yeah, we're in a band,
and I feel like every duo in history, especially in
country music, I mean, we've had so much devastation. You know,
that is wreckage that has been left through different duos,
friends of ours that have that have very publicly happened,
and what you don't see is like the behind the
(37:32):
scenes stuff that is just like their friendship is. If
that gets wrecked, it's just a matter of time. That's
a ticking time bomb of you know, your of your
band separating because you're just going in different directions. And
even though Dan and I are such different people at the core,
like on every level, that's the reason that it works
is because we have extreme respect.
Speaker 1 (37:51):
For one another.
Speaker 2 (37:52):
And even when your when your lives are kind of
going like this, it's so important to kind of realign yourselves.
And even though like you know, I've got three kids
at this point, Dan's got dogs, we've got our families,
like we have our own responsibilities, but acknowledging like, hey man,
I respect the hell out of you for what you're doing,
and no matter if I believe the same thing that
you believe or not, I respect what you believe. And
(38:15):
we both have this band in common, and we have
our fans in common, and I think the world needs
to needs to view that too.
Speaker 1 (38:22):
You know.
Speaker 2 (38:23):
It's like we have so much you know, separation in
our country and all these things, and it's like no matter.
I feel like when I was growing up, that was
kind of the message, like all right, you believe this
and I believe this. We're gonna scream at each other
and then we're gonna go grab a beer, you know,
And I feel like that's kind of been lost on
the world, a little bit of the the value of
a good fight.
Speaker 6 (38:42):
You know.
Speaker 2 (38:43):
That's the next video that's coming out. It's the follow
up to The Drive. It's called The Fight. It's gonna
be really good. But I feel like it was, you know,
we had to learn to respect each other enough to
have those hard conversations when we knew that if things
are if I have a problem now, like it's even
happened in like the last you know, six months or so,
where we're like, okay, this is I think this is
(39:05):
how it should be. No, I think this is how
it should be. We talk it out and it's like, awesome,
this way is clearly better because we both care, we
want the same thing, and we learned how to like
focus that stuff and really put a focus on communication,
just like in any marriage would be. If you just
don't talk about something, That's how us guys most times
like think like I fixed it.
Speaker 3 (39:25):
It's our issue too. I don't say anything about it.
I let it live, and then I just keep pushing
it down. But my wife knows she has to go
and get it because I will not. Yeah, and it
doesn't put her in a great place. And I don't
like it. I'm like that a lot of times. But
I'm and also I feel like I can fix it
in my head myself. Sure, totally, And just like I'm
gonna go and fix it. I'm not even gonna teke
the process, but I'm gonna come back and it's gonna
(39:45):
be fixed.
Speaker 5 (39:45):
Yeah, yep.
Speaker 3 (39:46):
And that gets me in trouble, But you're right, it's
a relationship. And you guys marriage also, your marriages to
your wives, like one on one's tough. Regardless of the
situation it is.
Speaker 4 (39:57):
The Bobby Cast will be right back. This is the
Bobby Cast.
Speaker 3 (40:10):
Do you guys, one on one on stage, do you
have and maybe they're not absolutes, but do you have
signals like, hey, cover for me, I need to go
and pee or maybe not pee I wish like on
the show me and oh my guess they know my
little They know if if I'm holding up a finger
for this, if I twirl my hand for that. At
(40:31):
this point, we've been together almost twenty years, We've been.
Speaker 5 (40:33):
Doing it for a long time.
Speaker 3 (40:34):
Yeah, if I do a little of this. They know,
go longer, go shorter. I gotta turn my mic off.
I gotta what is that relationship like with you guys,
or even a quarterback and a wide receiver where you're
on stage, you're performing, you're playing the game, but you
got to cover for each other, but you really don't
say it.
Speaker 5 (40:51):
I feel like it goes unset. I feel like it
is so lockstep. We find ourselves like jinx, you know,
so many times like thinking the same thing, saying the
same thing on age. I feel like the chemistry it's
just like the show. I mean, it's just we've thought
about like we have a hand signal if like one
of us needs to get a drink, but I know
when he needs to get a drink and same same goes.
It's just the eye contact. We lock eys, like okay, cool,
(41:11):
I know something's going on with his in ear pack.
He's gonna run over. I'm gonna get on the mic
and find somebody with a sign in the crowd and
buy him a minute and a half or whatever. You know,
those kind of things just you spend that much time together,
it's uh. And also it's a chemistry thing. Man It's
something we noticed when we first met. You know, I'd
never felt that making music with somebody before. In the
writing room, we would finish each other's sentences and oh,
(41:34):
see doing it right right now?
Speaker 3 (41:35):
Yeah, right now it's crazy.
Speaker 5 (41:41):
And now Mike's involved, it's crazy now.
Speaker 1 (41:44):
Man.
Speaker 5 (41:44):
It's a lot of it goes unsaid. We're learning that.
I could probably say as we started taping the voice.
You know, I know it airs next year, but we
started taping the voice and there's one button. We're in
this big chair that's connected. There's one button, and we
were like, dude, we got to come up with some signals,
like two taps on the leg, and like, we had
these grand plans we were gonna make because everything's like
(42:05):
cameras in your face, you're miked up. You know, everything
is is fair game, and uh, we had these grand
plans to like make signals. Whenever we liked something, we're
gonna hit it. We kind of forgot to do that.
Time got in the way, and I feel like it's
still so lockstep. If we're like we look over cool
and we hit that.
Speaker 2 (42:21):
I can read the panic on Dan's face.
Speaker 6 (42:23):
Yeah, my hands are twitching. I'm like I don't know
about this. I hope Shade doesn't push the button and
then we don't do it. But yeah, man, you spend
that much time with each other and there is just
a you know, intangible chemistry between the two of us.
Speaker 5 (42:34):
When we're on stage or we're writing or singing harmonies.
I know when you're gonna go for a high note
or I know coming out of chorus too. If you
know we'd been singing a lot and you're gonna go
for a chill version, I'll back off on the harmony,
you know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (42:45):
Those things it's almost creepy sometimes, like it's like the
twin thing.
Speaker 1 (42:49):
I mean, this has happened, especially on the Voice.
Speaker 2 (42:51):
I noticed it the most because we were doing a
lot of you know, you do a lot of interviews
in between, you know, the whole deal. It's a whole process.
And it was so fun because that we would literally
say the same thing at the same time. And I
was like, we do this a lot, and it's crezy,
like we can't even use those takes because it looks like,
oh we say that, even like responses, it looks like we'rehearsed.
Like I mean, there'll be things like you know someone's
(43:13):
talking to us and you know we're an interview and
we're like for sure, for sure at the same time,
like what is happening, dude, it's like we're just kind
of look at each other like totally because you spend
you know, your all of your time with someone and
like we're we're in the same conversations and you just
kind of learn. It's like a marriage where you're like,
you get you kind of pick up each on each
other's lingo and things that you say, and it's like
(43:35):
almost to a creepy point, like at the same times,
like when someone gives you a question, because we're getting
those questions all the time, and so it's like our
response is just getting grained in our brains and it's
kind of weird and sometimes but it's awesome.
Speaker 1 (43:48):
It is awesome.
Speaker 3 (43:49):
Awesome, God a picture of that. Oh my god, no
one's gonna believe this. When you started putting this project
together and you weren't writing to really write a record,
you were just writing to write and you were gathering
good songs. Basically, if I'm Right, Always Going to Be
was the first song from this project that made the
(44:11):
project like as far as like a timeline of all
of it.
Speaker 5 (44:14):
The first song you wrote, Yeah, that was the first
song we wrote for the record. I think it was. Yeah,
it was the first one we recorded, first one we
had a mix on Yeah that you know, Shae mentioned
it earlier, but that night when we were talking, we
were like, we got to figure this out. Our fans,
the industry, everybody that we've come in contact with, the
we owe that to them. They deserve that because Dan
and Shay, It's always going to be a tattoo on
somebody's arm, It's always going to be a first dance
(44:35):
at somebody's wedding. It's it's going to be a moment
for somebody that, whether we break up or not, Dan
and Shay is always going to be And like Shay said,
I wrote that down on my phone and I was
just like, that's that's a special sentiment. And you know,
obviously we evolved it, we brought the girl in of
the song and you know, just made it more of
a life thing. But we're really proud of that song. Man,
it's a special one, and the fan response on it's
been amazing. But yeah, that one kind of set the
(44:57):
tone for the rest of the record. Esthetically, sonically, I
don't know. That song is just kind of like the
backbone of the record that Bigger House is. And then again,
I would say you're kind of the ones that.
Speaker 2 (45:07):
Those three songs are kind of those three connected. I mean,
when I think about the album, those three songs and
obviously a lot of the other songs are in the middle,
and there's some of my favorite songs not in that list,
but those three songs kind of wraps up the album
to me because just the lyrical content and sonically of
kind of where this project was going. And and we
(45:30):
didn't think too much about, like, you know, we knew
that there would be somebody being like, what are these
guys are trying to be super country now?
Speaker 1 (45:36):
And it's like this is the stuff that we grew
up on. Like we've been doing this a lot longer
than you've been hating on it, you know, And.
Speaker 2 (45:42):
It's like I think that this kind of traditional country
sound has come in and that very naturally. There's some
songs in the record that are a lot more country
that we've done in a minute, but that's what we've
been writing since the very beginning of our career and
long before we met, you know, is the stuff we
were influenced by, Brooks and Dunn or straight Alan Jackson,
Kenny Chesney, all these people that we were influenced by,
(46:04):
and it was just so much fun too, and it
was it was interesting for me too to kind of
take a back seat and watch how Dan's production has has.
Speaker 1 (46:14):
Grown over the last ten years.
Speaker 2 (46:15):
I mean it's like we started at five oh seven
and we were making these horrible you know, like demos.
They were atrocious, and then that just evolved into him.
I mean, Scott Hendrix says he has the best ears
he's ever heard, and Scott Hendricks is the most decorated
producer in Nashville history and probably of all of music.
I mean, he's this, you know, he has crazy good
ears and it's so good at finding songs and all
(46:37):
this stuff. For him to say something like that about
Dan is just one testament to how good he is.
But watching that evolve and kind of hearing how this
sound has evolved for this record, because it is very
it's a lot more country than stuff that we've done
in the past. It sounds like it's a little bit
more of our first record, and a lot of people
have kind of referenced that like, this reminds me of
you know, early Dan and Shay with what we fell
(46:58):
in love with, you guys with, And I think that
is just because on that very first record, there was
no agenda. It was two guys that were very poor
getting together and loving music and writing songs together. And
that's we stripped everything back to that. We just were
getting in the room and we're like, all right, let's
write a song, not because we have to, but because
we get to do this for a living and because
(47:20):
we love to do it. And it just kind of
turned into this thing. And the sound that came from
that was just very organic, and it wasn't like all right,
let's try to make this this. It was like, all right,
we're going to get in the studio. We're going to
play these songs. Most of the time we would get
in there in the studio and just like play it acoustically.
Sometimes we didn't have a demo for a lot of
(47:41):
these songs, played it on acoustic guitar, and we went
in and we played it and it was just these
incredibly talented musicians and it just turned into what it
turned into. And I'm so proud of how it turned out,
and I'm so proud of of how Dan has evolved,
and this is definitely your best work so soon. And
it was just it was cool though as a as
a fan of music to have a record that sounds
(48:02):
like this, and I'm like, yeah, I'll put my stamp
on that for the rest of my life. You know,
I am so proud of this album Over any I
can say that, over any album we've ever done.
Speaker 1 (48:11):
I've loved.
Speaker 5 (48:12):
Obviously, they're like your kids.
Speaker 2 (48:14):
You like your songs, you know, you listen to them
and you're very proud of them. But I think as
a whole, not just the songs and what the product
was at the end, but the process that it took
to get there. I've never been more proud to be
a part of something in my life because it changed,
It changed everything for us, just the process, but also
just in my life. And I've said this a couple
of times recently, but it's something I realized throughout our
(48:38):
band and throughout like our life as a band. You know,
we kind of we grew up. Obviously, we both got married,
and then we I've got my kids and all this stuff,
and I kind of had my family life and then
there was my band life, and there were two very
separate things, you know, you kind of live your life
in those two separate train tracks, and it was for
the first time I remember after hearing you know, Bigger
(48:59):
Houses getting the cut back for that and always going
to be and then again in these songs, and I
was like, this is the very first time that I
feel like my personal life and my band are fully connected.
And this is exactly what I'm going through right now.
I'm going through what Bigger Houses is talking about. I'm
spending summers now in Arkansas again with you know, back
on the farm, and I'm listening to these songs being
(49:21):
like this is theff like whether it was like a
lesson that I learned or like the girl that I
dated in high school, Like I'm here in this place
of these lessons that I learned, and it was just
an amazing final puzzle piece of the evolution that I've
kind of been on personally, and it just kind of
it all kind of came together perfectly. And I don't
know this just it's such a new step for Dan
(49:43):
and Sha our band, but also like our lives, like
we're just I don't feel the same that I did,
you know, a year and a half ago, I feel
like this is such a step forward and a breadth
of fresh air. And I just think that it's so
genuine from us and it's so authentic to us that
I'm not We were never worried about like are people
what are people going to think about this? Are they
(50:04):
going to think it's too country? Or are they going
to think it's to this or that? And it just
never crossed our minds because we loved it. And at
the end of the day, if you love your music
and you're proud of it, that's that's the win. And
if you know your fans are going to love it,
I'm not worried about what people on the outside.
Speaker 1 (50:19):
If they don't like it, they don't like it.
Speaker 2 (50:21):
But if you try to write an album that you
think other people are going to like, the haters are
going to like of like people being like this is
not country. Like if we're trying to make a record
for them and we end up just hating it, then,
like you said this before, like then everybody hates it
and you hate it.
Speaker 1 (50:35):
And so what was the point in that?
Speaker 2 (50:37):
And I think just trying to approach this record with
a very authentic you know passion for wanting to write
songs that we loved and that our fans would love
the result that came out of that. Even if this
record never came out, this is always going to exist
in our hearts and our minds, and I know obviously
it is coming out, but I think our fans are
really going to feel that throughout this entire project, project
(51:00):
just in a couple of songs, I think they're gonna
feel that through what it took to get here.
Speaker 3 (51:04):
It feels like, at least for me, when I was like,
the most beautifully creatively reckless is when I have nothing
to lose, because what are you gonna do? Who cares? You?
Just do what you want, take big chances. But then
once you start to have some success, well, I don't
want to mess I want to mess it up. Then
(51:25):
you have more success and you're like, boy, if I
mess it up now? Really? So then you start to
adjust where you're creating and how you're distributing, and who's
listening and why, and all of a sudden, you're doing twelve.
I struggled with this for years and years, but then
with you, guys, it feels like when you finally kind
of red calibrated yourselves and yourself. It was almost back
(51:47):
to that point where what do we have to lose?
Now we went to the low yep, So it's like
we almost we almost broke up, So why don't we
just go do what we want to do. Worst case
scenario is, well, we do what we might have done anyway.
But it feels like that's that beautiful creative place that
you guys are in now where you just get to
create and you're not putting pressure on what you might lose,
(52:08):
but instead you're kind of putting it on what you
might gain because you're being truly you.
Speaker 5 (52:12):
Also with shows too, we've only played a few this summer,
but we're going to play a lot more next year.
But playing shows, I feel like in the past it
was always like, Okay, it's got to be picture perfect,
and we do take a lot of pride and making
sure we're choreographed. It's like, if we spent money on
this light hitting here, like we should make sure that
we're standing that light. Yeah, exactly. Also, the fans deserve it, man.
(52:33):
These ticket prices like they're expensive. It's expensive to go
to a concert. Now, people deserve the best that we
can give.
Speaker 2 (52:38):
Them.
Speaker 5 (52:39):
But I feel like in the past it was always
like this overly competitive thing, trying to be like, all right,
we got to kill it here at Massive Square Garden
to night so we could come back and do MetLife
next year, like we got to just keep going. Now,
I feel like there's this sense of freedom when we
get on stage, just like, dude, this is sick. Like
our shows have gotten longer because we get on you know,
in between songs, and we're like, man, this is Undridgs.
Speaker 3 (52:59):
You got song? Can you believe it?
Speaker 5 (53:03):
I just played tequila.
Speaker 3 (53:04):
Believe it? Dude, You've just said this eleven times.
Speaker 5 (53:06):
It's exactly what it is. So maybe our showmanship's gone down.
But we're having more fun up there than ever before.
And I don't know, I feel like being in that
place is more sustainable than anything, you know. I feel
like when you let go like that, you make a
great album or you put on a good show, and
that's what gets you to Met Life or that's what
gets you to win the awards or have success, And
if you don't, at least you had fun in the
process and.
Speaker 3 (53:26):
At least you created something that you believed in. Because again,
I got into a place too, where I was like,
I don't even like that that much, yep, And when
it would not do well, I'd be like, it didn't
do well and I didn't like it. I'd rather have
not done well and I'd have loved it, because then
at least I would have loved.
Speaker 5 (53:39):
It's exactly at least one person likes it.
Speaker 3 (53:41):
Yeah, at least I would have been like, that really
was me. And because then you're just questioning, like if
I just done it the way I really wanted to
do it, a TV project like that, where I'm like,
I didn't want to do it like this, and I
kind of fought and then I gave up fighting for it,
and then it would just do okay, and I would go, man,
I don't like it, and everybody else didn't either. At
least I wish I would have fought for what I
(54:02):
really liked. Yeah, And I coming that pressure.
Speaker 2 (54:05):
Too, Like I'd rather take the pressure of like, rather
than try to blame falling on somebody else, Like I
would rather be like, Okay, we when this happened on Tequila,
you know, our label, a lot of people were like,
we can't push this this ballad, you know, after you know,
we had pushed another single and we you know, we
thought it might be a hit, but when it was
(54:25):
going to take a long time and we were like, man,
this is this is not it. And when I heard
Tequila for the first time, I was like, this is
a single and I don't care who is going to
try to stop me. Good luck because I believe in
this so much. And it was a ballad and it
was like just it was like the wrong time to
probably put out a ballad in most people's heads, you know,
thinking like I don't know if this is going to work,
But I feel like I was so okay at that
(54:47):
point where it really felt like we have nothing to lose,
and it was like, nah, dude, we're going with this,
and I really don't care what you guys say. This
is the song because I know I can stand up
on stage with conviction and sing the hell out of
the song and make people believe it.
Speaker 5 (55:00):
I'd rather do.
Speaker 2 (55:00):
That, and it's my fault if it doesn't, if it fails,
and I'm okay with that.
Speaker 1 (55:05):
I'm fully okay with that.
Speaker 2 (55:06):
If you stand behind your art, you're willing to kind
of go down with the ship, you know, But at
least I'm the Captain, you know, and I can go
down proudly with that happiness. And that was our biggest thing, exactly,
and that was our biggest hit, you know. And it's like,
not that you're trying to, you know, be free form
for the sake of gaining the success of that song,
but I just think that you're much more likely to
(55:27):
have those authentic moments when you, like you said, you
just let go and you're like, I don't care if
someone doesn't like this. I love this, you know, and
I'm willing to do that. And honestly, a song like
Save Me the Trouble was was very much that way
for me. I felt like it was the perfect like,
you know, it felt like it really kicked down the door.
Rather than like, I hope you guys like this offering
(55:49):
that we have. It was just like, nah, this is sick, dude,
Like I think this is absolute flames. And I'll tell
everyone that on the street if they'll listen to me.
And I could stand behind that, and I I really
don't care, dude, Like you hear these notes, These are sick,
you know, Like I love this, like I'm gonna go
perform the hell out of this, and that was a
good feeling of like, I really don't care if people
(56:10):
like this or not. I really hope they do, and
my insecurities are going to really come out if they don't.
Speaker 5 (56:15):
But I love this song.
Speaker 1 (56:16):
And I'm okay with going down with that ship.
Speaker 2 (56:18):
And again it's we had our biggest ad day that
we've ever had on radio. And again it's not I
didn't do that as a formulated thing. It just was
like I have we have nothing to lose, like this
is I'm proud to put my stamp on this, and
that's just a It's really fun place to be because
you just stop worrying about what people are gonna think
about it. You just kind of like, no, I'm doing this.
(56:39):
And I feel like you get less heat from haters
when you kind of approach life that way because at
least you're like, at least you're doing it on purpose.
Speaker 3 (56:46):
And they know they can't affect you that much if
you're not exactly if you're just kind of like suck it. Yeah, Okay.
Three final questions. Just talk about the voice for a second,
because I mean, I don't know, you just spoop Danitay
on the voice as the main chair Flippers. You know
because yeah, you guys had been on before though, but
right as like helpers. Have you ever been on the
like you've been on the Blake's team.
Speaker 5 (57:07):
Yeah, was the mentor thing right.
Speaker 3 (57:09):
So it's when I first saw it, I was like, Oh,
that's cute. They're going back to Mint. Then I was like,
oh my okay. I was said, Oh my god, they're
freaking going to I was so pumped for you guys.
So how did that come about?
Speaker 5 (57:20):
Man, that's one of the craziest opportunities. We're very grateful
to the team at The Voice for extending that invite.
We got a text one day it was like out
of the blue from our manager Jason. He's like, hey,
I would really like you guys to meet the producers
of The Voice, like they they love you guys. It
was like sure, man, because you know that kind of
gig is like everybody in every genre is going after it.
(57:41):
I knew they were trying to replace Country, but I
knew they had already gotten Riba. I was like, there, no,
there's no way they're going to Getriba and another country act.
There's so many. I mean, it's just like who's who
you know? All those chairs are all like a listers
and then us we went to this meeting, We went
to this breakfast as it was at the Thompson Hotel,
sweetest people ever, and we just we were ourselves, you know,
(58:02):
we told them the ideas that we had. We were like,
what if there was like this double chair, you know,
we shared this big chair in one button. I feel
like that's a cool dynamic that hasn't been I think
they had done it maybe in Australia or another country,
they hadn't done in the US. I felt like that
was a cool idea to shake up the voice a
little bit and just I don't know, there was something
about us being ourselves there and I think it did well.
(58:24):
When we were on with Blake, Blake was like the
king of the Voice. So anybody who goes on with
Blake's gonna look good. But we didn't expect anything. A
couple of months went by went by. I was like,
surely they give it. They probably already taped the season,
so you didn't hear. We didn't hear for a lot.
Speaker 2 (58:38):
And that is to give context. This is kind of
after we had really like gone through everything and we're
like doing you know, questioning it as friends again and
this was like, honestly for me, I don't know if
you felt this, but like, I never dreamed had that
dream to want to do a show like this until
we got that text message and I was like, yeah,
it's my only dream.
Speaker 3 (58:59):
It's my only I've never dreamed of something more in
my life.
Speaker 5 (59:02):
Every day he was group, oh my god, you know
any updates is like, the meeting was yesterday.
Speaker 2 (59:07):
Dude, Bro, I've never had so much anxiety on something.
And it was good because thank God that we had
prepared for this because I had lost all this all
this weight and was like, all right, I'm glad at least,
like if we're gonna be on TV, it's gonna be
now and not like a year and a half ago
whenever I was, you know, eating everything that my eyes touched.
And I was like as soon as we had that meeting,
it went really well and we're like, you know, these
(59:28):
people are super super sweet, and we did go into
that meeting and being like.
Speaker 3 (59:32):
Man, it is what it is.
Speaker 2 (59:33):
Because the conversation was like not like hey, they're auditioning
you for the part, It was like, would you guys
ever even be interested in this?
Speaker 1 (59:40):
And it literally started in my head, I was like, yeah,
I mean that would be I think that would be cool.
And by like seven pm that.
Speaker 2 (59:46):
Night, I was talking to my wife and I was like,
if we don't get this, I'm gonna be rad by
a house in La I mean, I was so like,
I didn't think that I would want to do this,
But now that I'm thinking about it, this makes so
much sense. I feel like we would be so good
at this and I would really enjoy this. And I
was like, I mean pacing, I mean this. It took
(01:00:06):
months for us to get an answer at all, and
I think I was going back to Arkansas at that time,
and my routine for like that a few months that
we didn't know anything was like work out in the mornings,
think about the voice for six hours, and hang.
Speaker 5 (01:00:19):
Out with the kids, and then go to bed and
then text.
Speaker 2 (01:00:21):
In the middle of that, I'd text you guys about
seventeen times, being like.
Speaker 1 (01:00:24):
Any update, have you heard of them?
Speaker 2 (01:00:25):
You've been following them to their house or anything like that,
And so it was it was a whole thing. But
after I think I was in Arkansas when we got
the news and Jason had texted us and we kind
of gotten some updates.
Speaker 5 (01:00:36):
We knew.
Speaker 2 (01:00:37):
We found out like, okay, Riba, she's taking the gig.
Speaker 1 (01:00:40):
We knew that she.
Speaker 2 (01:00:40):
Had had an offer out there, but they had met
with everybody like these A list celebrities, and we knew
we were having conversations with and I was just wrecked,
Like my stomach dropped, and it was like, man, that's
a real bummer, Like why did you even text us
in the first place.
Speaker 5 (01:00:54):
Why did we have the meeting?
Speaker 2 (01:00:55):
You know, because I was like I was living life.
We were absolutely killing it, having so much fun. Just
everything was good again. And then you've dropped this on
our plate and dangle it in front of us, and
if we don't get it, it's gonna really suck.
Speaker 5 (01:01:06):
But Dan and I would have like these.
Speaker 2 (01:01:07):
Therapy sessions every night, like it's okay. If it doesn't happen,
it's like, no big deal. Maybe it's for the better.
We probably should even do the voice.
Speaker 5 (01:01:13):
That's a horrible idea to do. And it just it
came through.
Speaker 2 (01:01:17):
And long story short, we got a text message and
I think I think Jason said do you have time
for a call. In my stomach, I bought craped my
pants and I was like this is gonna be that's
the worst. And honestly, I think that there was an
Arkansas it was I can't remember, maybe a baseball game.
Speaker 1 (01:01:32):
I don't remember what it was.
Speaker 2 (01:01:33):
It was a razorback game that me and my brother
in law were like watching together, and I'm already like, you.
Speaker 5 (01:01:37):
Know how it is.
Speaker 2 (01:01:38):
It's like I get so invested in Arkansas Razorback sports
that I'm like, it doesn't matter if it's bad Nitt,
And I'm like, this is it's a pretty good season
for him, you know. And I remember I was already
like on highlight and we got that text and I
was like, oh my god, this is.
Speaker 3 (01:01:52):
Test it all? Did you test it all? They just
met you?
Speaker 1 (01:01:55):
No, that was the That's why I think we were
going to get it.
Speaker 5 (01:01:58):
Yeah, never did. Yeah, I thought they had gone down
the road to somebody else. Maybe the mentor thing we did.
And we'd been on the show a bunch of times
performing and stuff before. But yeah, it was crazy. And
then once they told us, it was like dragged on
for months after that. For the announce it was like, guys,
we're thinking they'll announced by Thursday, probably three. We should
have a graphic by like Wednesday, at noon and it
was like Thursday at three came around and we had
(01:02:18):
no graphic.
Speaker 3 (01:02:19):
And there's no announce It doesn't feel like exact actually
committed to it.
Speaker 5 (01:02:22):
And this was like a long time. It was like,
we should have something by Friday, you know. It is
just like we'll have something by the end of the week.
We'll have like an official announcement. And then because we
were trying to like balance that we were about to
announce the album, we were about to put out a
new single, and it was like, oh, it's getting kind
of dangerously close. And then it didn't happen within like
a week of each other, because I was like being
quiet on socials, you know, trying to let it die
(01:02:44):
out and do the thing. And then it was like,
oh crap, the Voice announced like three days before the single.
I was like, it's too big to not post about it.
Speaker 2 (01:02:51):
So and we were asking too, like for pictures of
the double chair, you know, because we were like, I
don't know what this even looks like.
Speaker 5 (01:02:57):
And I remember texting our.
Speaker 2 (01:02:59):
Day to day manager, I was like, have you heard anything,
Like we were supposed to have a picture of this.
Speaker 1 (01:03:02):
Thing like a week ago, and they're like, yeah, They've
made it. It's a whole deal. It's gonna be awesome.
Speaker 2 (01:03:06):
I'm getting you, I'm getting you the picture tonight, and
so like I'm just like waiting. Finally, like we get
this email and I was like, oh my go, this
is gonna be so sick to see like our name
on the back of the.
Speaker 5 (01:03:13):
Chair, the whole deal.
Speaker 2 (01:03:14):
And it was this cartoon animated rendering of what the
chair was going to look like.
Speaker 5 (01:03:18):
And I was like, God, is this a joke to you?
Speaker 3 (01:03:20):
All right, this is the only thing I've thought about.
Speaker 5 (01:03:21):
For the last seven months. How am I supposed to
you know, go on without this?
Speaker 3 (01:03:24):
But I would have been so anxious with no announce
because I would have announcement before it changed. But they
haven't announced it. That means they're not fully committed. But
right until you go public, yeah, they don't have to
say anything if they changed their mind.
Speaker 5 (01:03:36):
And once they once they went public, it was on.
We were chilling. Yeah that was great.
Speaker 2 (01:03:40):
But it finally happened in Jason and calls how would
you like to be?
Speaker 5 (01:03:43):
Coaches?
Speaker 1 (01:03:43):
On the voice? And I was like, I mean the
colored drained from my face.
Speaker 2 (01:03:46):
I passed away for a couple of minutes Arkansas, I lost,
and then it was a great night.
Speaker 5 (01:03:50):
It was Sir Patrick's Day actually, because I was Abby
and I were at the bar with Megan Morony and
her friends. She doesn't even know they were down at
the beach. We were down there at the same time,
and they texted us and they're like, hey, as we're
like doing the Saint Patrick's date. She's like half our age,
so they can you know, they just got out of college.
I feel like they can drink on a different level
than Abby and I were like, oh, we're kind of tired.
It's like three in the afternoon. We're getting ready for
(01:04:11):
bed already. They're like, come down to the bar. We
went out of the bar. It was a long day.
We'll just say that they were having a good time.
We were two and Jason called. It was raining. It
was a whole thing. There's nowhere quiet, you know, Saint
Patrick's Day. People were popping off and I like stepped outside.
I was like hello and it and he was like,
how would you guys like to be coaches? On the voice?
I was like this is I can't tell anybody this.
(01:04:32):
So I couldn't even tell Abby for like four more
hours Dan ran into the bar.
Speaker 2 (01:04:35):
He's like, listen, everybody, Yeah, have you guys heard of
the voice?
Speaker 5 (01:04:38):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (01:04:39):
Yeah, They're like, no, Noah.
Speaker 5 (01:04:41):
That's cool man. We're grateful for the opportunity. It's been
fun so far.
Speaker 4 (01:04:45):
Let's take a quick pause for a message from our sponsor.
Welcome back to the Bobby Cast.
Speaker 3 (01:04:58):
Two questions left you and I opened a room at
Wags and Walks the petitdoption center. It's and Hermitage, right.
Speaker 5 (01:05:04):
Yeah, and thank you guys for contributing in such a
big way for so many you know, it's amazing, man,
what you guys do to help out with Wags.
Speaker 3 (01:05:10):
So what's happening there with the physical situation at wagsuse
For a long time, there really wasn't one.
Speaker 5 (01:05:18):
Yeah, it was all foster based, so you know, and
that's a tough thing, man, trying to find foster's especially
some of these dogs are in really really tough situations.
And you know, we've done the hospice foster thing where
a dog's only given you know, a couple of months
to live, and I mean, that's that was one of
the hardest things we ever had to do. And there
are a lot of great people out there who do that.
But up until I think maybe a month or so.
(01:05:38):
It was actually the night we released Save Me the
Trouble and announced the album. It was like the most
chaotic moment in our household. They'd been working on fundraising
for years now to open up a brick and mortar center,
and it's unbelievable. I mean, the amount of people that donated,
that chipped in, that offered their services, you know, for
these fundraisers that they've done, just absolutely incredible. This town
(01:06:00):
really rallied for them, and they busted their asses. Heard Katherine,
everybody on the team at WAGS really worked hard and
they've saved thousands of dogs. At this point. You've been
to these fundraisers, I mean, they're doing the thing. They
open up a spot and it's just unbelievable. They've got
like all these kennels where dogs can decompress safely, quietly.
They've got veterinarians who are donating their time that are
(01:06:20):
there at all times, twenty four to seven, taking care
of these dogs and it's a really beautiful thing. Man,
it's awesome. And they've hosted a couple of adoption events
and I think it's a really good Abby's actually there
right now.
Speaker 3 (01:06:30):
Really, yeah, one of our dogs is from there. For
those listening, they don't know elers from Wags and walks. Okay,
final question, and we're just gonna be a word. But
what's the word that you would assign for each other
right now? At this stage? Is just one word? And
here's what I want to do, So you guys don't
hear each other's word and then change it. You're going
(01:06:51):
to say it at the same time. It's going to
sound like a real cluster. But then we'll go back
to it. Okay, So this is my word for Dan
right at this stage of you guys' career, friendship life.
What's the word you would assigned to him saying for you?
Speaker 5 (01:07:04):
No hints, Mine's kind of I have it in my head.
It's kind of weird. I'm gonna have to explain it after,
but yeah, it's good.
Speaker 3 (01:07:10):
We'll have time to explain it.
Speaker 2 (01:07:11):
Yeah, I did the other night on stage, but I
will tell that story after we get off.
Speaker 5 (01:07:15):
The hardest man, the hardest man in country music.
Speaker 3 (01:07:18):
That's a good another way, hold on, we gotta say it.
Speaker 5 (01:07:20):
The other day, I was trying to dance, said.
Speaker 1 (01:07:21):
Something very kind on stage.
Speaker 2 (01:07:23):
I was like, this is my favorite singer in all
of music or something like that, and I was trying
to hype him back up, and I was like, I
was like, man, you know, if we hand it out
compliments like, y'all make some noise for I was trying
to say, the hardest working man in country music. But
this is in front of like eighteen thousand people. It
is like our biggest sellout ever in New Jersey. And
I was like, y'all make some noise for the hardest
man in country music. And I was like, like, I
(01:07:49):
had no idea that I didn't say it. And I
said that until afterwards. They were dying when I get
off stage, Like you said, the hardest man in country music.
Speaker 5 (01:07:57):
So that was weird. So that would be my word for.
Speaker 1 (01:07:59):
You, hardy. Yeah, I'll think of a better one ready.
Oh god, okay, give me a second.
Speaker 3 (01:08:05):
I'll give you a second. We got nowhere to go.
Speaker 5 (01:08:08):
It's true.
Speaker 3 (01:08:11):
You see our pool, like there was a crack in
our pool. All the water freaking went out.
Speaker 5 (01:08:15):
Is that what's happening.
Speaker 3 (01:08:16):
When you yeah, you see it was a little.
Speaker 5 (01:08:17):
It was a little.
Speaker 3 (01:08:18):
I was like, man, no, no, it was completely empty.
It's like a rock I got caught in no tube
or something. And again, they're a much bigger problem. I'm
just giving you a story.
Speaker 5 (01:08:27):
Filling it back up right now. Yeah, it takes a costume.
Speaker 3 (01:08:30):
Yeah, people are like, oh, but it's fancy. No, you
take a water hose and you put it in it
and you turn the water hose on.
Speaker 5 (01:08:35):
Dude, when we were filling up, I've never had a pool.
We're just gonna keep going for hours. See while you
think your work. I've never had a pool in my
entire life. And John Esposito Espa, you know, formerly ran
Warner Music Natural signed us to the record label. One
of the greatest mentors, one of the greatest friends we've
ever had in our entire lives. We both grew up
in western Pennsylvania and no one had a pool. There
was one kid in our high school maybe who had
(01:08:56):
a pool. He was the rich kid. Both of us.
We bonded over this. It was like growing. I asked
Spel one night we'd been hanging out in his office
drinking McCallen. I was like, when did you like know
you made it? Because he's had an incredible career. You know,
he's been all over the place. I was like, when
did you know you made it? And he was like,
being from western Pennsylvania, it was when I got a
for my first swimming pool. And he's not wrong. It's
(01:09:17):
like I knew nobody who had a pool. It was
just the rich kid or whatever. And I was like,
that was like, because I don't spend any money. I'm
so frugal to a fault, to the point where it's
like detrimental to my life. But we built a little
swimming pool in our backyard when we moved into this
most recent house, and I got in a raft when
we were filling it up with the same deal, put
the garden hose in, thought about asking the neighbors to
(01:09:40):
throw their garden hose in to split the water bill
a little bit. They wouldn't know what hit him. And
I sat in a raft as that thing filled up
for hours. There's a video, like a time lapse. I mean,
just coming up deepsing, just rising, dude. It was crazy.
Speaker 3 (01:09:51):
But yeah, okay, got jay, I got done. Pool talk.
Speaker 1 (01:09:55):
Yeah, all right, poll talk.
Speaker 3 (01:09:56):
Here we go. One two, three, crowd. Okay, let's go
all start proud.
Speaker 5 (01:10:02):
It's because I'm proud of you. And that's a weird
way to do this as a word to describe somebody else,
but I truly am. I'm so proud because I've seen
it firsthand, probably only second to your wife, you know,
Like I've seen your growth as a human being, as
a friend, as a singer, as a musician, as a
participant on this earth. I'm proud of the work you've
put in and I'm proud of all the progress that
(01:10:24):
you've made. You're a changed man, I mean, and it's
not just the physical appearance. It's just the way you
approach life. It's the way you approach our band, everything
about it. I feel so happy to be alongside you
on this journey and to be your biggest cheerleader. I'm
proud of you, man. Thank you.
Speaker 3 (01:10:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:10:41):
Well, and what was it?
Speaker 3 (01:10:43):
Had unbulived? I was hard, Yeah, it was an erect.
Speaker 5 (01:10:46):
Erect Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (01:10:48):
I was gonna tear up as allurgies are bad here.
Speaker 5 (01:10:50):
Yeah, yeah they are. It's something about this room.
Speaker 2 (01:10:52):
I chose the word grace for many reasons. You have
shown a lot of grace to me over the last
ten years, years of waiting for me to finally get
to this point, and you've been ahead of me in
that in that game of health and all these things.
But you've also shown yourself a lot of grace, which
takes a lot of guts to be able to do.
(01:11:12):
I know from just going through this myself, it's a
very easy thing to kind of put yourself down and
be like, you know, this is mistakes that I've made
in my past, and this is because I have felt
this way as well. But things that you've that you've done,
and decisions that we've made together, whatever it is that
you feel like affected you know the rest of your life.
(01:11:33):
And I've just watched you deal with that and have
grace for yourself and kind of forgive yourself for you know,
thinking a certain way or whatever it was, and having
grace on me and also receiving grace from your wife
and from my wife on.
Speaker 5 (01:11:50):
Both of us.
Speaker 2 (01:11:51):
I feel like grace could be described for kind of
the journey we've both been on. But I'm super proud
of of the journey that you've been on, and thank
you for having grace with me finally get there.
Speaker 5 (01:12:00):
I love you dog doing it.
Speaker 3 (01:12:02):
Okay, So whenever you're listening to this, it's if you're
listening to it on the day of albums out in
a few days. People listen to this thing forever albums
out now. Just pick which every one of those little
selections in my voice you'd like to have. But it's
called Bigger Houses September fifteenth. It's it's great. You know.
I wouldn't say if I didn't mean it, would say.
Speaker 5 (01:12:19):
Thank you, man, thank you.
Speaker 3 (01:12:20):
I wouldn't lie it it's uh, it's out. I would
just go, yeah, that's what. It's a whole bit in
my in my stand up. We just shot a special
last weekend, and I do a whole bit about what
I do if an artist comes in and plays they're
not good, yeah, and what I say and how I
have to say things, and I kind of talk tell
the audience like what they should listen to me for.
Speaker 2 (01:12:37):
Yeah, I do worry about that, like with artists that
are coming in now to I'll just change it.
Speaker 5 (01:12:42):
Yeah, now I'm gonna go listen to it. It's like
he said that in RYE.
Speaker 1 (01:12:47):
What the hell, Bobby.
Speaker 5 (01:12:48):
How are you doing? Man? I know you're so good
at bringing the best out everybody else, But I don't
know if anybody ever asks you that you work harder
than anyone I've ever known and you. I mean, you
got sports podcast, you've got music podcasts, you're doing this
end up show, selling out all these big theaters, you're
doing still do in the morning show. I mean, that's
so much. And among other things, how are you doing?
Speaker 3 (01:13:07):
I'm tired, I'm good. Yeah, yeah, but we're about to
take a break.
Speaker 1 (01:13:11):
So that's amazing.
Speaker 3 (01:13:12):
And if I would take a break, I would stay
here and sleep. Yeah, but we're gonna go on a trip.
Speaker 1 (01:13:16):
There you go, And nothing says rest like travel that.
Speaker 3 (01:13:19):
Well, I don't have kids, though, I bet it's a
whole different monster with kids.
Speaker 5 (01:13:21):
That's true.
Speaker 3 (01:13:22):
But you know that's for a whole other podcast. Sure,
you know called the Dan Cast.
Speaker 5 (01:13:26):
Let's go, Yes, let's go.
Speaker 2 (01:13:27):
Well, next age get we should we need to interview you,
a whole bunch of.
Speaker 3 (01:13:31):
You guys just have me here crying.
Speaker 5 (01:13:32):
I always wonder because allergies, we have to go do
one little thing and we're like, oh man, I'm exhausted.
Can we get like a ginger shot or something to
wake us up? But you're going constantly.
Speaker 3 (01:13:40):
I think this will just be relatable content to us
three and even Mike, who sits here, is that you
just have to adjust and like I wake up in
the morning, I hate it. I never wake up and
feel great. Sure, never, not one time at three o'clock
in the morning, I wake up and go like, what
a beautiful morning. Ever, But I get better. I do
(01:14:02):
in quality things, not as when I'm not feeling my best.
So then when I am feeling my best, god dang,
I'm rocking. So then I just try to feel my
best more so that once I'm able to see how
good I actually am when I'm just crushing it. I
try not to kill myself all the time because I
feel I can really do exemplary work. So but it's
taken me to really just drive myself into the ground
(01:14:23):
to realize just because just just doing things for the
sake of doing them and having a bunch of stuff
not as good as doing stuff really.
Speaker 5 (01:14:31):
Well, sure, things that matter. Yeah, And I'm.
Speaker 3 (01:14:33):
Really trying to dial in on things that I really
love doing more than sure I'm not.
Speaker 2 (01:14:38):
I've turned down four.
Speaker 3 (01:14:38):
Or five TV shows that I'm like, you know what, maybe,
but I may just hate it.
Speaker 5 (01:14:42):
How do you do with breaks and with rest? I
don't same.
Speaker 3 (01:14:45):
I'm insecure. That's why it's not because I feel like
I have a lot to offer the world. If I
don't work, I feel like I lose momentum. And if
foe minimum, howm I gonna get going on? Because I
feel like, why would anybody want me if I'm not popping?
So I got to stay popping. So I got to
keep going. Not the healthiest, but I'm the healthiest have
ever been because my wife has really absolutely been there,
and I mean we fight about it sometimes, yeah, where
she has to like, you're out of your mind, you're
(01:15:07):
working too much, you're crazy, You're and I'm like, you
don't understand. I turned into a child, total dude. Okay,
when you're dying, do you think people are going to
care about that you needed to go out and do
this TV show that's you know about the Great? No,
you don't even want to do it. So if you
don't want to do it and we don't need the
money and it's not really why do it?
Speaker 1 (01:15:29):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (01:15:30):
So yeah, pretty good. We're gonna start crying now. I'm
super happy for you guys. Love you guys. Obviously, we've
kind of all us three, we kind of all came
in the same time. It's kind of the class. We're
getting older, but smarter, and at.
Speaker 2 (01:15:44):
Least it's going that way, because it could be like here,
we are older and dumber and a lot less successful.
Speaker 3 (01:15:50):
Than we were when we met, and we could be
having this conference with no microphones and you know, no
nobody listening.
Speaker 1 (01:15:56):
It is mikes are hard, the hardest MinC. We did
it again.
Speaker 5 (01:16:03):
I can truly say that you have the most direct
my accept.
Speaker 3 (01:16:07):
Thank you, all right, bigger houses you guys. Check it out,
Dana she I love you, guys.
Speaker 4 (01:16:13):
Thanks for listening to a Bobby Cast production.
Guy knew he was burnout.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
I didn't know the extent of what was going on,
but he texted me and was like, hey, man, you
want to come over tonight in my heart of heart.
So I was like, I think that this might be
the end of our band.
Speaker 3 (00:16):
Episode four thirteen with Dan and Shay your thoughts on
this interview, Mike.
Speaker 4 (00:22):
They seem like completely different people, like the same people,
but like just so much like better and nicer and cooler.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
Like healthier. Yeah, and then you get jealous that you're
not as healthy. I get jealous I'm not as healthy,
But yeah, I agree. And they both look different too,
they do, so I guess maybe that's part of it
as well. And we go to that just at the
very beginning, because it's like, let's get all the really
superficial stuff out of the way. Dan, you cut your hair,
what the heck, Shae, you cut your body or you
(00:50):
lost all the weight, and what the heck, let's go.
We talked about that a bunch and they were very
open about it, and I do feel good about our
conversation about how they really got to a point in
their relationship where they almost broke up. Yeah, my wife
and Dan's wife are very close and so I knew
a lot of that stuff as it was happening, but
not my business. I didn't know what they were gonna do.
(01:12):
I don't know if they were going to break up.
I don't know if Dan was like I'm retiring, we'll
hold off for a while. But you know, I'm glad
they really went into it here with me, and I
think that since we kind of have that relationship, they
were able to do that a little safer.
Speaker 5 (01:27):
Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 3 (01:28):
So we do an hour over an hour with Dan
and Shay. Listen known these guys forever. They have a
new record that's out September fifteenth, so by the time
you hear this, it may already be out. The week
it's released, it's not out yet.
Speaker 5 (01:42):
But I don't know.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
I don't know what else to say except let's just
get to it. They are two of the judges now
in the Voice, but they're one judge. They're each half
a judge. How does that sound?
Speaker 5 (01:50):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (01:50):
One button, one button, two people. You guys went here,
and Shay was very honest about how you know, he
never really thought about being on the Voice and was like,
I don't know if that interested me, and then when
they said, hey, it may be an option, like it's
all I ever wanted to do in my whole life.
That Yeah, that's kind of how it works in my
head too. So okay, here we go. The new album,
Bigger House is coming out. They got a bunch of
new great music. They have a mini documentary called The Drive,
which came out in July on social media. Check it
(02:13):
out here. They are Dan and Shay. I've got allergies
pretty bad and I'm not hurting. But if I sound
like I'm about to cry.
Speaker 5 (02:20):
It's because we made you so much, not because you're here.
Speaker 3 (02:22):
I mean, it could be because you're here.
Speaker 5 (02:24):
Look at that picture looking over your shoulder, man, and it'll
do it to you.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
Yeah. I look at that in that states here all
the times just happened to come in here.
Speaker 5 (02:31):
But this picture is always up a you cho. I
saw it in TRS interview. I was like, what's that picture?
Speaker 3 (02:35):
Other people come over and it's just they're like, why
is there always a picture of Dan and Shay in here?
So so it's the allergies I was in. I was
in therapy two days ago, and I have a real
problem with crying. Not because it's a masculine thing, but
because it's a vulnerability thing. And so I always tell
my therapists like, I would love to cry more like,
(02:55):
I would love to not be embarrassed of crying. Not
because it's a masculinity thing. I don't have a dad,
but because again, I'm just scared of like being weak
and vulnerable. And my allergies got so bad that my
therapist thought I was crying and I was like, breakthrough.
Speaker 5 (03:11):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
It was like.
Speaker 3 (03:14):
It was like, see, look see how easy this is.
This is working, and I'm like, what see, how see
let's see your emotional nobody's judging you. I'm like, I
got allergies, bro. So that's where we are right now.
Good to see you guys too.
Speaker 5 (03:25):
Man, thanks for having us.
Speaker 3 (03:26):
It is I mean, I'll start Danielson closest. I guess
I haven't seen your hair in real life since you
cut it. I saw a video that maybe Caitlin had
where there's a deer in new yard and your dogs
were chasing it. It was the first time I saw
your hair because you ran out the security.
Speaker 5 (03:44):
Yeah, that was ridiculous. That was ridiculous hair.
Speaker 3 (03:46):
That was good.
Speaker 5 (03:47):
Thanks man. I'm just trying to steal your hairstyle.
Speaker 3 (03:49):
I don't do the thing. How big decision to cut it?
Or was it we're finished with this season? This hair
was growing for this season, let's cut it.
Speaker 5 (04:00):
Yeah. I feel like it was just a fresh start. Honestly,
like the music sounds a little bit different. It was
just it was an opportunity to, you know, start from scratch.
And the long hair was really a hassle. It was
a pain. I mean it was.
Speaker 3 (04:10):
It was a whole thing, just a routine you had
to do.
Speaker 5 (04:12):
It had a routine, especially before shows or before like
a TV thing. It's like over an hour's worth of
you know, you wash it and you put something in it,
let it curl up a little bit, and then you
curl it a little more. It was just a process.
I was calculating the amount of hours a year I
was spending on my hair. It was just way too much.
I was getting weeks back when I cut.
Speaker 3 (04:30):
It, and probably a lot of money because you have
to buy products are not cheap. No, even for my hair,
they're not cheap. And I don't have I mean to have.
Speaker 5 (04:37):
See, I wish I was a hat guy. I look
at all these other acts in their hat Guys, I
feel like that takes so much pressure off. You leave
the house, you just throw on a hat. It's like, man,
that guy's killing it.
Speaker 3 (04:44):
Or even just a temporary hat guy or an occasional
hat guy. Yeah, So if you're not feeling it, you
still had on. Yeah, But guys, then you're committed to
hat because if you're like a like Dustin Lynch, I'm
always like, you know, Dustin hates one of the Keble
hit every single freaking night he's performing, and.
Speaker 5 (04:57):
He's carrying it around in that verse.
Speaker 3 (04:59):
Somebody, and you know, he'd sometimes like to be like
I just like to either have my hair or wear
a ball cap.
Speaker 5 (05:04):
And he has good hair too, yep. But you either
got to be full hat.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
Yeah, you can't.
Speaker 5 (05:09):
You can't. You can't be.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
Somewhere in the middle. It's it's like Eric Church and sunglasses.
When do you see him without it, You're like, what
is what do you? How dare you? You're almost offended?
Speaker 5 (05:17):
How are you not wear sunglasses?
Speaker 1 (05:19):
In here?
Speaker 3 (05:19):
We were at Pebble Beach together, Eric Church and I.
We were there was before a part three. We were
both playing this part three like Championship, and I was
talking to Eric because he lives near me. I'm gonna
say where anybody lives. Nobody knows where I live. So
we were talking about that and I just remember thinking,
this is not the Chief. This is a guy in
a golf shirt that's just like Eric is there on
(05:43):
the Chief one the Chief.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
You know, it's the most like it was the most
relatable when I saw him golfing, which I feel like
when you first get into golf, I know that you've
seen this before too. When you're first getting in, it's
super intimidating because you just think everyone's way better than you,
and then you get in, you're like, so everyone just
kind of sucks. And I remember watching him I think
it was out the Pebble Beach one and it was
just like they went to him right on camera on
(06:06):
TV and the broadcast and he just hits, you know,
a stinger, but.
Speaker 3 (06:10):
It was it was like it was yeah, that's what
the kids say, you know, yeah.
Speaker 5 (06:12):
This is a stinger.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
And he just hit it like on the ground, like
thirty free feet in front in front of him, and
it was incredible.
Speaker 5 (06:18):
I remember the most relatable.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
Thing like what's your handicap? And when he said it,
I was like oh you're You're like me. I remember
thinking I don't really consider interest me anything like me.
But I was like, oh, you're like me. I just
want to do all the superficial questions up front. So Shaye,
at this point, you freaking ripped you fit?
Speaker 1 (06:36):
What's the deal like trying to get there?
Speaker 3 (06:38):
What are you doing now?
Speaker 2 (06:39):
So it kind of started out I was just fasting.
Speaker 5 (06:42):
I just i'd cut out alcohol.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
So I've been a year sober and I didn't really
set out to do that. And I was talking to
Jake on about this because I he went sober and
asking him kind of about that and my life is
just better without it. And I started six months was
kind of my goal of like, I'm not going to
drink and I'm going to do some fasting and just
eat whole foods and cut out sugar and all that,
and that worked. I In six months, I think it was,
(07:05):
I'd lost about sixty pounds and I was like, well
that was awesome, and I just felt better mentally. And
so after that, I kind of started actually going to
the gym with a trainer and started trying to put
on muscle, and that's kind of where I'm at right now.
My goal is like by next you know, summer, if
we go on the road to just be offensively ripped,
you know, like a Riley Green, he's.
Speaker 3 (07:26):
Offensive, annoying, like we have to Yeah, we can't even
address it. We're so annoyed by it.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
You can't even talk about it.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
Where it's like I don't understand why you even walked
into this room, like you should have wore long sleeves,
like we were all talking about it. It's the elephant
in the room, kind of ripped, like a temagraw ripped.
Speaker 5 (07:40):
I love the comments when Riley Green posts a picture,
it's like, yo, man, my girlfriend's on this app. Yeah,
like that's the level you gotta get to.
Speaker 3 (07:45):
Well, it's also too it's Riley or any of the
even Sam or whomever. You're just sure they get it
all the time because they are so ripped and so
good looking. You're like, I don't want to talk about
how good looking or even mention it because they have
to get it all the time.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
It wasn't the first time they've heard it, and maybe
in that hour right like people probably just like tech,
I imagine they get texted of like hey dude, like
what's the deal you know what I mean, why are
you so ripped.
Speaker 3 (08:08):
Just cutting all that stuff? Just as an I fasted
a bunch depending on I try to healthily fast depending
on what project I'm working on, or even for clarity
in my mind, Like I do find that when I'm fasting,
I do think clearer. And I don't know if it's
because of what I'm not eating or because of what
I am eating or the hours that I'm eating. And
I've read a lot of different studies and read about
(08:30):
European soccer teams that have done a lot of fasting. Yeah,
because it's way more of a European thing than it
is an American thing. But Mike d who produces this,
and it's like my main guy. I mean, he lost
one hundred pounds by by just going I'm not drinking
sodas anymore and walking and he went from there. Were
you able to see small growth like that? And that's
(08:50):
what kind of kept you in.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
It was for sure. The fasting thing is super interesting
because I've read a lot on it.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
You know, you do all this.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
I did research on it of like what is fasting?
What are you getting from it? Is it just to
lose weight? And there was At first, it was just
like the weight loss, and I was also walking.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
I would walk.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
I told myself if I could walk seven miles a
day that that would do something, just to see what
it would do.
Speaker 5 (09:12):
So I was.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
Walking seven miles like on a treadmill or outside, depending
like weather, and I would usually end up just walking
on a treadmill for seven hours and I'd catch up
on my shows and all that kind of stuff because
I never had that time to just be in one
place and it just kind of.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
It fell off.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
But yeah, I saw just a small growth, you know.
Mentally was the first thing. I think that kind of
was improved where I was like I can It sounds stupid,
but like I was remembering stuff a lot better, and
I didn't think that I had like a bad memory,
so like short term especially, like I was just like, oh,
that's kind of strange, Like I know I can remember
(09:48):
that whatever it was, like phone numbers from back in
the day.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
Like my brain was just functioning at a higher level.
Speaker 3 (09:53):
Maybe no sugar though, too, Like that's a big one
because sugar is such a freaking and I would eat
all day every day and sometimes I do, but it's
the worst and it's gonna in my what I've said
for a long time about this is and I could
be wrong, but in ten fifteen years, we're going to
look at sugar maybe twenty the same way that we
now look at cigarettes. But we're like they just all
(10:14):
doctor smoked cigarettes, and like I said, this is a
cigarette I would recommend, like sugar is awful and awesome.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
I could literally talk about that all day long because
I went down the rabbit hole of like sugar and
what that is and just and I won't spend too
much time talking about this because I'll spend an hour
talking about it. But the processed foods and things that
we have on the shelves, I mean, it's ninety nine
percent of the stuff that we have. It's so much
junk because it all turns into sugar at the end
of the day.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
And it was wild going down that rabbit hole.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
And my sister did a diet called like the candy
to diet, which is like basically cutting out all sugar,
and she had Crowns disease. And she's talked about this
publicly before, like she's like had Crowns disease, limes disease,
and ulcerative colitis, and she did that with the cutting
out sugar completely and anything that turned into sugar, and
she got rid of literally all of those things.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
And it's pretty wild.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
To look at, you know, using food as medicine rather
than kind of the first instinct to go to, you know,
straight medicine.
Speaker 5 (11:08):
It was wild to just cut out sugar.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
What that did for her personally and what it did
for me, I mean just thinking clearer and being motivated.
And I think fasting also has a lot to do
with a lot of the energy I was feeling and
just like the focus. But there's all kinds of science
behind that. But it was really I started to see
it in small ways, and then after six months it
was a massive I mean a little bit every day,
(11:30):
a small percentage. You look back in six months and
I just didn't recognize myself now, you know, it being
a little over a year, I literally don't feel like
the same guy. It's kind of why, I mean, I
look completely different. But it also just like the way
that I think and approach life and the way I
approach music, like I'm obsessed now where it's like I
want to take this whole deal as kind of a
(11:51):
athletic feat you know, to be able to be a
musician and we're playing shows, we're running around on stage
like I want to take that kind of approach like
athlete would, taking it very seriously of like, all right,
our fans deserve, you know, our best performances, and to
do that, I need to be at my peak performance
of whatever that looks like. It doesn't have to be
(12:11):
getting shredded, but just being prepared and making sure that
I'm you know, taking the time to work on myself
in those ways and mentally is a big part of that.
Speaker 1 (12:20):
All those things go together.
Speaker 3 (12:21):
I think, yeah, health, mental health. You feel like it's
affected your mental health in a good way.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
One hundred percent.
Speaker 5 (12:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:25):
And I think one thing I noticed and learned is
that your gut health and your mental health there the
two are so connected that I just didn't realize that
ever in the past. And as I kind of gone
down that rabbit hole, it was like, Okay, I'm eating
healthier and now I'm thinking clearly, and I haven't had
a panic attack in a year and a half, and
it was like, there's probably something to that, you know.
Speaker 3 (12:48):
There was a little relief probably a month or so ago,
because Mike then this will be when the album is out.
A week before it comes out. Okay, so most people
listening to this, they won't have heard the record yet,
but some of it's out. And so Dan had sent
me the record and was like, hey, he did the
thing that I just love the most. He was like,
(13:09):
don't tell me how good or bad it is. She
tell me what song sticks out? Because I hate when
people are like, is it good? All they all they
all they want is whomever it is. We all want
this as humans, right, yeah, validation, yes, like and so
then I have to be like, it's good.
Speaker 5 (13:23):
Yeah, and you know what.
Speaker 3 (13:24):
It's gonna be fine regardless of who is sending it
if it's at this level. But Dan was like, tell
me what songs stick out. So I definitely take my
time with it because I don't really do that. I
don't listen to a lot of music that before it
comes out. Hey, I was in a lot of music
anymore now because there's just so much. So I just
really have my stuff. But I do love you guys
and definitely respect you guys a bunch. And so Dan's like,
(13:46):
check it out, don't tell me what's good, tell me
what sticks out, just straight up and I was like, oh,
so I told Caitline. I was like, I'm so glad
Dan asked me to do it that way.
Speaker 5 (13:53):
Hey, you have permission always to be honest, though you
know that I do what I do.
Speaker 3 (13:56):
Yeah, but it's like everything's gonna be good because you
guys want you guys aren't going to spend the time,
not that you're not gonna write that songs. You may
write a bad song, but then you may not cut
the bad song. Then if you do cut a song,
then maybe isn't good. Somebody's gonna go I don't think
that should make the So there's just a lot of
gates to get through. So I knew what I was
gonna hear was gonna be good. So I listened to
the record three times all the way through, and I'm
just like, what pops?
Speaker 5 (14:17):
What pops?
Speaker 3 (14:17):
So I sent Dan a couple of songs. I was like,
this is my favorite song, this is my second favorite song,
and then I just kind of waited for Dan's response,
and the one that I sent him, I said, and
you'll vouch, I said, save me. The Trouble is like
the best. It's it's it's the best. YEP, Like that
is such a single. Had no idea.
Speaker 5 (14:36):
We announced it as a single like three days later, had.
Speaker 3 (14:38):
No idea, And so I I just I love that song.
I mean that it feels sonically different enough to hear
a maturation, but not that you're running from creatively who
you guys have been.
Speaker 5 (14:59):
Yeah, that's exact factly why we chose it as the
first single, Like, that's what it felt like to me.
It was honestly, it was so validating when you said
that was one of your favorites, because we've got so
much respect for you as a friend. You know, your
ear for music. You took a chance on us before
anyone else, you know, and you take a chance on
a lot of new music, and you've broken a lot
of artists and country music in your time here. And
not just trying to guess you up, it's just the truth,
you know.
Speaker 3 (15:18):
To keep keep on them.
Speaker 5 (15:19):
I will, I will. The shoes look great, shirt looks great.
House man, it's awesome. But yeah, that song when you
said that was one of your favorites or you know.
Speaker 3 (15:26):
Favor that was number one to me. Yeah, it's amazing.
Speaker 5 (15:29):
We felt the same way. We felt like there was
this moment we were trying to go back and forth
pick the first single, and that one was always at
the top of the list to us. And there was
this one epiphany moment sitting there. I've got the phone
on the island kitchen and it's playing and I heard
Save Me the Trouble, and I was like, how could
this not be the first single? And that was what
I texted everybody. I was like, how could it not be?
It was just something about that song that stood out,
(15:50):
maybe not necessarily above all the rest, but it felt
like it didn't alienate what got us here in the
first place. You know, if you've loved Dan and Shay
records in the past, it has that. It has the harmonies,
it has the you know, big explosive chorus. But I
feel like it was a taste of the evolution what
the rest of the album sounds like. There were some
other songs on there that may have been a little
bit more organic or maybe more country than some of
the stuff we'd done in the past, which I think
(16:11):
it fits cohesively on the project when you hear it
in context. But if we had come out of the
gate with something like that with no context, I feel
like it may have been too much of a shock,
Save Me the trouble just felt like the right first call.
And man, it's it's been flying up radio charts crazy.
Speaker 3 (16:25):
So yeah, definitely a graduation, but also you didn't change
countries totally, still in the American school system, you know.
I mean, it's so yeah, I loved that, and then
it's called Bigger Houses, So what's why? What's the why?
Speaker 5 (16:42):
Just why?
Speaker 2 (16:43):
As far as the the album, sure, well, whenever I'll
go back, I guess to that song to give it context.
But the first time that I heard that song, we
were kind of done with the record.
Speaker 5 (16:54):
At this point.
Speaker 1 (16:54):
We had kind of had all.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
The songs were done, and Dan had written the song
Bigger Houses with our buddy Andy Albert, and I don't
know was it who else was in that.
Speaker 5 (17:04):
Song, Andy, Jordan Minton and Jordan Reynholms.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
Yeah, so a bunch of more core writers that the boys.
And I hadn't heard it yet, and he was like,
had sent it over. And usually Dan, you know, prefaces
any song that he writes that I wasn't on. He'll
preface it like I don't know if it's like that
good or whatever, But then he'll send it and I'm
like it's probably gonna be phenomenal. You know, if he's
sending it to me, I know it's gonna be good.
And I was actually back home in Arkansas and I
(17:28):
was visiting my family and I was on the farm
that I grew up in, and there was just something
about hearing it in that context of a place that
I learned the lesson the first time of the lesson
that is in that song from that was what I
was taught growing up, you know, of where happiness lies.
And it was just a really it hit me really hard,
and I was like, man, we have to have to
record this song, like this is it's my favorite song
(17:51):
that we've ever done. I can say that now after
we recorded it. There's just something about it that is
so genuine and authentic to my upbringing and kind of
where I came from that I just connected with it
on a really deep level. Even though I didn't write
the song, it was just like, man, this is I
would have liked to think that if I was there
in that room, like these are the things that I
(18:11):
would have wanted to say, And it just resonated really
hard with me, which I feel like on this entire album.
Speaker 5 (18:17):
It was just very representative.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
Of like where we're at in our lives, and even
the heartbreak songs are the fun songs. It just felt
very much where I'm at, you know, songs like then
Again and always going to Be. It's just where I'm
at my life, and.
Speaker 5 (18:29):
It just I feel like bigger houses.
Speaker 2 (18:31):
Sonically, it was pretty stripped back of how we you know,
that song was written of how kind of we write something.
We wrote this entire project kind of just on acoustic
guitars and a piano, and like there wasn't any tracks
like the entire time and nothing against that, you know
that pendulum swings back and forth always, but we just
wanted to kind of do it how we had done
it in the.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
Very beginning of just getting together and telling stories.
Speaker 2 (18:52):
And I feel like that that song in particular, really
it connected the entire album was a song that was
very representative of what where we were at in our
career and our life and the things that we had
been through and where we were focused. And I feel like,
I mean, the overall message of the song is, you know,
the thing about happiness I've found is it don't live
in bigger houses. And obviously it's not just talking about
(19:15):
bigger houses. It's the things that we chase after. You know,
there's nothing wrong with you know, having nice things and
whatever it is.
Speaker 1 (19:20):
We all like those things.
Speaker 2 (19:21):
But it's when you start to set that bar and
you start chasing after that high, when you're chasing after
a feeling that is an unattainable goal because you're that
bar is always going to get raised. It's like, all right,
you win three Grammys, you can win six, somebody's one twenty.
You know, somebody's won thirty Grammys. It's like, there's a
bar that you can set for yourself and these experiences
that you almost come to expect that are just you're
(19:43):
never going to reach that goal. And I feel like
we had to have that moment where we looked around
and we're like, Okay, you know what, we need to
bring it back, reel it back a little bit. Step
one is to appreciate what we've gotten to do in
this incredible career that we've had and thankful for that,
and know that moving forward, if we can find joy
in the process of making this album and getting to
(20:06):
do something that we love, we can't control what happens
after that, but we can control the process and if
we can find joy in that, we don't have to
worry about what happens after that and winning these awards
and having all these hits and streams and whatever it is.
If you can find joy in those small moments, you
don't have to worry about the rest of it. And
I just feel like that song, it just really resonated
(20:29):
with me, and we just felt like it was the
perfect representation to kind of place the badge of Okay,
this song represents this entire project as a whole, and
that just needs to be the name of the album.
Speaker 1 (20:40):
And it's been really.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
Cool so far. I feel like just the badge of
Bigger Houses. I'm really proud to put that song as
almost a stamp on the album to let people know
what this album is going to be about and what
it represents.
Speaker 4 (20:55):
Hank Ty the Bobby Cast will be right back, and
we're back on the Bobby Cast.
Speaker 3 (21:09):
I remember watching the Drive, the social media document whatever
you gonna call it content. I text Dan I was like,
hey man, that was awesome. Like I felt a little uncomfortable.
Knew a lot of the stuff that was going on too,
you know, our families are close, but I was like, wow,
you got that that felt, so I'll just say good
(21:30):
because it was real and it was honest. But sometimes
you can see when it is a bit strategized. Sure,
but that was uncomfortable and in the best way. So
I guess my lead into that is, you guys were
going through a lot. You decided to share it a
lot with each other. Why did you why did you
(21:51):
decide to share that then, and why was it important
to put that out there?
Speaker 5 (21:54):
I think selfishly, it was good to share it, the vulnerability,
putting your vulnerability out there to the world. I feel
like it's helpful to us, you know, for personal growth,
for growth in our relationship with each other. But you know,
if you look back on the course of our ten
year career, everything's been pretty squeaky clean, you know, And
for the most part, that's what it is for artists.
I think there's a big authenticity movement right now, which
is amazing. You'd love to see it. I'd love to
(22:16):
see people putting their actual heart out there on the line,
and I think that's important for fan connection. But for
ten years, it was like only posting the best of
the best in the highlight reel, you know, on social media,
and I know, that's the nature of the beast, but
we felt like if we were going through that, there
was likely somebody else. And also it gave context to
this music that was about to come out, so I,
you know, there is a little bit of that, but
(22:37):
we felt like if we were going through this, there
was somebody out there, one of our fans, somebody in
the industry, and that was the most reactive piece of
content we've ever put out there, not necessarily in views
or virality, but the amount of industry people, managers, artists, writers,
just friends, friends from back home texting me like, man,
that was really brave you guys, Like that was inspiring
to me, Like that, you know, inspired me to speak
(23:00):
up or communicate with somebody that I hadn't communicated with
in a while. And I don't know, it was just
like the messages that we got. There were long messages too.
It wasn't just like love you guys, come to Cleveland.
It was like paragraphs, like people explaining what that meant
to them. That was a powerful piece, but it was
it was true, It was honest, it was genuine. That
moment that night we talked about, you know, my house
(23:21):
and what was at March twenty twenty two or whatever.
That was the most pivotal moment in Dan Shay's career,
like more so than any award, more so than any song,
any show that we've ever done. That moment changed at
all because for ten years, you know, life gets in
the way when that when you're going so hard. You
know how we were working hard, and we started out
one hundred and fifty shows a year. You're on the
(23:41):
road constantly, and if you're not going out of your
way to work on that relationship, especially in a duo,
a duo was such a difficult configuration. I mean, historically
a lot of duos fall apart because it's fifty to fifty.
I think it's harder than a marriage. It's like it's
equal split and you're on public display at all times,
and if you're not being open with each other and
going out of way being proactive with communication, things can
(24:02):
fall apart. And you know, we say in a trio
there's a tiebreaker. Solo artists kind of pays their own way,
but a duo you really have to work at it,
and we weren't working at it. You know, there was
nothing people are like, So was there like a specific
incident or was there a fight. There really wasn't. And
we've said that before too, that there maybe that was
the problem that there wasn't a fight. We weren't communicating,
you know, if something was bothering us, or you know,
(24:24):
I was being an idiot or whatever, Sha was doing something,
we weren't speaking about it in real time, and we
were just like letting things fester. And I think that's
where things kind of got in the way. And then
throw in COVID where you know, we're on and off
the road for that two year period and it was
just such an emotional roller coaster. It was a lot
of story to tell. And you know, Shane and I
once we got to this place after that we can
(24:45):
talk more about that in a sec two that come
to Jesus night at my house conversation. After that, we
were just it just felt like the air had lifted.
We were like in such an amazing place, the closeness
of our relationship, of our friendship stronger than ever before.
And we would get on the phone, Shae would come
over the house for what we said in the drive
is true, Like we made this goal to hang out more,
to spend more time together. Three days a week. Whatever,
(25:08):
Shaye comes over, we pick up a guitar. Right. If
we don't have an idea, we just hang out, you know,
just whatever, watch a movie, do it, do something, just
hang out, spend time together like we did when we
first started, and then Shae would leave and we'd call
each other be like, dude, today was sick, you know,
like or if we wrote a song, it'd be like
that song sick. And we didn't even know we were
making an album at the time. It was just like
(25:28):
and we didn't know if we were going to still
be a band. It was like, let's just see how
this goes, like let's reconnect, let's be friends again, you know.
And we would get on the phone for an hour
and a half. Like there were some nights we were
I remember pacing around my backyard getting bit up by
mosquitoes and we're talking for like I think it was
like ninety minutes or something. When I'd look down at
my phone just like, dude, this is like just feels
(25:48):
like a new era, a new chapter, like these songs
were writing. You're so fun, Like what if we like
told this story to the world, you know, and then
you get asked when when you put out a record,
the label says, hey, let's do a day where we
go do liners. Hey I'm and I'm Shay and we're
Dan and Shay, and this is what our album's about.
For each song is track by track. I was like,
I think it'd be really special to tell our fans
to give context to this album, like what we just
(26:10):
talked about. I was like, if somebody had been recording
this phone call that we just had, just us talking
about what we had been through, we're going through, what
we're dreaming of, you know, like that is that sums
it all up. And we just one day was like, dude,
we should just like go for a drive, Like, get
in a car, go out to Kingston Springs. We spent
a lot of time out there when we first got going.
You know, we couldn't afford a meal, so we had
(26:32):
friends who would feed us out there and you know,
beautiful place to hang. So we got in a car,
they rigged it up, put a couple of GoPros in there,
put some mics in the car, and we just drove.
No managers, nobody sitting there like saying prompting any of
the conversation. We just I don't even remember where we started,
but it was you.
Speaker 2 (26:48):
I think we got lost about six times on those
back roads and we legitimately drove for hours. Yeah, it
was like it took a second to it going because
we were you know, we knew that we were being filmed,
and so we had to like settle in and we're like,
let's just talk. And then we talked for like three hours,
and we used so little of the content it probably
took them forever to go through and find easable pieces
because we really just ended up having that conversation of
(27:11):
just like talking through exactly what. Because that that conversation
literally sparked I was like, man, I wish people could
just hear that is the context of the album what
we just had on this phone call. And I was
just like, let's just go for a drive. And it
really one of these days we'll probably put out some
more footage of the drive because it was director's cut
all of it. The director's cut all of it. There'd
be a long that'll be a movie.
Speaker 5 (27:32):
Half of us is like that a cop behind us,
you know, like stupid stuff like that.
Speaker 1 (27:36):
Yeah, half of it was there was like this big
camera like going on.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
I was making sure I didn't hit anybody while filming this.
That would have been really bad, but it was awesome
to kind of also rehash that. It was another one
of those moments and our just our personal lives that
we were just a couple of guys out in the
middle of nowhere driving talking through the craziness that was
our career over the last ten years.
Speaker 3 (27:57):
Sometimes when I make a change in my life, it's
got to be because it gets to a point that
is so drastic that I can realize it where it's, oh,
I'm not in a good place. I mean when I
went to on site, I wasn't in a good place.
So it took me to actually hit we'll call bottom.
Speaker 2 (28:14):
You know.
Speaker 3 (28:14):
My mom would go to rehab, she would hit bottom,
and then she would go would you say in you guys' relationship,
because you got to hit a bottom to get to
actually have the desire to get out of it or
to get back in it.
Speaker 5 (28:25):
That's a great point. If you never hit that rock bottom,
you might not realize something's wrong or that you need
to make a change. And I hit it for you, guys,
I absolutely hit rock bottom. I'll you know, speak on
my side of the story and you know, shake and
speak on his But that date was December. It was
like first week at December of twenty twenty one. So
this was when we finished the arena tour. You know,
(28:46):
you work your whole life to get to a place
where you can sell out an arena tour. We did.
We put that on sale in October of twenty nineteen,
you know when ten thousand Hours with Bieber came out,
put this tour up, sell out MSG We sold out
Staples Center, two nights at Bridgetone, like all these bucket
list milestones. We're riding high, it's amazing, and then boom,
COVID happens. It's all gone, and it's like, man, what
(29:06):
that'll mess with your head? So we're juggling that for
a couple of years. We finally get back out there.
We did the tour. Shout out to our team and
you know everybody out on the road, the promoters, you know,
in the fans for hanging out of those tickets. Like
it was a tremendous success given the circumstances. But I
think I was chasing a lot of the wrong things,
you know, speaking to the bigger houses thing a little
bit comparison, we all know that comparison is the thief
(29:28):
of all joy, and I think we all get caught
up in that, especially when everything is so on display
with social media. You know, you can look at stats,
you can look at likes. Everything is just so right
there for you to compare yourself to the best of
the best of what somebody else is putting out. And
I think I was caught up in that in a
crazy way. On social media. I was, you know, being
a content guy because we're too stubborn to have somebody
(29:49):
help us with it, which we need to change that
at some point. But you know, we're on the biggest
tour of our lives and I'm like, well, crap, you know,
we sold out last night. Let me make this video
of us doing you know, we're in tall set at
the Bok Center, and like we got to get this
content of us like jumping in the crowds here and
that stuff's all cool. But it was like all to
like let the industry know that we're out here doing well.
(30:09):
And I was chasing that too much and not enjoying
the moment. I was like maybe looking forward too much
to what was next, and I just really spiraled. It
made me resent music because I wasn't doing anything that
was related to music. It was like all in the
name of trying to get content, and it was like
I was not appreciating the fact that there were fans
there singing the words back to us, and that wasn't
appreciating the fact that I was getting to sing with
(30:31):
my best friend or play with our band who we
grew up with. Like all these incredible, incredible moments passed
me by, and December, you know, came around twenty twenty one.
We finished the tour in Boston and I got off
stage more like defeated than I had ever been. And
you know how it is, It's like it's really hard
to be in this position. And I don't want to
sound like I'm complaining about it, but I think that's
(30:52):
why a lot there's a lot of mental health issues
and depression in our industry, because if you're really struggling
with something to the public, you feel this responsibility to
be a superhero. You feel this responsibility to be unbreakable.
You know, like on stage you have to be like,
this is the best night of my life, when in
deep down you could be like, I'm really hurting right now.
(31:12):
You know, and this was before we knew to talk
to each other, to be open about it with our fans.
You know, this is a whole new chapter in an
amazing era. But that moment I got off stage and
I was like, I'm done. I don't know if I
could ever do this again. And I didn't really say
that to anyone. I think Abby kind of knew it.
But she is so patient, so incredible, so encouraging with
me to kind of work through these issues, you know,
(31:34):
work on myself. And I came home from that and
I like literally laid on the couch. You know, I'm
always going, always doing something, just like you man, always
on the move, always grinding, And that was like the
first time in a long time that I just kind
of laid there for like two weeks to process everything.
I was like I might be done, I might retire whatever,
moved back to my hometown figured out, but like I've
(31:56):
I'm burnout. It was like the most extreme burnout I
had ever felt, and I felt like I needed to
get myself right first before I made any progress with
Shay and our relationship, whether we were going to keep
the band together or whatever. It was like I needed
to get myself right on a personal level, I need
to fall back in love with music, and I you know,
after doing a lot of soul searching, I realized that
(32:17):
previous year I'd written four songs total. Two of them
were Christmas songs, two of them were for another band.
And that is the thing that brings me the most
happiness and fulfillment is creating being in the studio making music.
And I wasn't making any music, and I was like,
maybe I start there. So I went out on this
little trip for There's a band called the band Camino
good Buddies of Ours killing it right now. They did
(32:38):
a little writing retreat for their album out in Colorado.
I was like, you know what, I'll head out there
with the boys. It's no pressure, you know, like not
writing for Dan and Shade thing where we're saying like, okay,
we've had these kind of hits. We need this thing.
It's like just a little bit more free form. And
if I don't get a single song out there, I'll
get to go skiing. Like it'll be fun. So I
did wrote a couple songs and I was like this
is fun, Like there's no pressure. We're not writing for
(33:01):
a specific you know, Dan and Shay thing like just
making music for the sake of making music. And I
came home, did the same thing with a couple other buddies.
I was like, just trying to do it a couple
of days a week, and I was like feeling so elated.
I was so happy once you know, that went on
for a couple months, and I just got to this amazing,
amazing place and I was like, you know what, I
got to get myself right with Shaye. We were about
(33:22):
to go out on tour with Chesney, which is Stadium's
bucket list tour. I mean that's like for a support slot,
that's the pinnacle of it. And we had that booked
and I came to this place. I was like, I
got right with myself. I owe it to myself, I
owe it to Shae, and I owe it to Dan
and Shae the entity to figure this out. Whether we
end this band and we right off into the sunset,
(33:43):
we should go and enjoy playing in these football stadiums,
or this could be a launching off point for the
next chapter. And I was like, I got to hit Shae.
We got to have this conversation tonight. So I called
Shay and I was like, yeah, that's what I was calling.
Speaker 2 (33:54):
You did no, I mean, and I hadn't talked to him,
you know, and yeah, this was a this It was
kind of a conversation. I had kind of knew his
kind I knew he you know, kind of how he felt,
of like I knew he's burnout. I didn't know the
extent of what was going on, but he texted me
and was like, hey, man, you want to come over tonight.
And I was like, okay, he wants to talk about something.
Speaker 1 (34:15):
I thought.
Speaker 2 (34:15):
It was like this is going to be kind of
it honestly in my in my heart of heart. So
I was like, I think that this might be the
end of our band. And I was like, yeah, man,
when you know, when do you want to do this?
Speaker 5 (34:25):
You know?
Speaker 2 (34:26):
And he was like, I can come over there right now.
And I was like, oh, okay, he wants to talk
like right now. And then I was like, I mean,
you talk about a full blown panic, you know, because
all this stuff started coming up and I was like,
oh no, Like I was not prepared.
Speaker 1 (34:39):
This was like a normal.
Speaker 2 (34:40):
Sunday night or something, and I'm like, I'm gonna I
told my wife. I was like I'm going to meet
with Dan and I and we didn't really talk about it,
and we both kind of looked at each other like
I think I'm going to go in my band with
my best friend that I haven't been close with in
several years. It was just kind of this whole understood
like this, we'll deal with this when we'll do the
wreckage when I get back, you know. And I just
(35:02):
remember driving over there just like sweaty palms, be like dude,
this is this is heavy, you know. And I was like,
this was giving me emotional right, this is to teach
you how to this is just.
Speaker 3 (35:10):
Paying you forgive me an example people.
Speaker 2 (35:13):
But I was like, man, this is like the last
ten years of my life is about to end, you know,
and this is about we're about to you know whatever.
And I get there and it was just like this,
you know, what's up, dude, you know. And I remember
we sat there and Dan just like starts to apologize
for like the last ten years. That prompted me to
apologize for stuff. And you know, that's the long and
(35:34):
short of it. That we sat there until I think
I got over there, like maybe I don't know, seven
thirty after I put the kids to bed.
Speaker 1 (35:39):
I went over there.
Speaker 2 (35:40):
We stayed up and talked till like three in the
morning and just hashed through all of these things, and
a lot of that was like, all right, we need
to really appreciate like what we've gotten to do, whether
we continue to do this band. It wasn't like we
were dancing around the fact that we both were kind
of feeling like we don't know if we're going to
do this anymore. But it was like, like, man, let's
(36:01):
let's ride off into the sunset. Either way, let's Dan
and Shay. Is always going to be was something that
Dan said. He was like, We're always going to be
a tattoo on somebody's arm, always gonna be a first
dance song.
Speaker 1 (36:11):
And I was like, that's great.
Speaker 2 (36:12):
I remember, like because this was kind of after we
had had our like really heavy talk, you know, and
we had kind of gotten the tears out and all
that kind of stuff, and I remember like watching him
like grab his phone and type in that title, you know,
and I was like, that's a great title, and and
it was just it.
Speaker 1 (36:30):
Was just an incredible night.
Speaker 5 (36:31):
Man.
Speaker 2 (36:31):
It's like, you know, I feel like a lot of
people are scared to say you know, like, oh, yeah,
we got together and we cried, like just a couple
of friends. That's that's pretty lame, Like no one would
want to say that out loud, but like it was, man,
a lot of tears were shed and a lot of
stuff was really figured out. And it wasn't like we
figured out all of our problems, but acknowledging that.
Speaker 1 (36:52):
It mattered enough to both of us that we would try.
Speaker 2 (36:55):
And it was just after that, it was our plan
of action was to all right, let's hang out through
times a week, let's get together, and let's have no agenda.
Speaker 3 (37:03):
It's just the relationship more than what the relationship could do.
Exactly was let's make sure we do the relationship.
Speaker 2 (37:10):
Let's be let's be friends again. Because I feel like
that's something that people don't see from the outside to
be very easy to be like, yeah, we're in a band,
and I feel like every duo in history, especially in
country music, I mean, we've had so much devastation. You know,
that is wreckage that has been left through different duos,
friends of ours that have that have very publicly happened,
and what you don't see is like the behind the
(37:32):
scenes stuff that is just like their friendship is. If
that gets wrecked, it's just a matter of time. That's
a ticking time bomb of you know, your of your
band separating because you're just going in different directions. And
even though Dan and I are such different people at the core,
like on every level, that's the reason that it works
is because we have extreme respect.
Speaker 1 (37:51):
For one another.
Speaker 2 (37:52):
And even when your when your lives are kind of
going like this, it's so important to kind of realign yourselves.
And even though like you know, I've got three kids
at this point, Dan's got dogs, we've got our families,
like we have our own responsibilities, but acknowledging like, hey man,
I respect the hell out of you for what you're doing,
and no matter if I believe the same thing that
you believe or not, I respect what you believe. And
(38:15):
we both have this band in common, and we have
our fans in common, and I think the world needs
to needs to view that too.
Speaker 1 (38:22):
You know.
Speaker 2 (38:23):
It's like we have so much you know, separation in
our country and all these things, and it's like no matter.
I feel like when I was growing up, that was
kind of the message, like all right, you believe this
and I believe this. We're gonna scream at each other
and then we're gonna go grab a beer, you know,
And I feel like that's kind of been lost on
the world, a little bit of the the value of
a good fight.
Speaker 6 (38:42):
You know.
Speaker 2 (38:43):
That's the next video that's coming out. It's the follow
up to The Drive. It's called The Fight. It's gonna
be really good. But I feel like it was, you know,
we had to learn to respect each other enough to
have those hard conversations when we knew that if things
are if I have a problem now, like it's even
happened in like the last you know, six months or so,
where we're like, okay, this is I think this is
(39:05):
how it should be. No, I think this is how
it should be. We talk it out and it's like, awesome,
this way is clearly better because we both care, we
want the same thing, and we learned how to like
focus that stuff and really put a focus on communication,
just like in any marriage would be. If you just
don't talk about something, That's how us guys most times
like think like I fixed it.
Speaker 3 (39:25):
It's our issue too. I don't say anything about it.
I let it live, and then I just keep pushing
it down. But my wife knows she has to go
and get it because I will not. Yeah, and it
doesn't put her in a great place. And I don't
like it. I'm like that a lot of times. But
I'm and also I feel like I can fix it
in my head myself. Sure, totally, And just like I'm
gonna go and fix it. I'm not even gonna teke
the process, but I'm gonna come back and it's gonna
(39:45):
be fixed.
Speaker 5 (39:45):
Yeah, yep.
Speaker 3 (39:46):
And that gets me in trouble, But you're right, it's
a relationship. And you guys marriage also, your marriages to
your wives, like one on one's tough. Regardless of the
situation it is.
Speaker 4 (39:57):
The Bobby Cast will be right back. This is the
Bobby Cast.
Speaker 3 (40:10):
Do you guys, one on one on stage, do you
have and maybe they're not absolutes, but do you have
signals like, hey, cover for me, I need to go
and pee or maybe not pee I wish like on
the show me and oh my guess they know my
little They know if if I'm holding up a finger
for this, if I twirl my hand for that. At
(40:31):
this point, we've been together almost twenty years, We've been.
Speaker 5 (40:33):
Doing it for a long time.
Speaker 3 (40:34):
Yeah, if I do a little of this. They know,
go longer, go shorter. I gotta turn my mic off.
I gotta what is that relationship like with you guys,
or even a quarterback and a wide receiver where you're
on stage, you're performing, you're playing the game, but you
got to cover for each other, but you really don't
say it.
Speaker 5 (40:51):
I feel like it goes unset. I feel like it
is so lockstep. We find ourselves like jinx, you know,
so many times like thinking the same thing, saying the
same thing on age. I feel like the chemistry it's
just like the show. I mean, it's just we've thought
about like we have a hand signal if like one
of us needs to get a drink, but I know
when he needs to get a drink and same same goes.
It's just the eye contact. We lock eys, like okay, cool,
(41:11):
I know something's going on with his in ear pack.
He's gonna run over. I'm gonna get on the mic
and find somebody with a sign in the crowd and
buy him a minute and a half or whatever. You know,
those kind of things just you spend that much time together,
it's uh. And also it's a chemistry thing. Man It's
something we noticed when we first met. You know, I'd
never felt that making music with somebody before. In the
writing room, we would finish each other's sentences and oh,
(41:34):
see doing it right right now?
Speaker 3 (41:35):
Yeah, right now it's crazy.
Speaker 5 (41:41):
And now Mike's involved, it's crazy now.
Speaker 1 (41:44):
Man.
Speaker 5 (41:44):
It's a lot of it goes unsaid. We're learning that.
I could probably say as we started taping the voice.
You know, I know it airs next year, but we
started taping the voice and there's one button. We're in
this big chair that's connected. There's one button, and we
were like, dude, we got to come up with some signals,
like two taps on the leg, and like, we had
these grand plans we were gonna make because everything's like
(42:05):
cameras in your face, you're miked up. You know, everything
is is fair game, and uh, we had these grand
plans to like make signals. Whenever we liked something, we're
gonna hit it. We kind of forgot to do that.
Time got in the way, and I feel like it's
still so lockstep. If we're like we look over cool
and we hit that.
Speaker 2 (42:21):
I can read the panic on Dan's face.
Speaker 6 (42:23):
Yeah, my hands are twitching. I'm like I don't know
about this. I hope Shade doesn't push the button and
then we don't do it. But yeah, man, you spend
that much time with each other and there is just
a you know, intangible chemistry between the two of us.
Speaker 5 (42:34):
When we're on stage or we're writing or singing harmonies.
I know when you're gonna go for a high note
or I know coming out of chorus too. If you
know we'd been singing a lot and you're gonna go
for a chill version, I'll back off on the harmony,
you know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (42:45):
Those things it's almost creepy sometimes, like it's like the
twin thing.
Speaker 1 (42:49):
I mean, this has happened, especially on the Voice.
Speaker 2 (42:51):
I noticed it the most because we were doing a
lot of you know, you do a lot of interviews
in between, you know, the whole deal. It's a whole process.
And it was so fun because that we would literally
say the same thing at the same time. And I
was like, we do this a lot, and it's crezy,
like we can't even use those takes because it looks like,
oh we say that, even like responses, it looks like we'rehearsed.
Like I mean, there'll be things like you know someone's
(43:13):
talking to us and you know we're an interview and
we're like for sure, for sure at the same time,
like what is happening, dude, it's like we're just kind
of look at each other like totally because you spend
you know, your all of your time with someone and
like we're we're in the same conversations and you just
kind of learn. It's like a marriage where you're like,
you get you kind of pick up each on each
other's lingo and things that you say, and it's like
(43:35):
almost to a creepy point, like at the same times,
like when someone gives you a question, because we're getting
those questions all the time, and so it's like our
response is just getting grained in our brains and it's
kind of weird and sometimes but it's awesome.
Speaker 1 (43:48):
It is awesome.
Speaker 3 (43:49):
Awesome, God a picture of that. Oh my god, no
one's gonna believe this. When you started putting this project
together and you weren't writing to really write a record,
you were just writing to write and you were gathering
good songs. Basically, if I'm Right, Always Going to Be
was the first song from this project that made the
(44:11):
project like as far as like a timeline of all
of it.
Speaker 5 (44:14):
The first song you wrote, Yeah, that was the first
song we wrote for the record. I think it was. Yeah,
it was the first one we recorded, first one we
had a mix on Yeah that you know, Shae mentioned
it earlier, but that night when we were talking, we
were like, we got to figure this out. Our fans,
the industry, everybody that we've come in contact with, the
we owe that to them. They deserve that because Dan
and Shay, It's always going to be a tattoo on
somebody's arm, It's always going to be a first dance
(44:35):
at somebody's wedding. It's it's going to be a moment
for somebody that, whether we break up or not, Dan
and Shay is always going to be And like Shay said,
I wrote that down on my phone and I was
just like, that's that's a special sentiment. And you know,
obviously we evolved it, we brought the girl in of
the song and you know, just made it more of
a life thing. But we're really proud of that song. Man,
it's a special one, and the fan response on it's
been amazing. But yeah, that one kind of set the
(44:57):
tone for the rest of the record. Esthetically, sonically, I
don't know. That song is just kind of like the
backbone of the record that Bigger House is. And then again,
I would say you're kind of the ones that.
Speaker 2 (45:07):
Those three songs are kind of those three connected. I mean,
when I think about the album, those three songs and
obviously a lot of the other songs are in the middle,
and there's some of my favorite songs not in that list,
but those three songs kind of wraps up the album
to me because just the lyrical content and sonically of
kind of where this project was going. And and we
(45:30):
didn't think too much about, like, you know, we knew
that there would be somebody being like, what are these
guys are trying to be super country now?
Speaker 1 (45:36):
And it's like this is the stuff that we grew
up on. Like we've been doing this a lot longer
than you've been hating on it, you know, And.
Speaker 2 (45:42):
It's like I think that this kind of traditional country
sound has come in and that very naturally. There's some
songs in the record that are a lot more country
that we've done in a minute, but that's what we've
been writing since the very beginning of our career and
long before we met, you know, is the stuff we
were influenced by, Brooks and Dunn or straight Alan Jackson,
Kenny Chesney, all these people that we were influenced by,
(46:04):
and it was just so much fun too, and it
was it was interesting for me too to kind of
take a back seat and watch how Dan's production has has.
Speaker 1 (46:14):
Grown over the last ten years.
Speaker 2 (46:15):
I mean it's like we started at five oh seven
and we were making these horrible you know, like demos.
They were atrocious, and then that just evolved into him.
I mean, Scott Hendrix says he has the best ears
he's ever heard, and Scott Hendricks is the most decorated
producer in Nashville history and probably of all of music.
I mean, he's this, you know, he has crazy good
ears and it's so good at finding songs and all
(46:37):
this stuff. For him to say something like that about
Dan is just one testament to how good he is.
But watching that evolve and kind of hearing how this
sound has evolved for this record, because it is very
it's a lot more country than stuff that we've done
in the past. It sounds like it's a little bit
more of our first record, and a lot of people
have kind of referenced that like, this reminds me of
you know, early Dan and Shay with what we fell
(46:58):
in love with, you guys with, And I think that
is just because on that very first record, there was
no agenda. It was two guys that were very poor
getting together and loving music and writing songs together. And
that's we stripped everything back to that. We just were
getting in the room and we're like, all right, let's
write a song, not because we have to, but because
we get to do this for a living and because
(47:20):
we love to do it. And it just kind of
turned into this thing. And the sound that came from
that was just very organic, and it wasn't like all right,
let's try to make this this. It was like, all right,
we're going to get in the studio. We're going to
play these songs. Most of the time we would get
in there in the studio and just like play it acoustically.
Sometimes we didn't have a demo for a lot of
(47:41):
these songs, played it on acoustic guitar, and we went
in and we played it and it was just these
incredibly talented musicians and it just turned into what it
turned into. And I'm so proud of how it turned out,
and I'm so proud of of how Dan has evolved,
and this is definitely your best work so soon. And
it was just it was cool though as a as
a fan of music to have a record that sounds
(48:02):
like this, and I'm like, yeah, I'll put my stamp
on that for the rest of my life. You know,
I am so proud of this album Over any I
can say that, over any album we've ever done.
Speaker 1 (48:11):
I've loved.
Speaker 5 (48:12):
Obviously, they're like your kids.
Speaker 2 (48:14):
You like your songs, you know, you listen to them
and you're very proud of them. But I think as
a whole, not just the songs and what the product
was at the end, but the process that it took
to get there. I've never been more proud to be
a part of something in my life because it changed,
It changed everything for us, just the process, but also
just in my life. And I've said this a couple
of times recently, but it's something I realized throughout our
(48:38):
band and throughout like our life as a band. You know,
we kind of we grew up. Obviously, we both got married,
and then we I've got my kids and all this stuff,
and I kind of had my family life and then
there was my band life, and there were two very
separate things, you know, you kind of live your life
in those two separate train tracks, and it was for
the first time I remember after hearing you know, Bigger
(48:59):
Houses getting the cut back for that and always going
to be and then again in these songs, and I
was like, this is the very first time that I
feel like my personal life and my band are fully connected.
And this is exactly what I'm going through right now.
I'm going through what Bigger Houses is talking about. I'm
spending summers now in Arkansas again with you know, back
on the farm, and I'm listening to these songs being
(49:21):
like this is theff like whether it was like a
lesson that I learned or like the girl that I
dated in high school, Like I'm here in this place
of these lessons that I learned, and it was just
an amazing final puzzle piece of the evolution that I've
kind of been on personally, and it just kind of
it all kind of came together perfectly. And I don't
know this just it's such a new step for Dan
(49:43):
and Sha our band, but also like our lives, like
we're just I don't feel the same that I did,
you know, a year and a half ago, I feel
like this is such a step forward and a breadth
of fresh air. And I just think that it's so
genuine from us and it's so authentic to us that
I'm not We were never worried about like are people
what are people going to think about this? Are they
(50:04):
going to think it's too country? Or are they going
to think it's to this or that? And it just
never crossed our minds because we loved it. And at
the end of the day, if you love your music
and you're proud of it, that's that's the win. And
if you know your fans are going to love it,
I'm not worried about what people on the outside.
Speaker 1 (50:19):
If they don't like it, they don't like it.
Speaker 2 (50:21):
But if you try to write an album that you
think other people are going to like, the haters are
going to like of like people being like this is
not country. Like if we're trying to make a record
for them and we end up just hating it, then,
like you said this before, like then everybody hates it
and you hate it.
Speaker 1 (50:35):
And so what was the point in that?
Speaker 2 (50:37):
And I think just trying to approach this record with
a very authentic you know passion for wanting to write
songs that we loved and that our fans would love
the result that came out of that. Even if this
record never came out, this is always going to exist
in our hearts and our minds, and I know obviously
it is coming out, but I think our fans are
really going to feel that throughout this entire project, project
(51:00):
just in a couple of songs, I think they're gonna
feel that through what it took to get here.
Speaker 3 (51:04):
It feels like, at least for me, when I was like,
the most beautifully creatively reckless is when I have nothing
to lose, because what are you gonna do? Who cares? You?
Just do what you want, take big chances. But then
once you start to have some success, well, I don't
want to mess I want to mess it up. Then
(51:25):
you have more success and you're like, boy, if I
mess it up now? Really? So then you start to
adjust where you're creating and how you're distributing, and who's
listening and why, and all of a sudden, you're doing twelve.
I struggled with this for years and years, but then
with you, guys, it feels like when you finally kind
of red calibrated yourselves and yourself. It was almost back
(51:47):
to that point where what do we have to lose?
Now we went to the low yep, So it's like
we almost we almost broke up, So why don't we
just go do what we want to do. Worst case
scenario is, well, we do what we might have done anyway.
But it feels like that's that beautiful creative place that
you guys are in now where you just get to
create and you're not putting pressure on what you might lose,
(52:08):
but instead you're kind of putting it on what you
might gain because you're being truly you.
Speaker 5 (52:12):
Also with shows too, we've only played a few this summer,
but we're going to play a lot more next year.
But playing shows, I feel like in the past it
was always like, Okay, it's got to be picture perfect,
and we do take a lot of pride and making
sure we're choreographed. It's like, if we spent money on
this light hitting here, like we should make sure that
we're standing that light. Yeah, exactly. Also, the fans deserve it, man.
(52:33):
These ticket prices like they're expensive. It's expensive to go
to a concert. Now, people deserve the best that we
can give.
Speaker 2 (52:38):
Them.
Speaker 5 (52:39):
But I feel like in the past it was always
like this overly competitive thing, trying to be like, all right,
we got to kill it here at Massive Square Garden
to night so we could come back and do MetLife
next year, like we got to just keep going. Now,
I feel like there's this sense of freedom when we
get on stage, just like, dude, this is sick. Like
our shows have gotten longer because we get on you know,
in between songs, and we're like, man, this is Undridgs.
Speaker 3 (52:59):
You got song? Can you believe it?
Speaker 5 (53:03):
I just played tequila.
Speaker 3 (53:04):
Believe it? Dude, You've just said this eleven times.
Speaker 5 (53:06):
It's exactly what it is. So maybe our showmanship's gone down.
But we're having more fun up there than ever before.
And I don't know, I feel like being in that
place is more sustainable than anything, you know. I feel
like when you let go like that, you make a
great album or you put on a good show, and
that's what gets you to Met Life or that's what
gets you to win the awards or have success, And
if you don't, at least you had fun in the
process and.
Speaker 3 (53:26):
At least you created something that you believed in. Because again,
I got into a place too, where I was like,
I don't even like that that much, yep, And when
it would not do well, I'd be like, it didn't
do well and I didn't like it. I'd rather have
not done well and I'd have loved it, because then
at least I would have loved.
Speaker 5 (53:39):
It's exactly at least one person likes it.
Speaker 3 (53:41):
Yeah, at least I would have been like, that really
was me. And because then you're just questioning, like if
I just done it the way I really wanted to
do it, a TV project like that, where I'm like,
I didn't want to do it like this, and I
kind of fought and then I gave up fighting for it,
and then it would just do okay, and I would go, man,
I don't like it, and everybody else didn't either. At
least I wish I would have fought for what I
(54:02):
really liked. Yeah, And I coming that pressure.
Speaker 2 (54:05):
Too, Like I'd rather take the pressure of like, rather
than try to blame falling on somebody else, Like I
would rather be like, Okay, we when this happened on Tequila,
you know, our label, a lot of people were like,
we can't push this this ballad, you know, after you know,
we had pushed another single and we you know, we
thought it might be a hit, but when it was
(54:25):
going to take a long time and we were like, man,
this is this is not it. And when I heard
Tequila for the first time, I was like, this is
a single and I don't care who is going to
try to stop me. Good luck because I believe in
this so much. And it was a ballad and it
was like just it was like the wrong time to
probably put out a ballad in most people's heads, you know,
thinking like I don't know if this is going to work,
But I feel like I was so okay at that
(54:47):
point where it really felt like we have nothing to lose,
and it was like, nah, dude, we're going with this,
and I really don't care what you guys say. This
is the song because I know I can stand up
on stage with conviction and sing the hell out of
the song and make people believe it.
Speaker 5 (55:00):
I'd rather do.
Speaker 2 (55:00):
That, and it's my fault if it doesn't, if it fails,
and I'm okay with that.
Speaker 1 (55:05):
I'm fully okay with that.
Speaker 2 (55:06):
If you stand behind your art, you're willing to kind
of go down with the ship, you know, But at
least I'm the Captain, you know, and I can go
down proudly with that happiness. And that was our biggest thing, exactly,
and that was our biggest hit, you know. And it's like,
not that you're trying to, you know, be free form
for the sake of gaining the success of that song,
but I just think that you're much more likely to
(55:27):
have those authentic moments when you, like you said, you
just let go and you're like, I don't care if
someone doesn't like this. I love this, you know, and
I'm willing to do that. And honestly, a song like
Save Me the Trouble was was very much that way
for me. I felt like it was the perfect like,
you know, it felt like it really kicked down the door.
Rather than like, I hope you guys like this offering
(55:49):
that we have. It was just like, nah, this is sick, dude,
Like I think this is absolute flames. And I'll tell
everyone that on the street if they'll listen to me.
And I could stand behind that, and I I really
don't care, dude, Like you hear these notes, These are sick,
you know, Like I love this, like I'm gonna go
perform the hell out of this, and that was a
good feeling of like, I really don't care if people
(56:10):
like this or not. I really hope they do, and
my insecurities are going to really come out if they don't.
Speaker 5 (56:15):
But I love this song.
Speaker 1 (56:16):
And I'm okay with going down with that ship.
Speaker 2 (56:18):
And again it's we had our biggest ad day that
we've ever had on radio. And again it's not I
didn't do that as a formulated thing. It just was
like I have we have nothing to lose, like this
is I'm proud to put my stamp on this, and
that's just a It's really fun place to be because
you just stop worrying about what people are gonna think
about it. You just kind of like, no, I'm doing this.
(56:39):
And I feel like you get less heat from haters
when you kind of approach life that way because at
least you're like, at least you're doing it on purpose.
Speaker 3 (56:46):
And they know they can't affect you that much if
you're not exactly if you're just kind of like suck it. Yeah, Okay.
Three final questions. Just talk about the voice for a second,
because I mean, I don't know, you just spoop Danitay
on the voice as the main chair Flippers. You know
because yeah, you guys had been on before though, but
right as like helpers. Have you ever been on the
like you've been on the Blake's team.
Speaker 5 (57:07):
Yeah, was the mentor thing right.
Speaker 3 (57:09):
So it's when I first saw it, I was like, Oh,
that's cute. They're going back to Mint. Then I was like,
oh my okay. I was said, Oh my god, they're
freaking going to I was so pumped for you guys.
So how did that come about?
Speaker 5 (57:20):
Man, that's one of the craziest opportunities. We're very grateful
to the team at The Voice for extending that invite.
We got a text one day it was like out
of the blue from our manager Jason. He's like, hey,
I would really like you guys to meet the producers
of The Voice, like they they love you guys. It
was like sure, man, because you know that kind of
gig is like everybody in every genre is going after it.
(57:41):
I knew they were trying to replace Country, but I
knew they had already gotten Riba. I was like, there, no,
there's no way they're going to Getriba and another country act.
There's so many. I mean, it's just like who's who
you know? All those chairs are all like a listers
and then us we went to this meeting, We went
to this breakfast as it was at the Thompson Hotel,
sweetest people ever, and we just we were ourselves, you know,
(58:02):
we told them the ideas that we had. We were like,
what if there was like this double chair, you know,
we shared this big chair in one button. I feel
like that's a cool dynamic that hasn't been I think
they had done it maybe in Australia or another country,
they hadn't done in the US. I felt like that
was a cool idea to shake up the voice a
little bit and just I don't know, there was something
about us being ourselves there and I think it did well.
(58:24):
When we were on with Blake, Blake was like the
king of the Voice. So anybody who goes on with
Blake's gonna look good. But we didn't expect anything. A
couple of months went by went by. I was like,
surely they give it. They probably already taped the season,
so you didn't hear. We didn't hear for a lot.
Speaker 2 (58:38):
And that is to give context. This is kind of
after we had really like gone through everything and we're
like doing you know, questioning it as friends again and
this was like, honestly for me, I don't know if
you felt this, but like, I never dreamed had that
dream to want to do a show like this until
we got that text message and I was like, yeah,
it's my only dream.
Speaker 3 (58:59):
It's my only I've never dreamed of something more in
my life.
Speaker 5 (59:02):
Every day he was group, oh my god, you know
any updates is like, the meeting was yesterday.
Speaker 2 (59:07):
Dude, Bro, I've never had so much anxiety on something.
And it was good because thank God that we had
prepared for this because I had lost all this all
this weight and was like, all right, I'm glad at least,
like if we're gonna be on TV, it's gonna be
now and not like a year and a half ago
whenever I was, you know, eating everything that my eyes touched.
And I was like as soon as we had that meeting,
it went really well and we're like, you know, these
(59:28):
people are super super sweet, and we did go into
that meeting and being like.
Speaker 3 (59:32):
Man, it is what it is.
Speaker 2 (59:33):
Because the conversation was like not like hey, they're auditioning
you for the part, It was like, would you guys
ever even be interested in this?
Speaker 1 (59:40):
And it literally started in my head, I was like, yeah,
I mean that would be I think that would be cool.
And by like seven pm that.
Speaker 2 (59:46):
Night, I was talking to my wife and I was like,
if we don't get this, I'm gonna be rad by
a house in La I mean, I was so like,
I didn't think that I would want to do this,
But now that I'm thinking about it, this makes so
much sense. I feel like we would be so good
at this and I would really enjoy this. And I
was like, I mean pacing, I mean this. It took
(01:00:06):
months for us to get an answer at all, and
I think I was going back to Arkansas at that time,
and my routine for like that a few months that
we didn't know anything was like work out in the mornings,
think about the voice for six hours, and hang.
Speaker 5 (01:00:19):
Out with the kids, and then go to bed and
then text.
Speaker 2 (01:00:21):
In the middle of that, I'd text you guys about
seventeen times, being like.
Speaker 1 (01:00:24):
Any update, have you heard of them?
Speaker 2 (01:00:25):
You've been following them to their house or anything like that,
And so it was it was a whole thing. But
after I think I was in Arkansas when we got
the news and Jason had texted us and we kind
of gotten some updates.
Speaker 5 (01:00:36):
We knew.
Speaker 2 (01:00:37):
We found out like, okay, Riba, she's taking the gig.
Speaker 1 (01:00:40):
We knew that she.
Speaker 2 (01:00:40):
Had had an offer out there, but they had met
with everybody like these A list celebrities, and we knew
we were having conversations with and I was just wrecked,
Like my stomach dropped, and it was like, man, that's
a real bummer, Like why did you even text us
in the first place.
Speaker 5 (01:00:54):
Why did we have the meeting?
Speaker 2 (01:00:55):
You know, because I was like I was living life.
We were absolutely killing it, having so much fun. Just
everything was good again. And then you've dropped this on
our plate and dangle it in front of us, and
if we don't get it, it's gonna really suck.
Speaker 5 (01:01:06):
But Dan and I would have like these.
Speaker 2 (01:01:07):
Therapy sessions every night, like it's okay. If it doesn't happen,
it's like, no big deal. Maybe it's for the better.
We probably should even do the voice.
Speaker 5 (01:01:13):
That's a horrible idea to do. And it just it
came through.
Speaker 2 (01:01:17):
And long story short, we got a text message and
I think I think Jason said do you have time
for a call. In my stomach, I bought craped my
pants and I was like this is gonna be that's
the worst. And honestly, I think that there was an
Arkansas it was I can't remember, maybe a baseball game.
Speaker 1 (01:01:32):
I don't remember what it was.
Speaker 2 (01:01:33):
It was a razorback game that me and my brother
in law were like watching together, and I'm already like, you.
Speaker 5 (01:01:37):
Know how it is.
Speaker 2 (01:01:38):
It's like I get so invested in Arkansas Razorback sports
that I'm like, it doesn't matter if it's bad Nitt,
And I'm like, this is it's a pretty good season
for him, you know. And I remember I was already
like on highlight and we got that text and I
was like, oh my god, this is.
Speaker 3 (01:01:52):
Test it all? Did you test it all? They just
met you?
Speaker 1 (01:01:55):
No, that was the That's why I think we were
going to get it.
Speaker 5 (01:01:58):
Yeah, never did. Yeah, I thought they had gone down
the road to somebody else. Maybe the mentor thing we did.
And we'd been on the show a bunch of times
performing and stuff before. But yeah, it was crazy. And
then once they told us, it was like dragged on
for months after that. For the announce it was like, guys,
we're thinking they'll announced by Thursday, probably three. We should
have a graphic by like Wednesday, at noon and it
was like Thursday at three came around and we had
(01:02:18):
no graphic.
Speaker 3 (01:02:19):
And there's no announce It doesn't feel like exact actually
committed to it.
Speaker 5 (01:02:22):
And this was like a long time. It was like,
we should have something by Friday, you know. It is
just like we'll have something by the end of the week.
We'll have like an official announcement. And then because we
were trying to like balance that we were about to
announce the album, we were about to put out a
new single, and it was like, oh, it's getting kind
of dangerously close. And then it didn't happen within like
a week of each other, because I was like being
quiet on socials, you know, trying to let it die
(01:02:44):
out and do the thing. And then it was like,
oh crap, the Voice announced like three days before the single.
I was like, it's too big to not post about it.
Speaker 2 (01:02:51):
So and we were asking too, like for pictures of
the double chair, you know, because we were like, I
don't know what this even looks like.
Speaker 5 (01:02:57):
And I remember texting our.
Speaker 2 (01:02:59):
Day to day manager, I was like, have you heard anything,
Like we were supposed to have a picture of this.
Speaker 1 (01:03:02):
Thing like a week ago, and they're like, yeah, They've
made it. It's a whole deal. It's gonna be awesome.
Speaker 2 (01:03:06):
I'm getting you, I'm getting you the picture tonight, and
so like I'm just like waiting. Finally, like we get
this email and I was like, oh my go, this
is gonna be so sick to see like our name
on the back of the.
Speaker 5 (01:03:13):
Chair, the whole deal.
Speaker 2 (01:03:14):
And it was this cartoon animated rendering of what the
chair was going to look like.
Speaker 5 (01:03:18):
And I was like, God, is this a joke to you?
Speaker 3 (01:03:20):
All right, this is the only thing I've thought about.
Speaker 5 (01:03:21):
For the last seven months. How am I supposed to
you know, go on without this?
Speaker 3 (01:03:24):
But I would have been so anxious with no announce
because I would have announcement before it changed. But they
haven't announced it. That means they're not fully committed. But
right until you go public, yeah, they don't have to
say anything if they changed their mind.
Speaker 5 (01:03:36):
And once they once they went public, it was on.
We were chilling. Yeah that was great.
Speaker 2 (01:03:40):
But it finally happened in Jason and calls how would
you like to be?
Speaker 5 (01:03:43):
Coaches?
Speaker 1 (01:03:43):
On the voice? And I was like, I mean the
colored drained from my face.
Speaker 2 (01:03:46):
I passed away for a couple of minutes Arkansas, I lost,
and then it was a great night.
Speaker 5 (01:03:50):
It was Sir Patrick's Day actually, because I was Abby
and I were at the bar with Megan Morony and
her friends. She doesn't even know they were down at
the beach. We were down there at the same time,
and they texted us and they're like, hey, as we're
like doing the Saint Patrick's date. She's like half our age,
so they can you know, they just got out of college.
I feel like they can drink on a different level
than Abby and I were like, oh, we're kind of tired.
It's like three in the afternoon. We're getting ready for
(01:04:11):
bed already. They're like, come down to the bar. We
went out of the bar. It was a long day.
We'll just say that they were having a good time.
We were two and Jason called. It was raining. It
was a whole thing. There's nowhere quiet, you know, Saint
Patrick's Day. People were popping off and I like stepped outside.
I was like hello and it and he was like,
how would you guys like to be coaches? On the voice?
I was like this is I can't tell anybody this.
(01:04:32):
So I couldn't even tell Abby for like four more
hours Dan ran into the bar.
Speaker 2 (01:04:35):
He's like, listen, everybody, Yeah, have you guys heard of
the voice?
Speaker 5 (01:04:38):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (01:04:39):
Yeah, They're like, no, Noah.
Speaker 5 (01:04:41):
That's cool man. We're grateful for the opportunity. It's been
fun so far.
Speaker 4 (01:04:45):
Let's take a quick pause for a message from our sponsor.
Welcome back to the Bobby Cast.
Speaker 3 (01:04:58):
Two questions left you and I opened a room at
Wags and Walks the petitdoption center. It's and Hermitage, right.
Speaker 5 (01:05:04):
Yeah, and thank you guys for contributing in such a
big way for so many you know, it's amazing, man,
what you guys do to help out with Wags.
Speaker 3 (01:05:10):
So what's happening there with the physical situation at wagsuse
For a long time, there really wasn't one.
Speaker 5 (01:05:18):
Yeah, it was all foster based, so you know, and
that's a tough thing, man, trying to find foster's especially
some of these dogs are in really really tough situations.
And you know, we've done the hospice foster thing where
a dog's only given you know, a couple of months
to live, and I mean, that's that was one of
the hardest things we ever had to do. And there
are a lot of great people out there who do that.
But up until I think maybe a month or so.
(01:05:38):
It was actually the night we released Save Me the
Trouble and announced the album. It was like the most
chaotic moment in our household. They'd been working on fundraising
for years now to open up a brick and mortar center,
and it's unbelievable. I mean, the amount of people that donated,
that chipped in, that offered their services, you know, for
these fundraisers that they've done, just absolutely incredible. This town
(01:06:00):
really rallied for them, and they busted their asses. Heard Katherine,
everybody on the team at WAGS really worked hard and
they've saved thousands of dogs. At this point. You've been
to these fundraisers, I mean, they're doing the thing. They
open up a spot and it's just unbelievable. They've got
like all these kennels where dogs can decompress safely, quietly.
They've got veterinarians who are donating their time that are
(01:06:20):
there at all times, twenty four to seven, taking care
of these dogs and it's a really beautiful thing. Man,
it's awesome. And they've hosted a couple of adoption events
and I think it's a really good Abby's actually there
right now.
Speaker 3 (01:06:30):
Really, yeah, one of our dogs is from there. For
those listening, they don't know elers from Wags and walks. Okay,
final question, and we're just gonna be a word. But
what's the word that you would assign for each other
right now? At this stage? Is just one word? And
here's what I want to do, So you guys don't
hear each other's word and then change it. You're going
(01:06:51):
to say it at the same time. It's going to
sound like a real cluster. But then we'll go back
to it. Okay, So this is my word for Dan
right at this stage of you guys' career, friendship life.
What's the word you would assigned to him saying for you?
Speaker 5 (01:07:04):
No hints, Mine's kind of I have it in my head.
It's kind of weird. I'm gonna have to explain it after,
but yeah, it's good.
Speaker 3 (01:07:10):
We'll have time to explain it.
Speaker 2 (01:07:11):
Yeah, I did the other night on stage, but I
will tell that story after we get off.
Speaker 5 (01:07:15):
The hardest man, the hardest man in country music.
Speaker 3 (01:07:18):
That's a good another way, hold on, we gotta say it.
Speaker 5 (01:07:20):
The other day, I was trying to dance, said.
Speaker 1 (01:07:21):
Something very kind on stage.
Speaker 2 (01:07:23):
I was like, this is my favorite singer in all
of music or something like that, and I was trying
to hype him back up, and I was like, I
was like, man, you know, if we hand it out
compliments like, y'all make some noise for I was trying
to say, the hardest working man in country music. But
this is in front of like eighteen thousand people. It
is like our biggest sellout ever in New Jersey. And
I was like, y'all make some noise for the hardest
man in country music. And I was like, like, I
(01:07:49):
had no idea that I didn't say it. And I
said that until afterwards. They were dying when I get
off stage, Like you said, the hardest man in country music.
Speaker 5 (01:07:57):
So that was weird. So that would be my word for.
Speaker 1 (01:07:59):
You, hardy. Yeah, I'll think of a better one ready.
Oh god, okay, give me a second.
Speaker 3 (01:08:05):
I'll give you a second. We got nowhere to go.
Speaker 5 (01:08:08):
It's true.
Speaker 3 (01:08:11):
You see our pool, like there was a crack in
our pool. All the water freaking went out.
Speaker 5 (01:08:15):
Is that what's happening.
Speaker 3 (01:08:16):
When you yeah, you see it was a little.
Speaker 5 (01:08:17):
It was a little.
Speaker 3 (01:08:18):
I was like, man, no, no, it was completely empty.
It's like a rock I got caught in no tube
or something. And again, they're a much bigger problem. I'm
just giving you a story.
Speaker 5 (01:08:27):
Filling it back up right now. Yeah, it takes a costume.
Speaker 3 (01:08:30):
Yeah, people are like, oh, but it's fancy. No, you
take a water hose and you put it in it
and you turn the water hose on.
Speaker 5 (01:08:35):
Dude, when we were filling up, I've never had a pool.
We're just gonna keep going for hours. See while you
think your work. I've never had a pool in my
entire life. And John Esposito Espa, you know, formerly ran
Warner Music Natural signed us to the record label. One
of the greatest mentors, one of the greatest friends we've
ever had in our entire lives. We both grew up
in western Pennsylvania and no one had a pool. There
was one kid in our high school maybe who had
(01:08:56):
a pool. He was the rich kid. Both of us.
We bonded over this. It was like growing. I asked
Spel one night we'd been hanging out in his office
drinking McCallen. I was like, when did you like know
you made it? Because he's had an incredible career. You know,
he's been all over the place. I was like, when
did you know you made it? And he was like,
being from western Pennsylvania, it was when I got a
for my first swimming pool. And he's not wrong. It's
(01:09:17):
like I knew nobody who had a pool. It was
just the rich kid or whatever. And I was like,
that was like, because I don't spend any money. I'm
so frugal to a fault, to the point where it's
like detrimental to my life. But we built a little
swimming pool in our backyard when we moved into this
most recent house, and I got in a raft when
we were filling it up with the same deal, put
the garden hose in, thought about asking the neighbors to
(01:09:40):
throw their garden hose in to split the water bill
a little bit. They wouldn't know what hit him. And
I sat in a raft as that thing filled up
for hours. There's a video, like a time lapse. I mean,
just coming up deepsing, just rising, dude. It was crazy.
Speaker 3 (01:09:51):
But yeah, okay, got jay, I got done. Pool talk.
Speaker 1 (01:09:55):
Yeah, all right, poll talk.
Speaker 3 (01:09:56):
Here we go. One two, three, crowd. Okay, let's go
all start proud.
Speaker 5 (01:10:02):
It's because I'm proud of you. And that's a weird
way to do this as a word to describe somebody else,
but I truly am. I'm so proud because I've seen
it firsthand, probably only second to your wife, you know,
Like I've seen your growth as a human being, as
a friend, as a singer, as a musician, as a
participant on this earth. I'm proud of the work you've
put in and I'm proud of all the progress that
(01:10:24):
you've made. You're a changed man, I mean, and it's
not just the physical appearance. It's just the way you
approach life. It's the way you approach our band, everything
about it. I feel so happy to be alongside you
on this journey and to be your biggest cheerleader. I'm
proud of you, man. Thank you.
Speaker 3 (01:10:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:10:41):
Well, and what was it?
Speaker 3 (01:10:43):
Had unbulived? I was hard, Yeah, it was an erect.
Speaker 5 (01:10:46):
Erect Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (01:10:48):
I was gonna tear up as allurgies are bad here.
Speaker 5 (01:10:50):
Yeah, yeah they are. It's something about this room.
Speaker 2 (01:10:52):
I chose the word grace for many reasons. You have
shown a lot of grace to me over the last
ten years, years of waiting for me to finally get
to this point, and you've been ahead of me in
that in that game of health and all these things.
But you've also shown yourself a lot of grace, which
takes a lot of guts to be able to do.
(01:11:12):
I know from just going through this myself, it's a
very easy thing to kind of put yourself down and
be like, you know, this is mistakes that I've made
in my past, and this is because I have felt
this way as well. But things that you've that you've done,
and decisions that we've made together, whatever it is that
you feel like affected you know the rest of your life.
(01:11:33):
And I've just watched you deal with that and have
grace for yourself and kind of forgive yourself for you know,
thinking a certain way or whatever it was, and having
grace on me and also receiving grace from your wife
and from my wife on.
Speaker 5 (01:11:50):
Both of us.
Speaker 2 (01:11:51):
I feel like grace could be described for kind of
the journey we've both been on. But I'm super proud
of of the journey that you've been on, and thank
you for having grace with me finally get there.
Speaker 5 (01:12:00):
I love you dog doing it.
Speaker 3 (01:12:02):
Okay, So whenever you're listening to this, it's if you're
listening to it on the day of albums out in
a few days. People listen to this thing forever albums
out now. Just pick which every one of those little
selections in my voice you'd like to have. But it's
called Bigger Houses September fifteenth. It's it's great. You know.
I wouldn't say if I didn't mean it, would say.
Speaker 5 (01:12:19):
Thank you, man, thank you.
Speaker 3 (01:12:20):
I wouldn't lie it it's uh, it's out. I would
just go, yeah, that's what. It's a whole bit in
my in my stand up. We just shot a special
last weekend, and I do a whole bit about what
I do if an artist comes in and plays they're
not good, yeah, and what I say and how I
have to say things, and I kind of talk tell
the audience like what they should listen to me for.
Speaker 2 (01:12:37):
Yeah, I do worry about that, like with artists that
are coming in now to I'll just change it.
Speaker 5 (01:12:42):
Yeah, now I'm gonna go listen to it. It's like
he said that in RYE.
Speaker 1 (01:12:47):
What the hell, Bobby.
Speaker 5 (01:12:48):
How are you doing? Man? I know you're so good
at bringing the best out everybody else, But I don't
know if anybody ever asks you that you work harder
than anyone I've ever known and you. I mean, you
got sports podcast, you've got music podcasts, you're doing this
end up show, selling out all these big theaters, you're
doing still do in the morning show. I mean, that's
so much. And among other things, how are you doing?
Speaker 3 (01:13:07):
I'm tired, I'm good. Yeah, yeah, but we're about to
take a break.
Speaker 1 (01:13:11):
So that's amazing.
Speaker 3 (01:13:12):
And if I would take a break, I would stay
here and sleep. Yeah, but we're gonna go on a trip.
Speaker 1 (01:13:16):
There you go, And nothing says rest like travel that.
Speaker 3 (01:13:19):
Well, I don't have kids, though, I bet it's a
whole different monster with kids.
Speaker 5 (01:13:21):
That's true.
Speaker 3 (01:13:22):
But you know that's for a whole other podcast. Sure,
you know called the Dan Cast.
Speaker 5 (01:13:26):
Let's go, Yes, let's go.
Speaker 2 (01:13:27):
Well, next age get we should we need to interview you,
a whole bunch of.
Speaker 3 (01:13:31):
You guys just have me here crying.
Speaker 5 (01:13:32):
I always wonder because allergies, we have to go do
one little thing and we're like, oh man, I'm exhausted.
Can we get like a ginger shot or something to
wake us up? But you're going constantly.
Speaker 3 (01:13:40):
I think this will just be relatable content to us
three and even Mike, who sits here, is that you
just have to adjust and like I wake up in
the morning, I hate it. I never wake up and
feel great. Sure, never, not one time at three o'clock
in the morning, I wake up and go like, what
a beautiful morning. Ever, But I get better. I do
(01:14:02):
in quality things, not as when I'm not feeling my best.
So then when I am feeling my best, god dang,
I'm rocking. So then I just try to feel my
best more so that once I'm able to see how
good I actually am when I'm just crushing it. I
try not to kill myself all the time because I
feel I can really do exemplary work. So but it's
taken me to really just drive myself into the ground
(01:14:23):
to realize just because just just doing things for the
sake of doing them and having a bunch of stuff
not as good as doing stuff really.
Speaker 5 (01:14:31):
Well, sure, things that matter. Yeah, And I'm.
Speaker 3 (01:14:33):
Really trying to dial in on things that I really
love doing more than sure I'm not.
Speaker 2 (01:14:38):
I've turned down four.
Speaker 3 (01:14:38):
Or five TV shows that I'm like, you know what, maybe,
but I may just hate it.
Speaker 5 (01:14:42):
How do you do with breaks and with rest? I
don't same.
Speaker 3 (01:14:45):
I'm insecure. That's why it's not because I feel like
I have a lot to offer the world. If I
don't work, I feel like I lose momentum. And if
foe minimum, howm I gonna get going on? Because I
feel like, why would anybody want me if I'm not popping?
So I got to stay popping. So I got to
keep going. Not the healthiest, but I'm the healthiest have
ever been because my wife has really absolutely been there,
and I mean we fight about it sometimes, yeah, where
she has to like, you're out of your mind, you're
(01:15:07):
working too much, you're crazy, You're and I'm like, you
don't understand. I turned into a child, total dude. Okay,
when you're dying, do you think people are going to
care about that you needed to go out and do
this TV show that's you know about the Great? No,
you don't even want to do it. So if you
don't want to do it and we don't need the
money and it's not really why do it?
Speaker 1 (01:15:29):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (01:15:30):
So yeah, pretty good. We're gonna start crying now. I'm
super happy for you guys. Love you guys. Obviously, we've
kind of all us three, we kind of all came
in the same time. It's kind of the class. We're
getting older, but smarter, and at.
Speaker 2 (01:15:44):
Least it's going that way, because it could be like here,
we are older and dumber and a lot less successful.
Speaker 3 (01:15:50):
Than we were when we met, and we could be
having this conference with no microphones and you know, no
nobody listening.
Speaker 1 (01:15:56):
It is mikes are hard, the hardest MinC. We did
it again.
Speaker 5 (01:16:03):
I can truly say that you have the most direct
my accept.
Speaker 3 (01:16:07):
Thank you, all right, bigger houses you guys. Check it out,
Dana she I love you, guys.
Speaker 4 (01:16:13):
Thanks for listening to a Bobby Cast production.
Host
Bobby Bones
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