Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right, Welcome to episode of the Bobby Cast with
Dan Smiers of Dan and Jay. Do you feel like
I guess the question I always wondered is do you
feel like you've lost some of your identity? Because you're
always known as one of the two people. I do
lose my last name a little bit. It's Dan of
Dan and Shay. You know what I mean, because I
never say is that even how I've never even talked
(00:21):
to you as Dan Smiers? Is that even how you
say that this is the first time I like it?
It's nice. It is how I say it officially. You
knowed it. Usually it's like Smears or Dan s Myers
or Dance Myers. I've had people be like, oh, Dance
Myers d n C. Meyers school because you were Dan
when you moved down here. You weren't Dan and Jay
I was. I was. I was like the really poor
(00:41):
guy who couldn't afford to pay his rent. Dan. It
was it was rough times for a while. That's gotta
be frustrating to be one and awesome, because there are
times two where you can lean on someone and it
goes back and forth. But to be because you're you're
a real life human like when you prick you bleed.
I exist, I'm here, I'm rocking. I was late. I
was a few minutes later. This traffic, traff traffic gets me. Yeah,
(01:01):
but it's ice, it's traffic. It's you just can't win.
It's Tennessee, where we're not used to this. I'm also
not good at preparing either, so I'll you know, see
it'says like traffic is light, eleven minutes is your time,
and I'll leave eleven minutes before I have to leave.
That would drive me crazy. If it says eleven minutes,
I'll leave twenty one minutes. Yeah, and prepared. That's why
you're more successful than I. That's not true. My hill, though,
(01:23):
to get up here is just treacherous and steep. I
was wondering was it bad the last few days? Terrible?
I couldn't. Luckily, I have Jeep, and I put the
jeep in for we'll drive. I've never driven anything for
will drive in my life. So I bought the Geep
because I have this humongous hill that I live on,
and I knew one day with ice, so I bought
the jeep off for the big build up in this
last weekend and it were, and I tried to get
(01:44):
up in the two well drive first, and I thought,
this is the least interesting story ever. But in my
heart it feels good to tell this story. Like I
bought this jeep for this one thing, and so I
I put in two well drop and I tried to
get up the hill and it wouldn't go. I was like, okay, good, good, good,
good hard. That's brute. And then I put it in
four wall drive and just dominated the hill and my
my pecker got a little puffy straight straight to the sky.
(02:07):
It was good man. I loved it. And then um,
but just so, there are two sides of this hill
where I live and this side over here. I don't
know which side you came up on, but there are
cars that park on the side of the road, and
I've seen other cars fall and it's in nail cars
all the way down because you can't. Once you start sliding,
you're done. I almost saw it. I was. I was
working uh on my computer in the front of the house,
(02:27):
and we've got a window there and there's people were
flying down on the street. It is completely covered. It's insane.
I live in East Nashville, so Gallatin is like it
looks like there was never snow. But at my house
on my street, it's completely covered. I could ski down it.
Some guy was cruising down and I mean literally it
was like fishtail and like going back. I thought he
was gonna just wreck every car on the street. But
he made it out alive. But I know that guy
(02:48):
or or girl whoever was driving that car when they
put up probably a guy were reckless drivers brought up
that stop sign. I was like, yeah, I got out
of that one. That was good. Have you ever been
in a wreck? I have. I broke my wrist in
a wreck here actually in town. Were in town. It
was you know the turnaround down by the convention center. Yes,
that's a that's the round the circle. Yeah, you're round about.
It was ridiculous. I was coming around the thing and
(03:09):
a guy just pulls out right in front of me.
It was I'd still be driving my car. I had
the same car for like, you know, fifteen years, the
same one I moved down here with. And a guy
came out t bone me. Of course, no insurance, and
I tried to turn the wheel and I broke my wrist.
It was you turned it on reaction. I turned it
on reaction. Yeah, when the guy was pulling out, and
it was kind of like a blessing in disguise. I
(03:29):
had never on stage dropped the guitar before. I was
always like the guy who strump's underwhelming guitar chords on stage.
But we were on an acoustic tour. We were opening
up for Hunter Hayes, and I was like, oh, we
can't miss these shows. We're getting like a hundred dollars
a night. We don't want to miss out on that money.
And uh, we didn't cancel them. We had we hired
a guitar player, got insurance actually to cover for the
guitar player to come out because otherwise, I mean, I
(03:51):
wouldn't be able to work. So I was running around
with Big cast On and we're like, this is kind
of cool, Like we can entertain twice the amount of
people in the same amount of time if I don't
have a guitar are So next is a headset Mike
m and that, by the way, that guitar player also
known as Eric Clapton, that's how he got a start.
It is exactly. It was right, and then you know
it all happened. It was insane, but I have a
(04:13):
tea here. So I asked the right question, because so
when you came in downstairs, my assistant is down there.
She got into a wreck today. Someone pulled out in
front of her. Their side window was fully iced over
and they couldn't see. And she's driving down the road.
They pull out. There was no ice on the road,
but because the cars are cold pulled out and boom
nailed each other. That's brutal. And so she all right,
(04:36):
I should get on and check on her. Yeah, yeah,
go down a check on her. Yeah, she's good. She
didn't talk for a minute. But are you okay? I
just hurt. They're still recording up there. I just heard
you had a wreck. Now her she has a suv.
It's completely smushed. It's crazy when you see metal like
that go and bend in ways that metal is not
supposed to be. And then someone just walks out of there.
(04:57):
And both of them were okay, and it also was
it I don't know. Yeah, somewhere there are some I'm
about to throw through our town under the bus. Here
there are some bad drivers in Nashville. They are bad
drivers everywhere, It's true, but here is like especially worse.
I don't know what it is. I think it's a
combination of the Southern pace and then a lot of transplants,
like the Southern pace like crazy people like me who
(05:19):
come in from Pennsylvania and are like, get out of
the way, get out of the way. Let's like, let's
pass this guy, let's turn before the light, you know changes,
and uh, that's funny. The Southern pace. Maybe that's just
the pace that I live my driving life because I've
only ever in Arkansas to Austin, which isn't really the South,
but it's still in the southern part of to Nashville.
Maybe I only know the Southern pace because I've only
(05:40):
lived in the South. I do. I am a slow driver,
though I'm I've knocked on wood. I'm gonna ticket on
the way home. I've never gotten a ticket in my
entire life. I've gotten my my parents or somebody must
be friends with the police or something, because I've gotten
pulled over, like I don't know five or six times.
So we're gonna let you off with a warning. I'm
always like super polite to whenever they pulled me over.
But somebody out there listening is a police officer. They're like,
(06:02):
we're gonna get this guy's first ticket today. They're gonna
be looking for me. I feel like calling one and
on you're on the way out. He had a little
to drink at the house and maybe maybe you want
to check out passion for Lacroix. He's just that's what
he's drinking. I was like, Hey, you wanta water? You
definitely want to water. We're gonna go talk for now.
I was like, I gotta Lacroix. W dude. So I'm
I guess I'm interested in a lot of this stuff
(06:23):
that was you before Dan and Shay, and I want
to get to a lot of this, especially now. And
people will listen to this for years because with podcasts
you kind of look through and pick things you like. Um,
and I think people will like to see your name
and listen to this. So I want to get to
Are we gonna listen as Dan of Dan and Shay
or Dan Smiers Dan Dan, We'll get more hits. I'll
listen however you want. We can listen to Mr Smiers
(06:44):
and that's it. That's I like that. Mr Smiers though Pennsylvania,
Yes so, but when you moved to town, obviously, and
people may not know the story and you've told on
the air before, but I'll have you retell it again,
just briefly. But you met Sha while here. I did,
But you moved here to do what I moved here
to be a songwriter and producer. I moved here from Pennsylvania,
(07:06):
and uh, you know, I grew up listening to all
kinds of music. I love country music, and I couldn't
afford LA or New York even if I wanted to
move there. So I was like Nashville. When I moved
here was two thousand and ten, it was still affordable.
Now it's getting a little out of hand. But for
anybody from l A or New York listening, they're like,
Nashville is it's so cheap to live there with what
everybody says. I guess that's so cheap and everybody's so nice.
(07:27):
But you moved here in two thousand and ten to
be a producer and a writer. Huh yeah. I moved
here with my buddy. We were kind of we had
actually like never really hung out in person. This is
kind of like this blind dating, let's move to Nashville
together thing. He's like still one of my best friends.
Was in my wedding has a couple of cuts that
are going to be on our upcoming album and he's
he's killing it now. But it wasn't like that for
a while. Was his name is Andy Albert. He would
(07:49):
be an interesting guy to talk to as well, Like
he's crushing it As a songwriter. He's written a few hits. Uh.
He wrote She's Got Away with Words for Blake Shelton,
which was one of my favorite songs Blakes put out. Um,
I think it ruffled a few feathers when you put
that song and not to sidetrack, but that was the
only one of Blake's songs to not go number one.
It was the first one of like the after thirteen
in a row because some people were irritated the song. Yeah,
(08:11):
he was bummed. There were a few lyrics in there
that were edgy, but it's cool. I mean, Blake Shelton
is that guy. He can put out edgy lyrics like that,
and I was so happy for him. We had been
like really struggling, so we moved here. Uh. We We
had a mutual friend who his name is Rohan Colie.
He's now he's actually his his wife's sitting labor like
right now, he's his kid, first kid. Yeah, and we're
(08:31):
sitting like trying to pick what songs we're going to
record next week. Yeah, he's crazy, but he put us together.
He was like, you guys are both trying to do
the same thing. You would this dud in Pennsylvania. Are
you in this dude? He was from Georgia and yeah,
he's from outside of it. Like, I didn't move together,
you just got here at the same time. Yeah, exactly.
So we we connected on you know, a I AM
was still a thing. You know, we had our screen ms.
(08:51):
I don't know what mine was like branded BOYD two
three zero nine because I like you a huge fan
and uh he's over here laugh and making fun of him.
But you know, we we kind of connected on the internet.
Were like, let's send some demos back and forth, and
we were like this could work. And we moved to Nashville.
Found this house on Craigslist. I mean literally, this place
was a disaster. There was no heat, no a c.
(09:12):
If there was, we couldn't afford to pay for it,
so we didn't even turn it on. In the summer.
Would be like people are Everybody's like here to liar,
you're exaggerating, but anybody who had been to that house
was like, no, this is it was a pretty bad place.
Ninety degrees in the summer and forty six in the winter.
So we were struggling to get by, and we were
just doing anything we could. Like we would go I've
got a few funny stories, but we would go and
(09:34):
do like taste testings and like research groups. You know
what those things are, like where here's twenty dollars you
try on like ten Haynes t shirts and get up
in front of the crowd and tell your thoughts. So
we would do that or luckily like you were doing that.
Yeah's how you guys make money. Honestly, I'm still on
those email lists and I'm like if if it's like
thirty dollars to go try some pizza, I'm like, yeah,
I'm gonna go do that. How would you get on
(09:54):
the list? So you would go to the place. It
was called Nashville Research and it was like but offer
Rosa Parks. So anybody out there like struggling to make
some money, struggling to get by, that's where you go.
And you get on these lists. You do one trying
to think we did one. We taste tested hard cider,
which was pretty cool. And they pay you because they
want your feedback to either improve the product or improve
(10:15):
how the marketing the product. Yeah, exactly. So we would
do pizzas. I mean, you know, we would know that
it was Domino's pizza, but they would say, here's random
pizza company, so and so, give your thoughts on this,
and I would literally take boxes a pizza home. It
was insane. Another ridiculous. Oh dude, I can go on
for hours. This is this is crazy. So there's a
Hampton in across from Vanderbilt, you know that Hampton in like, uh,
(10:36):
I don't know what. There's like a Kidoba off the
twenty one over there regardless as a hotel, and there's
a back parking lot. I would go every single morning
because I couldn't afford to eat anything. I would go
in the back parking lot. I would intentionally wear sweatpants
and like dress like I was actually staying at this hotel,
wait for somebody to walk out of the back door
to the parking lot, sneak in like hanging the bathroom
(10:57):
for a second, then walk in and eat Continental breakfast
every single morning. Wow. I had this whole plan in
my head to people like, aren't you afraid you're gonna
get caught if like the Maids or somebody you know
is like, hey, we we saw you the last six days.
I was going to be like, you know what I'm
in from out of town. I'm a guitar tech for
Zach Brown Band and our tour manager. Yeah, and our
tour manager is not here yet. He told us, you know,
(11:19):
when we arrive off the flight, just to go and
grab a little breakfast and he's gonna come check us in.
And luckily it never happened. Everybody was so sweet, They're like, hey,
good to see you again. You know, the extended stay
at the Hanton End, and I would take like little
boxes of rice crispy treats, you know, back to the
house and survive all day off that. So it was.
It was rough. We also made fake cupons. I'm rambling
(11:39):
right now. It's I'm interested in this though. So you
and him both moved to town. Were you both broke? Oh? Yeah,
it so? But what are you doing to make money
or not even make money? What are you doing to
make a progress creatively? We both, you know, came here
with probably like a couple of hundred bucks in our
pockets like nothing thing crazy, but you know, to pay
(12:01):
whatever rent we could for the first month. I mean
literally our rent was like hundred or a hundred fifty bucks, nothing,
nothing insane. And I was producing demos. I you know,
I was doing Logic then I hadn't even like I
couldn't afford pro tools. I got a cracked version of Logic,
which is, you know, an illegal download, and I was
just rocking on there. Didn't really know what I was doing,
but you know, writers and stuff would come to town
(12:21):
or artists and I'd produce a demo form literally like
thirty dollars a song, and I was spending like, you know,
the same amount of time I spend making our records now,
like weeks at a time doing songs and walk away
with thirty bucks. But hey, you do three or four
of those and you're paying your rent that month. So
did anyone back then, did you work with anyone that
has done anything as far as made a name for
(12:43):
themself in any capacity I'm trying to think. I mean,
I knew Cassidy Pope. Cassidy Pope and I kind of
came from the same world. We had done, like you know,
rock and pop kind of music in the past, and um,
we had a lot of mutual friends, so we like
wrote some songs together into demos and casting still a
good friend. You knew her before the boy she knew
her from Monday warped toward days. Yeah, we had a
lot of mutual friends, and I wrote some songs. I
(13:06):
got to dig back on the old hard driving and
see what I could can bring up. I mean, you
know who else played warp towards Brandon Ray? Did he really? Yeah?
He hasn't got the energy for it. He has the
greatest stories about going out and passing out flyers and
just and he would play at the eleven Am. Dude,
I've got warped toward stories, so I would go out.
But who are you playing with? I had a band
in high school called Transition, and it was like a
(13:28):
pop punk kind of I don't know, just relad singer.
I was, I was and I would. I had like
long emo hair and did the whole thing. I had
no idea. This is I'm gonna send you some Pectus tonight.
You knew his pop punk stuff? Have you? Oh? I
have some here? How about this? Here we go? This
is a from transition called excusable. Oh no, you got
pulled up? Yeah yeah, I got that. Every word we
(13:51):
s you have that, boy, I am so sad today
and my mama through one magazine away. It's so urgent
to it's like, right now, you gotta end everything about
it right now. Look at this. You guys are the
(14:12):
real deal. I was like fifteen years old when we
were a cold. Have you ever heard of them? Mike?
Come on, show that tattoo. You got the tattoo. You
got my signature tattooed on your arm. That's so funny.
How about this one we're gonna make called Bonavo? What's
what's this one? Yeah? That Bonaventure was the band that
my buddy Andy and I who I moved here with
at the same time, started and we were trying to
like you started here. Yeah, we started it here at
(14:34):
that house in Nashville and we let me hear this one.
Are you singing in this one? I'm not, I'm singing harmonies? Okay,
So he's singing this one, you're singing. This is a Bonaventure.
I think you're a better singer, thanks, dude. Yeah, I
really enjoy your punk pop. Boy, that's a that's a
(14:55):
great pop punk boys. I've got some great pop punk
ideas floating around. We've got like a lot of buddies
who used to be in that scene, like our buddy
Paul d. Giovanni. He played guitar in a band called
Boys Like Girls. He wrote, he wrote our last number
one song right in a minute, So I mean we're
going there right now. I see Paul on Twitter all
the time. Yeah, Paul b LG. I did not know
that he was the guitar player for Boys Like Girls. Yeah,
(15:17):
the tall handsome guy. He wrote how Not to our
latest number one song? Yeah, he wrote Did you write
that with Adam? He did? Yeah, that's that's crazy to me.
He was in that band. He's dude, he's like the sickest.
They call him track guys, you know, and he's doing
and he's producing Jordan Davis. He's got that singles up
song on the radio right now. And I don't know.
(15:39):
I mean, he's honestly getting calls from guys left and right,
like Keith Urban or whoever, is like, hey, we need
you to come and make this awesome, and he's just
crushing it. Did you know simple plan? Hey? Yeah, dude,
They were awesome. Their music holds up. They were ahead
of their time. They and they were Canadian. I believe
they were a Canadian. I used to play then used
to play all of our radio shows back when I
was you know, and there's still doing radio shows. I
(16:01):
think maybe do you remember Bowling for Sup? Hey? Yeah,
we were talking about them the other day, I said,
I pulled up on Spotify I was Bowling for Sup.
I was like, this is the coolest idea. And they
recorded Stacy's Mom and the album cover for the single
was because everyone because everyone thought we sang this song,
we actually sang the song, so they did Stacy's Mom.
That's funny. I remember Jared Well, the lead singer Bowling
(16:22):
for Suit, Yeah, because he was from near Dallas, so
I knew him. But nine Day five was their big song,
remember it was you knew that song was written by
It was written by this guy, Mitch Allen, who also
came from the pop up world. He was in a
man called SR. Seventy one and he's written like he
wrote one to Want Me for Jason Derulo. He wrote
like a bunch of hits for Demilovado. It's crazy look
(16:44):
at that. Yeah, here's from Bowling Suit. This was a
for a pop punk song. It became a pretty big
pop song. Yeah, this was their biggest song. How about
how about you? And you sound good as a as
a singer. I've never heard you do straight ahead vocals.
When I hear you, you're doing homonies for Schet most
(17:05):
of the time. Yeah, I like me in the background, guy,
now you do that? Yeah? Being the Dana Danna say,
it's a little less pressure. But your name's first though, too,
so people would That's another thing I want to talk
about that. I just like, how do you decide who
goes first? Danna is at a coin flip? Is there
a fight with the order of importance? Yeah, that's a fight.
You know. There's a lot of other things, you know,
But how did that? I don't know how that happened?
(17:26):
Actually it was we were when Sha and I met.
That's like a lot later in the in the saga there,
I guess the tragic tale of Dan Smiers in Nashville.
But whenever we would walk into publishing companies because we
were just trying to get a publishing deal, we were
what we just wanted to get paid, right songs? Yeah, yeah,
we were like, we just want to write songs for
Rascal Flats or whoever. And we would walk in and
they're like, Danna chase here again, Dana Sha. And then
(17:48):
when we became a band, we were searching for band
names and we we had some band names floating around
for sure. Let me read this because I want to
want to get back to that. Uh do this because
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(18:11):
you should you should listen to this because Mike and
I just had a conversation before down. Because I'm putting
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This is not part of the commercial. I read a
story where people are going to hotels and they're sitting
in parking lots and people on open networks because a
lot of hotels have open networks. So you pay the
money or you're you put them the code, and all
of a sudden you're on the open Internet and they
can use this little hacking machine and everything that you see,
(18:35):
they see so you're typing stuff that they can still
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(18:56):
That's what I want to do. Like, I want to
get on the dark web someday and see what they
have up there. I mean, I shouldn't have you been
on the No, No, I'm curious about it. Me do.
It seems like an old Yahoo chat room, but everything
bad sold there. That's what it seems like to me.
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(19:17):
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(19:37):
me once I had a guy. This is not commercial,
but somebody trying to open a bank account my name, oh,
I have a my identity attempted to be stolen at
least ten times. Dude. We had a situation happened to us.
This is back to good transition. Back to the house.
We were living in Andy and I we found this
painting online. It was I don't know, maybe like twenty
dollars or something like that. We were trying to make
(19:59):
our decrepit old house look a little better. We found
this painting and this thing was massive. I mean it
was like six ft long, like eight ft highs big
old canvas painting. And we're like, you know what, we
should like lie about this on Craigslist and put it
up and be like this is like a famous like painting.
It's worth you know, fifteen hundred bucks or something like that,
and see if anybody bites. We put it up on craigslist,
(20:19):
I could you not. Within like an hour, somebody hits
back and it's like we want the painting, Like, can
we email you, and we're like, oh my gosh, this
is huge, this is massive. And they hit us back
and they're like, but we want to pay you. We
want to pay you more than what we asked for.
But it was like one of those situations where they
try to scam you. You've gotta like send a check
(20:39):
so they can cash it and do the whole thing.
Or no, no, they were they were trying to scam
the scammera they were trying to scam the scam I'll dude,
I've been scammed for years. Still did you any money
out of it? So they sent us a check and
it was for like, I don't know, seventeen it was.
It was more than what we asked for. It was
a lot, like in the thousands, and we took it
to it. We didn't want to take it to our
own bank because we were like, this could be like
(21:00):
we should try to get the cash quick, even if
we have to pay like a low commission. We took
it to Advanced Financial, like one of those check cashing
places on Nolan'sville Road, and you know, it's like a
glass window and you slip it through like you're paint
at a gas station, and uh, they look at the
check and they looked at us and they're like, uh,
we're gonna have to call the police. This is a
fraudulent check. And we're like no, no, no, like seriously,
(21:20):
we we don't know what's happening, Like we just try
to sell painting on Craigslist and this guy like and
they're like, Okay, well you need to get out of
here immediately because this is a frauduct. I guess this
person had done it before. And uh, we sprinted out
of there. No, we got the painting, We never sent
the paint. No, the whole issue. I don't know how
(21:40):
this scam worked. We figured it out one time, but
it was yeah, it was we didn't that's what you deserved.
You were trying to cheat and it was a good painting.
Though it looks pretty good. You still have it. He
still has it, honestly, still has it. It's funny, so
you and him move into this house. Moving to this house,
you're both what's he doing? You're out cutting demos for
our what's he doing kind of the same thing. You know,
(22:02):
he was writing and just like scraping by on what
he could. We're helping each other. We supportive of each other,
two guys together. No, we were we were working together.
We're writing songs together, and you know, putting We started
putting the Bonaventure band together while we were down there,
and we were like, you know, we had a little
bit of stuff going on. We we had connections, I
guess from what we had done in the past and
who we knew before we moved to Nashville, and we
(22:23):
like we saved up our money or I don't know
how we did, or like borrowed my dad's airline points
and flew to New York one time and showcase for
Mercury Records. This guy, David Massey as Bonaventure. So we
were like, we didn't know whether we were obviously writing
country songs, but we were just telling people whatever they
wanted to hear. So this pop label, like I was like, yeah,
(22:44):
come in and play for the President. I mean, this
guy signed like Massive Acts, and we go up there.
I have a banjo, five string banjo and he had
an acoustic guitar. This was before like the resurgence of
the banjo and pop music happened. Like Mumford and Sons
and Imagine Dragons put him handling in their pop track
this was like before that became cool. And I walk
into this New York office Mercury Records, and it's the
(23:07):
two of us singing country songs and they're like, so,
you guys want to sign this pop label? Huh. We're
like yeah, we would do anything you want, Like have
you ever thought about being in a country act? And
we're like no, no. We just start telling them what
they wanted to hear, what we thought they wanted to hear,
and they're like cool, Uh, yeah, we'll be in touch.
And we went back to Nashville and nothing ever came
a bit. So did you guys break up the idea
(23:29):
of Bonaventure after they didn't work? It was kind of
not immediately there. We were kind of just fizzling out,
like focusing a little more on the writing thing. We
I mean, we've been here for like four or five
years before Shane and I met, and uh, what was
the big I wouldn't even say break, but what was
the pop for you? Where you go? Okay? I can
at least relax a bit on rent. So when I
signed my publishing video to Warner Chapel, I had sixty
(23:51):
three dollars in my account, like cold sixty three that
I know that number for a fact, And I mean
my rent that month was like a hundred fifty, So
I was I hadn't figured it out yet what I
was gonna do, but it was pretty nice. While we
were like, you know, negotiating deals and with the record
label and a publishing company, we would we would. There's
this guy Alex Hedel, he runs he's that big machine publishing.
(24:12):
He still like gives me a hard time because he
was like, we wanted to sign you guys, and you
just like let us on. And we went out to
soul Shine and spent like fifteen dollars at the bar,
and like, I'm like, no, we did. We went at
one time and got a pizza and a beer, but
we always pike each other a hard time about it.
So whenever you're doing that, if you're an artist out
there and like you're you're being courted by labels, if
(24:32):
they want to buy you a car, if they want
to buy you, just take it. You know. It's funny.
How I knew you guys first was not as friends
who were trying to be artists. I don't think we
had a deal at that point. You didn't have a no,
but that's not always like I had these friends then
we were doing karaoke and I was like Dan and
she was like, it's Dan and Shay and I was
like we had demo. Yeah. I was like, okay, cool.
(24:55):
The artist thing wasn't a thing. It was just not
as friends, not as friends who like rank other people's
beer and partied and yeah, this is crazy. I knew
not a way back. I met her. Uh, she was working.
I think she was a pop station or doing she
was for the River, Yes, for the River and Boys
Like Girls who I I know, and I'd go way
back with those guys. They were still doing the band,
(25:18):
and they came and played a show, a Christmas show,
and I met Nada there. She was like doing promo
for the station and they did an acoustic radio show.
And I was hanging with Paul and Martin from Boys
Like Girls and I met Nada and we became friends.
And she'd been to that terrible house. She knows all
about it. That's funny. I just think back because all
these memories are hitting now, because that's right when I
moved to town. Is it right about the time you
(25:38):
guys went on with Warner and became a thing. But again,
you weren't Dan and Show. You were Dan and Shapes
to do just to her friends. Still looking for a
band name, Yeah, that's crazy. We were honestly under SoundCloud.
I don't know. I hope it's private because somebody's gonna
go out there and find it. We were on SoundCloud
as Ragtop Red. That was our name. We were like
(25:58):
big Tim McGraw fans and we're like, well he has
red ragtop what if we like flip it ragtop Rad.
There have been there is one. We were in Austin, Texas.
We did south By Southwest and uh, we were down there.
It was I don't remember exactly the timing of this. No,
this was the first. We've done south By Southwest twice.
The second time Justin Bieber came out on stage with us.
It was a whole the whole thing that was crazy.
(26:21):
The first time we did it. There's a picture of it.
There was only we played a showcase and like Shay's
lawyer at the time, this guy Jim's I'm Walt the Man,
great guy. Uh, he was like, come down to do
this showcase and we can hang out. And we were like,
this is awesome, you know, We went down and there
was literally three people in the crowd, my lawyer Jonathan
he's the man, Jim's I'm Walt, and Paul d. Giovanni,
(26:41):
the guy boys like girls keeps coming up in this situation.
I don't know why he was there. I think he
was just I think the band was on a break
or something at that point and he was just hanging out.
He was literally standing in the crowd and there's We
watched this the other night. We were cutting together videos
for Tequila and my buddy Pete Tracy, who does like
all our content, he found a video that somebody had
taken and it was showed us like rocking on stage.
(27:03):
I'm wearing like a Boston Red Sox hat and we're
dancing around like we've got something going on, and he
zooms out. Literally no one in the crowd was so embarrassing.
But what is your name? So we go to p
F Chains after that little showcase, and Zombie's like, you
guys are poised to be the next big stars, like whatever,
we need to come up with a name. So he's
got his little iPad. We're sitting at the roundtable in
(27:24):
the corner of PF Chains in Austin and he's like,
I got it, and we're sitting there like you might
have it. This is awesome, let's hear him out. He's
like not showing us. He's got a big surprise and
he's typing it out on this little iPad and he
flips it around. And his big pitch to us was
that the name should be Schools Out. Yeah. So like
if we ever get big, like Dirk's Bentley or something
and can do the you know, that's funny. I remember that. Man.
(27:52):
It's so funny because I think of you guys as
part of my memory when I first got to town,
because you guys were being a thing right when I
whatever I was being and whatever I am, I started
to be a thing right when you guys were being
a thing. At the same time, people hated all of us,
all of us. They we were ruining country music and
still are, by the way, we're still running country. It's
(28:12):
a very vocal minority. It's it's insane, it's it's I've
never seen anything like it. I was talking to someone
that I do business with the other day and we
were talking about the people that listen to country music,
and I said, you can't pay attention to the people
that talk to you about it, because the people they're
satisfied and love it. They quiet, They just love it,
(28:33):
and they consume what they like of it. They don't
complain about what they don't. They just go to what
they like. The people that are the ones going this
sucks that ain't country. They're out there, but they're the loudest,
and they're a very select minority group. They're aggressive to man.
They every once in a while when I want to
like get into it on Twitters, I shouldn't do this.
(28:53):
I'll like search Dan plus Sha not country, you know.
And and there's some like really vulgar stuff in there,
are like really aggressive. It's like, if you don't want
to listen to our music, just don't listen. Nobody's forcing
anyone to do anything with anything creative, period. It's it.
And at this point in my career, I've always been
(29:13):
hated because again by a vocal minority, because when I
was doing pop, I was too country. When I do country,
I'm to pop. When I was doing alternative, I had
too much of a Southern accent. When I was doing sports,
I've never been a professional athlete. I just can't I've
never fit anywhere, but it's thickened my skin so much.
But it's also made me more like the people that
(29:35):
actually consume. And that's been what was to me the
hardest thing in the biggest obstacle was oh, I'm never fitting.
I actually fit exactly with the people that are consuming it.
They just don't scream. It's great. It's interesting you say that.
Do you ever like, are you impacted more by the
haters than like, there'll be I talked to Thomas read
(29:56):
about this all the time, and his dad always was like,
Thomas gets so bent out of shape about the people
on Twitter, Thomas Rhett and he'll hit people back. I
see it on his He has so many followers on Instagram,
He's got millions and millions of people saying, Thomas, you're
the greatest artist I've ever heard. I like, have your
lyrics tattooed on myself. And then one guy comes on
there it's like, why are you wearing those jeans? You
(30:17):
look like whatever you know and your music is not country.
He'll reply to him and he'll hit him back and like,
but you just scroll past. I love your song. I
love your song. You guys are amazing the show is
amazing at night, and then there's one hater out there.
It's like nice haircuts or whatever, and it's like, Oh,
I'm gonna get that guy. I wanna get that guy,
you know. I was talking to Kip More about this,
and Kip More and I had the same management yep,
(30:40):
and we were sitting in a in a room, and
he was talking about at times he can be upset
by people not enjoying the show. He could say, there,
let's say people just rocking and it keeps intense and
you're talking about loves his art that he keeps like, Man,
I have everybody gone, but the one person, not one
person I'll focus on, is the guy who's just looking
(31:00):
at the ground. And I'm like, how do I win
him over? And I can't win him over? And he says,
he what do you do? Said? Well? When I do
stand up? Well. I also like to read about really
good famous people. I'm a B minus comic. I'm funny
if you want to come to the show. But I'm
nothing like this. I'm nothing like the people that are
really good, like it's their profession. I'm a really good
radio host. I'm an okay comic, but Steve Martin is
(31:23):
one of my heroes, and before I was born in
the eighties, so I didn't really get to experience Steve
Martin as when he was new and it was groundbreaking.
But he would say, watch the top of their heads,
don't watch their faces, because everybody experiences joy differently, and
you're you're projecting how you experienced joy on them, and
if they're not experiencing joy how you experienced joy, you think, oh,
(31:46):
they're not enjoying it. So we had that conversation and
then we talked about why we get effected so much
by when someone say something bad about us. And I
tried to go, you know what, I'm better than that,
and I don't let it get to me. But I
keep myself the same. He's gonna keep sweet, smart refrigerator.
I don't go to Facebook. Yeah, the show Facebook, because
it's people that a lot of people that are just angry.
(32:08):
But I can't. It drives me so crazy. I just
know that's my weakness and it hurts my feelings, and
I'm I'm a sensitive artist. It's tough, dude. We all are.
We are and honestly, we played a show with Kip More.
I hope Kip doesn't need this because he kill me.
You know, he wants to put off the tough guy.
He's a sensitively I he's like in touch with his
feelings and his emotions. I mean, you could hear it
in his music. Is an incredible songwriter. Play this thing
(32:31):
on the Pepsi golf coast, jam. I believe whoever hears
this is not gonna ever book us there again. But
it was it was an interesting show. It was like
I blame the fact that it was insanely hot. It
was like a hundred and ten degrees outside. It was
in Florida, and uh, Kip had just gotten off stage
and we were on the bus. He's like pounding on
our bus stories like boys, let me come up there
and hang out. And he's like he was so bummed
(32:52):
about there was like the crowd was we saw his show.
People were throwing beach balls around and like they were
for the most part, having a good time. But it
was hot, and it is late in the day. You know,
it's probably seven thirty or eight at night, and they
were like a couple of guys down in the front
row or in the pit who were probably drunk or hungover,
and they were giving him a hard time and he
was like, I've bad, dude, I'm done with this, Like
I'm never playing out. We're like sorry. We we talked
(33:14):
about but he was emotional about it. And yeah, he's
a passionate guy. That's awesome though his his true fans
like can feel that he believes for his art, and
it's like, that's why he died hard. He has die
hard fans and he's die hard. And I kept and
I got into a huge blow up one time because
I go, well, I'm commentating on what's happening, good or bad.
I've a one point made friends and enemies at the
(33:35):
same time of every single art. It's just about because
where I've said I've really enjoyed them, I've also said
things I don't like about them, just because if I
say enough things, eventually they're all not going to be great.
Of course, so and I can't worry about that. And
at times it makes an awkward in town. But then
again it comes back around and we're cool, and then
we're not cool again. But we kept. One time I said, Kip,
you gotta relax on the cell phones. This is me
(33:56):
talking over the year. Stop yelling at people. With their
cell phones. Everybody uses their phone ones now, yes, But
he got so pissed at me and we ended up
three months later after we just wouldn't refuse to talk
to each other, going to breakfast right after for like
three hours, we just talked it out and there was
an understanding that we're both super sensitive in different ways,
(34:19):
and we're not on the same exact wavelength, but we're
absolutely on the same highway. And since then it's been fantastic.
He is, he'll shoot you straight, and I'll still make
fun of him if I need to. He sent me
a video I went to Hawaii. I don't know how
to you know, and I told you this, I don't
know how to serve. I don't know how to do
any of the water stuff. You never grew up around
(34:40):
wavy water. I only grew up around lake water. So
I can have a post to be a paddle stand
up paddle boarding. And you take that strap and you
put it on your ankle, but I put it on
my wrist because I'm an idiot. I thought you was
put on your wrist, And so I talked about the
story I actually talked about with you guys when you
came on the show and kept heard that segment, and
he sends me a video of just him over and
over strapping. I think to his leg that's all the
(35:03):
video was, with him strapping himself to a board. Over
keeps a passionate dude, and I like kid. Yeah, I
like him too. He's a good guy. Okay, let's get
back to this Wow Warby Parkers back on. Look at that.
I have so many pair of Worry Parker glasses. I'm
gonna just do the spot in real Q. Oh, dude,
you can go in. I don't even know what the
spot says, because I've looked at it. The Warby Parker
(35:24):
store is like a candy store. They have so many
days like over there, and they don't have um brick
and mortar stores everywhere they do in Austin to do
in Nashville, and which, by the way, I live right
near that PF Change where it schools out and awesome. Yeah,
I live right there by that PF Change. So um,
war Parker has all these glasses for like a hundred
(35:45):
bucks and it's like a shopping spree. Okay, there's a
free home trial program for Warby Parker. I haven't haven't
pre read this, so I'm just gonna read it, but
I think I know most of this. Guy bought them
so many times. Order five pair of glasses and try
them on for five days. There's no obligation to vibe.
It's ships for free and it includes a prepaid return
shiping level. Basically, what happens is they send you these
(36:05):
five pair of glasses and you you can try them
all on and see which frames you like and the
ones you don't you can send them back. Go to
Warby Parker dot com slash Bobby to order your free
home tryons today. Glasses started ninety bucks, including prescription lenses.
Lenses include anti glare and anti scratch coatings. For every
pair you buy, two Apparents distribute to somebody in need.
So there's also a Warry Parker iTunes app. The try
(36:29):
a home kit thing really is fantastic though, because it
comes right to your house and you put them on,
and the ones you don't like, you go aoh, these
don't put my face. You just send them back. And
so there is there any part of this that I
don't know about yet, because all that I just know
from my heart. Uh, if you have an iPhone X,
you can download the work Parker app and use their
brand new feature fine your fit. Well, that's interesting. It
uses the iPhone x is True Depth camera to map
(36:50):
and measure key facial features. Man, I need that to
see if I'm ugly even for not the glasses. Uh
warwy Parker dot com slash Bobby. If your glasses where
just go to war we Parker dot com slash Bobby.
That's a pleasant treat having more we parked about This
podcast has gotten so big and we never expected it.
It's amazing, dude, it's killing it, I guess. But look
(37:12):
at this equipment, this equipment that I just bought. It
might put it together. This is not even a real studio,
and now we have two million subscribers. It's it's absolutely insane. Cool. Okay,
So here we are and by the way, I'm trying
to get you in for months and either you could
do it and I couldn't, or I could do it
and you couldn't, And finally we got it. We're here.
We're hanging I like it. Thanks for having me. Man
Um story is so ridiculous over the place. I didn't
(37:34):
know some of this, and a lot of times I
know everything. I'm gonna I'm gonna keep giving lessons to
all the struggling artists out there were trying to get by.
So we had like Microsoft paint on our computers or
like some some iteration of it, and we would make
we're scammers. We made like fake coupons, or we would
find a keep on that it was expired and we
would change the date, and then we would go to
CC's Pizza. You know, CC's amazing. So CC's like to
(37:57):
Buffets four ninety nine, which is out of our price range.
So what we did is we made it like by
one game one three secs, because when you're in like
the two fifty range, it's like it's okay. Not only
did we do that, we would go with the CC's
by our house would close at nine pm. We'd go
at eight forty, and we would order two pizzas like
customer we back of mac and cheese and Buffalo Chicken
or something like that, pizzas right off the front, and
(38:18):
they'd be like cool and they'd make them up and
then we'd be sitting in there and then they'd be like, gentlemen,
we're about to close the store. And we'd be like,
what are all those pizzas up on the thing. Are
you guys throwing those away? And they'd be like, yeah,
we have to take him to the dumpster. And we're like,
if we meet you out back, could we take the
leftover pizzas? And I mean the people working in SEC's
were like sure, we don't care. Sure enough. We'd walk
around the back of the place with the two custom
(38:40):
pieces that we had just had made, and then we
would get the like the pizzas they were throwing away,
and we would literally eat off this pizza for like
six weeks at a time, and as it became not
really edible anymore, we would put it on the grill
out back. It was dark times. So what did your
parents do? My dad's a chemical engineer, he is. He's
(39:00):
retired now. He coaches middle school soccer now really yeah? Yeah?
So was he a soccer player? He was? He played
in college? And were you an athlete? You're built like
an athlete? Yeah, you don't mind me noticing you're built
like a man. Yeah, maybe that speedo I warre in
here is a bad choice. Uh yeah, So I played
football for a year in college. I went that's like
(39:20):
the weird thing about what I'm doing because I graduated
from college from a great school. I graduated from Carnegie
Mellon in Pittsburgh, which is I'm playing that theater, Carnegie Theater. Yeah, yeah,
that's amazing, it's beautiful. That's not Colby kel A play
there one time and Jimmy World in the Pop Pung days.
It was killer. I love Colby kel A so good.
She came through. We went to lunch one time. I
(39:43):
don't think it was a date. It could have been.
It could have been a date, though, but she played
and Amy would know the real story because she's it
doesn't matter, it's that's for a different day. Yeah, I
need to hear this story that Yeah, I need I
need to make sure it's right. Though, before I say
I need to, I need to, you know, it's been
so long. You want to talk to the people that
were also experiencing it with you to make sure it
didn't turn into some fantasy in my head. Yeah, so
(40:04):
all these stories are now that we're talking, all these
like crazy stories I have when I'm of here coming back,
I had another good one on deck here in a
few minutes. Whenever you played for one high school, what
would you plays to play? I played running back, so
I actually was touring through high school. So I and
then I played all growing up, and then like the
band The Transition Man started sort of happening a little bit.
We were touring on weekends, and then my parents like
(40:26):
they hated me. We had kind of a weird falling
out when I was in high school because they were like,
you're so good at sports, you should play sports, and
I was like, screw you, mom and dad. I'm playing music.
Like I want to like drop out of high school
and go on the Warp Tour, which I wasn't even
invited on the Warp Tour. We would show up and
we would build the stages. There was like the Kevin
Says Stage. Kevin Lyman, who ran the Warp Tour, had
(40:47):
this thing called Kevin Says Stage, and it would just
be new and upcoming artists get up at six in
the morning every day, you know, lee putting like trusts
and pipes and all that stuff together and build the
stage and like two of the acts would get to play.
So there would be days we'd build the whole stage
right to stage down and not even get to play.
We were well, it's like an open micare in Nashville
show up. But maybe you get on maybe, but you
had to drive the van from city to city. So
(41:07):
I bet a lot of people did that. You know,
you're all so young at the time, and I was like,
this is awesome. Yes, that's how I feel. When I
was radio, going to school full time, taking twenty hours
broke as a joke. It was, I think, the happiest
time in my life, much happier than now because I've
now put all these problems into my head that really
don't don't matter. Money is like absolutely unfortunately, it's the
(41:32):
reality of what we do. I mean, I wish I
could just like write a million songs and just chill,
but like we have to go out and play shows
and you know, travel through the night or take red
eye fights to play shows, like because we have bills
to pay and we have to pay our band and
we have you know what I mean. There's not even
hard compared to what normal people like my step dad
(41:52):
worked at the sawmill. Yeah, every day, hated it. That
was hard work. Absolutely, what we do is not hard work. No,
it's not. It's we spent a lot of time creatively
competing against other people. It's exhausting, sometimes we can still
be mentally exhausted and physically without sleep. Sure, But when
I was grinding it and actually doing the work, when
(42:14):
I was getting paid, I was so happy because I
didn't know any better, and money wasn't a problem because
I never had there was an option of any Yeah,
there was no option of money. So I just enjoyed
the art. I agree with you, that's that's that's so true.
But yeah, we were we were grinding, we had nothing,
we were not getting paid. We're doing these shows, and
like we would have a CD or a demo, we'd
be selling them to the line. You know, I had
(42:34):
the whole pitch down. I had like a little headphone
set and it's like you guys like fall Out Boy
and they're like, no, we like like hard stuff like
No Effects or something. We'd like, you're gonna love our stuff,
And it was otherwise, you know, we'd be like like
no Effects are like no, we like pop music like
fault Boy would be like, you're gonna love O Perfect
just to you. And we would like sell CDs for
five bucks to get to the next city, and that's
just what people buy them. They would, yeah, they would.
(42:56):
I mean people were generous. I don't know if that
still is a thing, but I'm in that hustle. Like
all the guys in our band and our tour and
crew came from that world, so we all kind of
have that mentality. And I you know, we have an
amazing team around us. Now, we've got amazing connections at
country radio, and we have amazing fans. But I try
to still keep that mentality with what I do. You know,
here in Nashville, it's like people like, why are you
(43:17):
doing so many things? Are writing all these songs or
applying to fans on social media and stuff. But it's
just what I what I'm used to, what I came
up on, and it's I mean, now we've got more
of a platform, there are more fans that will come
to the shows, you know, without me begging them to
come to the shows. But I try to keep that
same mentality. If I work as hard as I did
when I was building stages at Warp Tour, We're gonna
(43:38):
have a lot of success. You know. You know that
there's a parallel that I see between we're talking about kit,
between Kip and you and Shay, and that you have
very passionate fans and you guys grind the road hard, hard,
harder than people give you credit for. But you know what,
you're not looking for credit. So it's a weird thing
(44:01):
to say that people don't give you credit for it
because're not looking for the credit. But you guys just
from knowing what it's like to tour, because I do
a little myself and seeing you guys all out, you're
on the road a lot more than the normal country act. Yeah,
we are, we are. We did I think a hundred
and seventy three shows last year, which and just to
compare most people to do weekends, yeah, most like the
(44:22):
bigger acts will do eighty five shows a year. Then
that's a big touring here. But and we try to
I'm you know, we're with CIA, our agency. And when
we met for the first time, I was like, I
come from the you know, the world of warp tour
where you're playing five six nights a week. Like now,
I like the country thing. I like doing three nights
and then coming back to Nashville and resetting the years.
But we were like, let's just tour like a rock band.
(44:43):
Let's go out and do we don't need to just
play Friday and Saturday night. We can play a Tuesday
night or Wednesday night if you're playing clubs or House
of Blues or whatever. It is, like we were grinding
playing every night. We're still doing that. I mean, we
would go even when we're on tour. We're on tour
with the Flats this summer, but we're booking our own
headlining dates in between because our fans are passionate man
and they they want to see the full set, and
(45:04):
you know, there's opportunity obviously business wise to go do
those shows. But it's good for us too to be
in those cities playing for those fans, not just Okay,
we're gonna play the major cities you need to. I mean,
that's the thing about country Their country music fans everywhere,
So you're not just playing New York and Boston or
you know, big major cities. You're playing all over the place.
And sometimes those shows are even crazier because the fans,
(45:27):
you know, in the middle of nowhere, like no one
ever comes here. This is as I enjoy going to
places where they're not huge circles on the map with
a big city because people are so much more appreciative
and I may not sell many tickets exactly. But that
the great thing about what I do so in the radio.
Most radio people don't do things outside of the radio show, right,
(45:48):
I do, And I think one of the greatest things
I get from it is getting to have a dose
of reality and actually seeing a meeting people because I
do it every unless I'm sick. I've only ever not
done it two or three shows ever, unless I'm sick
or something as went wrong, I always go and that
the theaters get mad at me for doing it, but
(46:08):
I go and talk to people, meet people because that
is important to me to to stay grounded. I can
be in a room absolutely and just talk to my
friends and it goes over the air waves, but I
will lose what's really happening in the world. Yeah. Me
being able to go out and see people as much
as I do resets me back to normalcy. Yeah. I
like that. It gives me out of the bus and
for you guys to you get out of Nashville. You
see what's really happening, not what's in this stupid bubble
(46:31):
of well, what's the coolest thing that's happening right right?
It is a bubble, And I mean where I grew
up with a bubble too. It wasn't until I moved
out and started touring it was like I thought everything
was perfect. It was awesome. But it's not always like that.
And you see the way like certain people live, and
that's why we try to when we're on stage, even
if there's like technical difficulties, if the venue sucks or whatever,
(46:51):
it is like give a hundred and ten percent because
even like if there's five people there, those five people
don't care that there's not six people there. That was
a hard thing for me to do. Absolutely right, you
have to give your all of those people because like
and and it it's even more impactful than when you
play for twenty people in an arena because those people
they feel special. And like I remember being a kid
going to shows and if an artist got up there
(47:12):
and phoned it in because the show wasn't sold out,
it's like, you know what, I don't know if I
love that artist, But if we go out there and play,
like you know, in front of five people, like we're
playing in front of a big festival crowd, it's it's
gonna go along. We've always had that mentality, so it's
that took me a while and I somebody wrote a book,
Charlie Daniel over the books said, uh, don't look at
(47:32):
the And that's something over the past couple of years
that I really appreciated is putting forth the effort when
it when it feels like you should be down, like,
oh man, this didn't sell out. But again, nobody knows.
I want to watch Adam Crowla. Here's an example, Mike
did I want to watch Amla? And yeah, back and
the places are half full, and I was and I
(47:54):
was looking around like, wow, why is that full? I
kind of feel but nobody there was looking behind them
and anything old seat and it again. Going to shows.
We set me on how to do shows, absolutely absolutely,
because you also, you know, on the other on the
flip side of that, you'll go to shows and see
artists who do notice those empty seats and are complaining.
You could tell they're just cutting the set short and
(48:15):
doing whatever, and you're like, that's the guy. I don't
want to be so And I was early that guy,
but now I'm exact opposite. And I appreciate it because
and I went to John Mayor show in Minneapolis and
I went through the meet and greet line not as
later later I went hung out. I was cool later,
but he was at the beginning. I wanted to go
(48:38):
through a meet and greet line to see what it's
like to go through a meet and greet line because
where I am now, I get a lot of things
because in my position, people say, hey, don't worry about it.
And I've known John Mayor for a bit. We've probably
a ten instance this together, so I don't know him
know him, but professionally we know each other, and now
we actually follow each other on social media and stuff,
so maybe we'd recognize. He'd recognize me, I'd recognize him.
I'll be like, what so. But I to the meet
(49:00):
and greet line and it was forty five minutes or
so when I sat and I just talked to people,
and it just gave me a new respect for even
people that come to the meeting. Totally. It was just
it was it's really good for me to do stuff
like that. It blows my mind. We were just in Europe,
or in Europe in December, and it's like we came
in a long way. We're like really far from where
she grew up in Arkansas, where I got in Mensylvania,
where we live now in Nashville, we're an ocean away
(49:23):
and there are people who like canceled their plans, book flights,
whatever it is to come see us play. That it
kind of blows my mind. It doesn't make me feel
a little guilty. It does to me, it does. I
feel like when they come to see me, I wouldn't
go see me. I wouldn't go see me either, And
I'm so grateful to people that do. But I almost
want to apologize before the show and say, oh, you
(49:43):
just spent maybe you know, the thirty bucks, and I
hope I do good. Yeah, yeah, exactly. I feel like
we have We're so lucky. Our fans are probably all
listening right now. But we've got fans. Our friend Kayla,
she's like our biggest fans. She's so good to us,
so loyal. We at the halftime show this Steelers game
the other day and she her and her friend like
took a flight or drove and came all the way
(50:04):
to the game to see us play two and have
songs like die Hard. But last night her and a
bunch of other fans of ours started gifting, like people
not just buying our song on iTunes. They were like
the guys are in the top ten on all genres.
We should see if we can get them to number one. Literally,
we're just with their credit card and the thing gifting
our song to like anybody who d m them on Twitter,
probably spending a hundred dollars, like gifting the same song
(50:27):
over and over and that's amazing. And I felt I
had a message. I was like, look so nice to you.
You can stop, Like I want to go to number
one too, but like you're just like too kind and
I feel guilty. That's yeah, you feel like I do. Anyway.
I feel like, man, I'm just not worthy of this.
I feel the same, and I hope I never don't
feel that way, if that makes sense, because I don't
(50:47):
ever want to take it for granted. Neither do I.
That's a good thing about being in a duo if
we ever one of us ever is like starting to
get a little bit taking it for granted. It's like
you need to shape up, like get you know, punch
the other guy any arm. So when you get has
finally decided on Dan and Shay the name the name,
like we're really just gonna it probably had to be like, well,
we couldn't come up with the name. So we're just
(51:08):
gonna be Yeah. What was that conversation And who was
the one that said, okay, we think it just should
be Dan and Jay? Was it Espo? I don't remember
exactly how it happened, but we are managers. We we
work with Scooter braun Um you know which. By the way,
it is funny because I was a Scooter two weeks
ago and Scooter goes hold on and facetimes you. He's
(51:29):
the king of FaceTime. While I'm sitting with Scooter in
Los Angeles. I don't know where you guys were. You
were driving, you were driving though we were on the bus.
I think you're doing or was I at home? I
don't know, well whatever, I remember it. So Scooter is
part of the Hey, we're gonna name you guys, Dan
and Shay. Yeah, he was part of that. He was like,
you guys are like recognizable by your names because we
met with Scooter. We'd flown out. We've had like insane
(51:51):
experiences at Scooter's place. Like Scooter, by the way, it's
justin Bieber Kanye Carly class manager, like yeah, Sana ground
name very body and we would like go out and
jam with Justin Bieber and Selena. We'd be playing guitar
and singing and doing all the stuff and like crazy
like these nights that you see and you know at
HBO series, like crazy stuff. And uh, he was always
(52:13):
just like everybody knows you guys is Dan and Shay.
It's cool, like for the branding and instead of having
some band name that you have to reinvent some new moniker,
It's like, why not just go buy your names then
people will know you guys and do whatever. We're like,
we don't have any other ideas, Sure, let's go with it.
And then I got with my buddy Pete Tracy. Pete
Tracy also moved to Nashville with me when I moved here.
He's from Pittsburgh and like he was on the Dark Time,
(52:35):
the Dark training with us for a long time. But
he's he's crushing it now. He's he did Did you
see Jillian's new video Jillian Jacqueline? I did, Yeah for reasons,
Yeah amazing, Yeah, just three months she opened for She's fantastic.
I put her in my class of saw and took
her out for three months. She opened for it, and
Brandon is open it for me. Then I just like
(52:56):
I just love the new artists man fascinate. You're such
a big part of their careers though and breaking them.
I mean, they get to a certain level, I mean
because of the exposure that you give them. So I'll
play Stoked on Jillian whenever you did that, because I've
known Jillian since Andy and I moved. We talked about
this at the Hall of Fame, because you guys came
up to my radio Hall of Fame and you did,
didn't We were both there, just checked out. Yeah he was.
(53:18):
He was physically there. Okay, he was rocking. So you
and I were talking at a bar in Chicago, and
it was if I'm stepping out of turn, tell me,
but you took Devon and Jillian both to the label.
Yeah right, it's Warner Brothers. You took them, like, yeah,
I played, Uh, I played Devon's music for our buddy
who's now he's not at Warner Brothers anymore. And like
(53:39):
Devin thought Warner Brothers, but our buddy who was had
a promo over there and played it for him and
a bunch of people on the label. And you know,
I have a great relationship with Jonathan and Talent because
I'm trying they're because they're both fantastic, But are you
close to that? Are you're closer to Devon though than
you and another artist? Like? What's that? Was friend Stevin
(54:00):
saying the first dance at my wedding. He's great, Like
I believe in Devin so much. That's another talk about
a guy who's passionate about his art. Yeah, his records
coming out this week, So I mean, he is just
he's an amazing songwriter. We met first, we were just
we were writing songs together, and um, I was just like,
this guy's prolific, Like his words are insane. His voice,
(54:21):
his voice to me. When I first heard him, he
was playing at the basement, not the basement East, but
the regular the small basement, you know, like basement in
your house. Yeah, the basement. I don't even have a basement,
but he was playing at the basement and we had
written that day, and I told my wife Abbey. I
was like, you know, she's a huge music fan. Two,
she's like R, A and R. You know, she knows
all all the good artists before I do and picks
(54:44):
our singles and the whole deal. But I was like,
you gotta go see this guy wrote with today like
he's insane. We saw him at the basement. I was like,
this guy's a star, incredible. I mean his voice has
like a soulful I mean it's like a Gavin de
Girl kind of sound in his voice. He's got like
a graspy kind of thing. I don't know. I just
think that guy. And he's got his old branding and
the monochromatic vibe. And we told he's spent on people. Mike, Yeah,
(55:07):
when he was in that scene. She was like, well
we just spent on people. Yeah. I loved Evan. He's
he's absolutely incredible. Um, we share a love of tequila.
He brings nice tequilo bottles over my house and we
enjoy him. But Jillian is one of my, you know,
oldest friends here in Nashville. We've been writing songs together
since that she'd been that bad house that I was
(55:28):
living in, so I asked her about that place. But
she's awesome, man, and she's she's so cool. She's amazing.
She's an amazing songwriter, amazing singer, she's beautiful, has a
great attitude. She's been in this town. I'd like to
find that happens, like the people who have the most success,
have been here like cutting their teeth for a long time,
like everybody thinks. People people think whenever you announced her
(55:50):
into that class that she was like, oh this girl
just like god, it made like Bobby's gonna blow her up.
Whatever she'd been here for she'd been here longer than me.
So she's been here for probably ten at least ten years,
and she's a new artist at the same time, exactly right.
I mean, we really for new artists that these award shows.
I'm like, dude, I've been had this thing, but I'll
take it. It takes forever to be an overnight success.
It does. So okay, So you're dan Plush and that
(56:13):
had to be a thing at first because I bet
everyone's calling you dan Plush. Oh my stay still do
this is dan Plush with their first single nineteen you
plus me. It's like, but you know what, to be fair, yeah,
it is a plus sign. It is it is. And
we had this like I always am like thinking too
many steps in advance. I probably should enjoy the moment
(56:33):
a little more. But Pat and I P Tracy has
been referring to him like we had this whole vision
for the brand and you know, we could see like
Taylor Swift does the heart things at our shows with
their hands. I was like, I want to make our fans,
you know if we ever have We didn't have any
fans at this point. It's like, what if they like
put their hands up and made It's gonna be hard
for them to make an ampersand with their hands, so like,
let's use uh so they're gonna plus signs of their fingers.
(56:56):
They Yeah, we don't really do it as much anymore.
Our shows like so full throttle And you know, did
you used to do that at the plus time every show?
If you dig back on our Instagram, I should probably
bring that back. It's kind of a cool thing, like
you know, I take a picture of the crowd, which
I stole that from Ed shere and he would take
pictures of the crowd every single night, you know, like
even from when he was playing clubs and it's cool
to watch his progress now he's doing five nights at
(57:18):
Wembley Stadium, but he would always take a picture of
the crowd. So we would do that and then we
would try to do the plus sime thing and we'd
be like, put your hands up and you'd have to
explain it. At first, kids are like, why am I doing? Okay,
I see it now, but we would make them put
the plus sign up with their fingers and it's a
cool thing. And nobody does that that that exact thing.
I haven't seen anyone do the plus sign thing, so
I haven't seen anybody. You should bring it back. I
(57:39):
might bring it back. It's hard. It's hard to have
a thing nowadays because everybody's got a thing totally. So
it's hard to have a thing when everybody's got a thing. Yep,
that's the thing. If you don't somebody it did, Like
at first, it confused a lot of people and are
like some folks at our record label like we should
just change it to the end like this. I'm like,
people will eventually get it. And if they're talking about
us and they're playing our song, so what, it's fine.
(58:02):
It's fine. You know, it's just one more thing to
talk about. So yeah, we we had to grind away
for a few years with the bus sign thing, but
there are still a few people Dan blush, you know,
it's like, all right, we're done here. You bring up
Abby your wife, So let's tell me about my story.
Is wrong again. You can just always say, hey, stop talking.
So she was working at your label, she was, and
(58:22):
you were dating, So she stopped working at the label
because she couldn't date you while working at the label.
Is that true? Kind of Yeah, she was. She was
working at the label. She was a regional, a promo
rep of ours, which is like the toughest job in
the entire world. I mean not the world, but it's
a tough job. Yeah, I'm a dramatic guy, but in
(58:42):
the music industry, I think that is the most difficult job.
They as much as we tour, they're working five or
six artists simultaneously, and they're out knocking on radio stations
doors at six am saying, hey, are Danna shaty record
is looking a little weak that you know right now?
Like we need to get some spins. And it's just
it's like a sales job. It's so tough. And then
when a new artist like us comes out, they go
(59:03):
on a radio tour and that's like so grueling. We'd
be doing four stations a day and then you're going
out to dinner and you're hanging with program directors and
it all pays off in the end. It's great. You
need to make those relationships, and country radio is very
you know, close knit, and it's a relationshipship for sure.
We've had great luck, you know, people have been so
kind to us, but it's we guys are nice though. Yeah,
(59:25):
there's nothing super pretentious about YouTube. When you show up
in a room and you have Shay who's just like
you know, he's a good one. Shay is my Amy, yep,
because I am. When I'm not working, I got nothing
to say same. I'm quiet. I prefer to be creative
in my own head, writing on a computer right here,
and I'm just not that outward. But I can take
(59:48):
Amy and people will like me because Amy's awesome and
she's so garious in the room. So but you guys
are nice to be around. Thank you for saying that. Likewise,
I never disliked you. I don't know you guys ever
got mad at me when I was calling you the
Savage Garden of country radio. I'll take that man again. People,
somebody's talking about us. You've got a big audience, and
people were talking, and you guys came in and saying
Savage Garden and crushed it. And I thought that's when
(01:00:10):
I was like Oh, these guys are better than other
people because to be on a certain level, I mean,
do you have a deal, you have to be so
good really, because it's a talent of elite talent and
the elite of the elite. It's a record deal. And
then and then it is luck involved too, because there
are a lot of talented people in this town. They
don't have record deals. Yeah, but I think you can
make decisions to change your luck. I'm not a big
luck guy generally. I'm just not a big luck guy.
(01:00:32):
But that being side, I knew you guys would have
to be good to have a deal. But when you
came in after, I would say, all these guys are
like the Savage Guarden of of country radio, and you
guys sang, I just remember going, oh, they're different, they're
better than everybody, because you guys weren't around a lot
because you were touring all the time too. But I
remember thinking, all, they're better than everybody. They're way better
than people, and they're not asking for credit, but they're
(01:00:52):
way better than people give them credit for. You guys
did boys the Men, which is how Scooter and I
got to know each other. Do you know the story
I don't know the story. Okay, if your boys to yes.
So you guys came in and you know, I mean,
I love all formats of music. I think formats are garbage.
But honestly, and the people who say they don't, all
the people out there who say I only listen to
a certain things, they're in their truck or their car
bumping every kind of music that anything that makes them
(01:01:15):
feel something, they're they're listening to it. Even the most
we won't I will not mention name, but even the
most country of artists that I know, loves all kinds
of music. The artists people yell about like that's real country,
that's that person is probably listening to twenty one Avage
right now, like I hate to brust bubble, but they
got yeah yeah. And if you restrict yourself to a
(01:01:37):
certain thing because of his genre lines and say I
can only listen, or you deny yourself from liking a
certain thing that you actually like, you're just cheating yourself.
I was doing a YouTube and I'm doing a lot
of projects with Scooter now on the television side, so
um working on multiple ones. But the reason is because
of you guys. Well, what happened was so he's he
manages you guys, him and Jason Owen at sandbox in town.
(01:01:59):
He you guys can amn and we were going back
and forth and you guys were playing all these songs
out a format and I'm like, oh, dud this one.
And I was singing along doing this and he was like, wait,
you're not the normal country guys, he said, So I
started going down the rabbit hole of YouTube videos and
saw that you do all kinds of music and you
have a different look about you. And he was like,
So I thought, I'm gonna keep that guy's name and
when something comes up and then he calls, and then
(01:02:21):
that's how we started their business. It was I forgot
about this. It was you freaking guys. He saw a
YouTube video of us singing it together. Yeah, look at that.
So let's fast forward cause I don't know how I've
been talking. I could do five of these. How long
we wait? Okay, let's go to right now. Oh you
and Shay, you plus each other, you met, you had
a baby. I don't know what happened. Yeah, we we
got all the comments, Stan Bush, what is that equal?
(01:02:44):
I want to tell you about what's happening right now?
And again people will hear this who knows when, but
they just put out Dan put out Tequila and what's
playing over here? Mike hold on, I turned it off.
I got it. I got it. So you put out
this song Tequila, it's doing. It has cut through more
than any other song I feel you guys have put
(01:03:05):
out Initially, you guys have had some monster hits that
have had slow grinds. Yeah, that it's taken people while
to get to either radio. People are the fans, yea.
This has been the biggest song for you guys from
the initial pop. It's been incredible. I've yeah, I've not
been shy about sharing the numbers or whatever on on
(01:03:25):
the internet, but it is incredible. We worked so hard
on these songs and making the tracks, and people, I
think a lot of times don't appreciate what goes into
a song, you know, even if somebody's out there criticizing
a song and doing whatever, that song had to like
start with somebody writing it right, maybe on an acoustic guitar,
you know, and then be demoed and somebody had a
label how to be like, Yeah, I like that. We
(01:03:46):
should go in the studio and pay for that to
be recorded. We should cut that. Then it gets mixed
and mastered, and then there's a lot of steps that
a song goes through, uh, from when it's written to
when somebody hears it. And to see this song doing
so well, I start tracing those steps back and it's
like I spent a lot of time working on that track,
you know, producing the you know, the drum loops or whatever,
(01:04:06):
and editing vocals, and we do it all at my house,
so it's like a lot of time went into that.
And I was so nervous before we put it out
because it starts with the piano and a vocal, which
you know, for the people out there you don't know,
is like a little bit risky at country radio or
radio in general, because it's like ballads are tougher to
fit into a playlist because it's slowed down the base
of your radio station. But we're just are in this
(01:04:28):
place now where you know, luckily ballots have worked for
Dan and Shay, we've had success on from the ground up.
Was our biggest song previously, and that's and this one
had probably the second biggest. From the from the beginning,
we felt it this was a big one. It was
big for us, Yeah, and uh, we've been It's it's
funny because that this song is our biggest hit, changed
(01:04:50):
our lives, changed our career. We've been on a whole
other level since this song came out, but since Tequila
came out. That's the stat comparison. So all get emails
from s BO or you know whoever from the label
and it says Tequila has sold in the first four
days it was out, thirty two thousand downloads on iTunes
versus fifteen thousand of from the ground up, so almost double.
(01:05:12):
An additional stat is that the market in general on
track sales is down. You're going up down, so you
can hypothetically say it's almost double what it is. So
it's if you do that in your head, it's like,
this is so impactful and just to see how that's
how far that song went for us is insane. And
this one is, I mean, it's been number one on
the country chart, which is incredible. But then there's some
(01:05:33):
heavy hitters in the all genres chart. There's Bruno, Mars
has Filthy out right Now are just timber Lake, and
Bruno has Finesse imagine Dragons Thunder. All these songs are
in the top ten on the radio at pop, which
is an insanely big audience and tequila for some reason,
it is like the little engine that could, and it's
just camped out in the top five or top ten,
you know, the last couple of weeks, and it's I
(01:05:54):
don't know, it's it's surreal to me to see that
happen because it's still so early in the radio, you know,
country radio climb. It's it's a long time for a
new artist, but it is. And this song could cross
over a bit. I don't know, you probably thought about that,
never said it out loud, but this song could cross
over a bit. Yeah, I think uh on this round,
(01:06:14):
we you know, we did face a lot of the haters.
I think that was kind of our evolution. When we
first put out our you know, the Where It All
Began album, we we didn't know what we're doing on
that album. That was just demos that we were doing
in my living room or whatever on logic Um and
we were just kind of like two guys figuring it out.
In the second record, we kind of were reactive a
little bit of those people on Twitter at festivals saying like,
(01:06:36):
you guys ruining country music with that Myrtle Beach song,
the nineteen and Me song, you know that you guys
are so we were like, we should do a little
bit more of a country thing, and yeah, this is
the one that ruined country music, I guess, but totally
use everybody's saying it every time I came on the right.
You know this now and this is like down the
middle of country, but at the time it was very
left the center. Um, but all the artists that break through.
(01:06:59):
Sam Hunt, whenever his stuff came out, was like so
pushing boundaries, or even Kelsey or anybody who's doing their thing.
But now you listen back to that and you like,
that sounds like a normal country song, more traditional than
some stuff on the radio. And what you just talked
about has been done a thousand times. But just my
conversation with Garth about this specifically, and I talked Garth
is the pioneer of that. He said they want to
run him out of town because what he was doing
(01:07:20):
was so different than everybody else that he was running
country music. And not to compare Kelsey or you or
Sam to Garth, because everybody's in their own space, but
it's just the same story. Even from the biggest people
where you think, oh, that's what country is like. He
always was No. I sat with Garth and he said,
they told me that this is not country music. Yeah,
I should stop making it sure. I mean on this record,
(01:07:41):
we were just we're just like, you know what, we love,
what we love. We take all our influences. Obviously, we
moved here because we want to write country songs. We
love country music. But we were just like, we should
just record what we know how to record and record
great songs, no matter who writes them. Figured that on
our last record. We you know, we came here as songwriters,
but to have a successful artist career, you need to
always record the best song, whether you write it or
(01:08:03):
you don't. Adam Hambrick wrote, how not too. We heard
that demo come in. That's a funny story too. But
that song came in and we didn't write it, and
we were like, you know what this is. You know,
this isn't even the rest time I heard it. He recorded,
I think this sounds amazing, you got it. Look at that.
Here's the work tape. I've never heard this hit though,
(01:08:28):
you know. So if we took Adam out with us
and he played with Raging Idiots for four months, and
so he would play this song and every every I
played had a little bit of you guys in a heart.
I love it. I love it. But the thing is,
you talk about artists writing for you, you also write
for other artists. Yeah, we've had a little bit of
luck with that. We're we're still always it's a little
(01:08:49):
bit difficult now that we're doing our own projects, because
you write, you know, I think I wrote like ninety
four songs last year or something insane. Uh, But you
always want to like keep the best songs for yourself,
you know. Our artist career is obviously the most important thing.
And then when somebody hears something like that tequila song.
I wrote it with Nicole Galleon, who I think you've
talked to her. We talked to days a matter of fact.
(01:09:10):
She's brilliant. She's like one step ahead of everybody else
right now. She's got female from Keith Urban out there.
She's boy for Lee Bryce, which like some of the
best most well written songs on country radio. Uh. And
my friend Jordan Reynolds and uh, what was I talking
about writing that song? Oh? Yeah, we we wrote that
song and it was one of the ones from the
ground up was the same thing where we sat on
(01:09:31):
the demo for a little while, sat on it for
like a year before we recorded it, and it had
circulated to other artists, you know, publishers and even to
Tequilacula tequila. Yeah, and it's circulated. I would get text
from artists and be like, dude, if you guys aren't
cutting that song, I'm cutting that like I'm gonna put
it on my record. And then you're like, should I
get that song away? Because you never know what's gonna
end up making. That song may never have made our record,
(01:09:52):
you know, we may have beat it or written something else,
like I should have gave that away, But you know,
it always finds the right home somehow. I don't know,
or the home that it has is just what you know.
It's true because there could have been so listen. I'm
just not I'm just not as a destiny guy. I'm
(01:10:13):
but you make your own. I do enjoy tequila the song.
I've never actually tasted tequila to drink, but I do
enjoy to kick the vocals on is that I saw
you post that. I didn't know that. Yeah, like the
first time ever on the track. We just do all this. Yeah,
(01:10:37):
that little Justin Bieber thing in the back. I should
have pulled up my I saw Zach Rowl was on
here like soloing out tracks. We'll do that next time.
It's a kid. So I just took the tequila thing
and it shifted it up to a sense and it's
made that little crazy tequila song. And the thing is,
you're such a pretty like this is you doing this stuff?
People don't know that you're that. Shay is excellent. It's
(01:11:01):
it's such a great team. Yeah, because for the most part,
you're the brains that's putting these sounds together, and it's
in a lab and Sha singing his freaking brains out
on stage. But you're both are doing the other things too.
For sure. He's literally the best singer I've ever heard.
It's like insane. It's amazing to watch somebody who's never
heard him singing person watch their reaction. Oh that's what
(01:11:23):
happened to me. When you guys came in the front,
I was like, oh, yeah, they're the best. Yeah, game over. Ye,
it's insane. I still get blown away by it. I'm
like when I when he's in the studio, especially live
is there's a lot of great live singers, but in
the studio is like very vulnerable place. And I mean
just the timing and the tone and like I look
at you know, I'll pull up you know, a pitch
(01:11:43):
thing and look at where he is. I mean, he's
like spot on. It's it's a gift, it really is.
I mean it's and he can wake up in the
morning and sing too. It's like, you know, coming on
the radio show and sing Boys two Men, which is
like that's a hard song to sing. Yeah, I didn't
ask you guys to sing the last time because I
was like, you know him saying, I was like, no,
they need they let let's let's have a little time
there in the middle. You guys have just crushed it
(01:12:04):
so many times. So man, I'm happy for you guys.
Thank you. Man. You you've been there since the beginning.
So it's been a kind of not really but kind
of like I mean, I've been I didn't know what
I was doing when you started. I wish I could
have been the guy that was like, dnit shade the
best ever? You should trust me. I don't even know
I was talking about you know what I think now
we've settled into our places after we were like kind
of on the same timeline, and we've settled in and
(01:12:24):
we just do us, you know, like you do in
your thing. If there's a few haters out there, so
what they don't have to listen, you do your thinking
and we're making the music we want to make. And
that's what we did on Tequilo. Like we could have
went more country, could have went more pop, but we
just did what we knew how to do. And we're like,
you know what country music is just about great songs
and great stories, and that's what we did. And yeah,
it's maybe about it may be slower than some of
(01:12:46):
the other stuff we've recorded. Stuff explained yourself, everybody. I
feel like you've been built defensive because people have been saying, oh, yeah,
I'm just being honest. Screw it, don't be defense. We
just did. Don't explain it, that's right. Just it's awesome,
Thank you, thank you. That's it. Likewise, no, no, I did.
It's true though. You're doing your thing definitely Bellerini's album title.
(01:13:10):
But it's true. I mean, you're doing your thing and
you have a huge following and it's massively successful because
you're doing. I want to talk about me, but you
gotta shake that explanation. I don't have to explain how
many number ones you have as an artist, three okay,
and how many of you written on two? So it's funny.
The nineteen You and Me was one of our biggest songs,
(01:13:32):
went to number eleven on the chart. That's all that
song went, you know, Keith said to me. I went to, uh,
it does matter. I was hanging with Keith. I started
name droping too much, even I know myself. So I
start I'm hanging with Keith everyone we're talking about songs
and he's like, man, He's like, I don't know if
it was stupid Boy or whatever. It was like, it
wasn't the number one song, and it's what, I don't
(01:13:54):
remember which one it was specifically, like our favorite song,
you know, yes, And he was like, it wasn't the
number one song, but it's the one that people I
just want me to play the most. The fans don't know.
They don't care. If they love a song and it
hits them like it makes them feel something, they don't
care where it ends up. We in this town, we care,
and I everybody out there that I care. I want
our songs are good at number one, obviously, do you
want to eat? Yeah, when it is rewarding, I mean,
(01:14:15):
it doesn't get any higher than going number one. So
that's that's a great place except number one for two weeks. Listen,
there's place I'm gonna but the fans if it connects,
like we've had stuff Diet thirty five on the chart
that pop off at our shows. I talked to Thomas
read about this. He here, I go to name drop vacation,
vacation that to him get crushed him to the song
(01:14:35):
didn't do that well at all. Yeah, and he's like,
I play it live and people freak out. We were
in the back of the bus and he he was
about to go to radio with that song, and he
said there was like eleven guys that had hit him
up and said I will never play this song. And
he was like, you know what, it's so good at
my show. If we can get any visibility on this song,
it's going to be even better in the show. So
screw it. And that was awesome. That was risky. That
(01:14:56):
was a bold move of him, and it's I mean,
we toured with him. It goes off at his show. Yeah,
he even played it in New Year's Eve and I
texted him afterward. I was like, dude, it was great.
I don't care what stupid radio says. And I love
radio and I hate radio, and I can be both. Now.
Radio is in country music is the driving forest behind
what we do. It's like, you want to have hits,
but I mean it would be a lot tougher for
Thomas start to put out vacation He do you not
(01:15:17):
a die happy man? You know? So you know, and
we'll end on this. What's frustrating for me is I
wish there were a way because people aren't buying music
as much, they're streaming it more. Not totally, but a
large market share is is streaming music. I wish there
was a legitimate way to see how many people are
playing the song because we're not knowing people's algorithms. I've
(01:15:40):
said this before Spotify, for example. I have friends that
have thirteen million plays on a song and they can't
sell fifty people at a bar. And then I have
some friends that have three thousand and they can sell
hard tickets. It's interesting, it's so weird. What's the metric?
You know? How do you they don't tell us. They
also Apple also doesn't reveal theirs. No one reveals theirs,
but I wish to with some kind of real like
(01:16:02):
this is how I would do it in a perfect world.
First of all, there would be legislation, but there should
be any way for songwriters. But in order to say
a song played this much because it's used for data,
it has to actually be played singularly for a certain
amount of time. We don't know if a song is
just on a playlist. If one song gets played on
the place, everybody gets an account of a spin, nobody knows,
(01:16:24):
and it probably doesn't, but we don't know. And I
wish there was a way to quantify that, but since
it's all private, they don't have to. I just wish
there were away because it would make my life easier
to go, oh, that's what people are really listening to,
because music with Spotify with title that you can't look
at those numbers because again they're artists. I've never even
(01:16:46):
heard of that. And I have no problem with people
gaming the system, buying YouTube views, buying. That's just part
of the game, and I've been guilty of it too. Yeah,
you can't fake having tickets and absolute metric. What I've
ever used it for when I gained the system is
two like to get guests. When I was starting off
(01:17:09):
in Austin, right, I would do all this stuff to
make the show look bigger because people didn't know the
show would see the number. Oh they must be bigger
the book. It was always for a later habits pressed too.
We'll get a hit up for an interview. Is like
this blog gets this many million views or whatever, and
we're like, it seems like a great opportunity, let's do it.
And it's like, is that real? I don't know. Nothing
is real. Yeah, And as long as you know nothing
(01:17:30):
is really right now, we might have goggles on. So
my point is I wish there was some sort of
thing to look at where they're used to actually beat
record sales. But even then people would buy it bulk
records themselves. It was maybe even easier than for just
a common common artists to do it. Nothing is real.
The only thing it's real are people's faces that come
to shows and buy tickets. That's the only real thing.
(01:17:52):
Now is a great time to be a new artist, though,
because there's so many platforms to get your music out there.
You and you can make music in your bedroom. You
can blow the laptop. We made our first record on
my laptop. You know you can with technology. I agree.
Here's where I disagree. Counterpoint, there's so many new artists
because it makes your job harder. It makes radio, it
makes even the artist job harder. But it makes the
(01:18:13):
quality better because that many more people are competing. So
as the consumer, it makes it better for us exactly
because what we're getting is the best of the best
of the best. It's really good. Yeah, I mean, there's
some really good songs on country radio and they're all
fighting for that same spot. It is hard to get
a song up the chart and in the charges stupid,
don't even me start about the charts. There's so many
(01:18:33):
songs and they're all great because they're not all great.
There's big turns at or if you look on YouTube,
you look up so and so's cover of certain songs,
like so many of these kids should all have record deals.
They're all great because are you know most of them
are great because I don't know, there's other people that
are doing it. There's just like a lot I don't know.
The access is there's so much access, and yeah, it's
(01:18:55):
a little oversaturated when you're an artist and you're like, crap,
he's really good too. But for the consumer, you're right.
There is so much good stuff and it's it's the
access for it. You can listen anywhere Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon,
I mean I didn't even mention Amazon, like that's a
huge infrastructure. Well, uh, tequila is out. While we're looking
at time frame for a full record, I'm working on
(01:19:18):
it tonight. I was working on them today. So we're
in the process right now. We've recorded maybe like a
quarter sometime this year the area. Yeah, we'll probably sprinkle
out a few songs and in the meantime, but pumps
when we when we hang up here, I'll play you
a few things. Are we on the phone right now?
I don't listen. I don't listen to songs. You just
don't like songs. No, no, no, I don't listen to songs.
(01:19:39):
Early I've come from my friends. The only people listen
to you. And Keith Urban sent you a song once. Yeah,
he brought you how to listen to I just what
Keith sends you? This song come on literally blew up
and it said Keith on it, And I was like,
Keith who and you're like, you try to play it off,
and it was Keith Urban sent a new song or
a demo for some reason. He does, and mean every
(01:20:00):
time he sends me new songs, like two or three weeks.
He's the coolest guy. He is. When he was on
your show and he was playing the mashup of all
his hits, I was like, he just wins. He he is.
I don't want to gush about him too much, but
he is. He's awesome and as a person even better
as an artist, insane, just like elevates the game every
(01:20:21):
single time, and anybody that works with goes, oh yeah,
I used to think somebody was good and took Keith
gut in. It's kind of like humiliating sometimes, you know.
So I don't listen to music because here's why I
hate having to do the oh yeah, oh I'm yeah.
And if I do listen to music, I do it
and it's so rade. I wouldn't even listen to Stapleton's
record he sent it to me early said, Chris, I'm
(01:20:42):
not gonna listen to it because I want to experience
it with my people. I like that. So, yeah, I
probably listen to the kids if it was a single
over a text. But you and I, as I'm thinking
about listening to music. We had an early bond over
Walker Hayes too. Yes, because when I first heard I
was like oh, and you were like, oh you text
(01:21:03):
me like, oh yeah, it's off the wall this' and Halloween. Yeah.
We took him on tour and yeah, yeah, he's prolific.
To have your words smith Man, you've written a song
with the movie. Yes, we wrote Noma Stay Together Sick. Yeah,
he's brilliant. He's another guy is like one step ahead
of everybody in the room. You just can't catch up,
so you just go along for the ride. When he
starts using words. He's a poet. It's insane. And his flow,
(01:21:25):
his jawline go on and gone on, shoulders, shoulders of
a line. He is pretty. He's insane and he's got
He had all his kids. We were Amy's. It might
do three more minutes and I'll be done. I'm here
all night. We could literally do this three hours and
just talk about music. But um we went over to
uh when Amy's kids came in from Haiti. So some
(01:21:48):
friends came over to Amy's and it was all just
people in our circle because it was a very personal
thing for her and to But in our circle there
are some artists and it was Walker, it was Eric Passley,
Steve Mockler. I grew up with Steve. Really my guy. Yeah,
the best, I mean him a grade so it sound nice,
(01:22:09):
the nicest people. So another brilliant songwriter in words Smith.
Walker had his kids and all uh six of them
were there and it was the first time I've ever
seen them all together at one point and it was
really he's a story, but they're all like they're also
well behaved. He's so fertile, so fertile. This is so
(01:22:29):
buff and fertile. He was out. We were out on tour,
Thomas Rhett and Walker was on the tour as well,
and he brought them all out and they were like,
they would all sit down, they would It was like
they were so well be Yeah. He showed up and
we um if we played a show where we didn't fly,
because he opened for me doing stand up, which he
was the perfect opener because he had so much energy
even by himself with the pedal. Yes. So he shows
(01:22:51):
up and I said, oh, you got a new bus,
like a small like sprinter van. Yeah, it's like, hey
gotta He was, no, no, no, that's just our family car.
He said, I just drove it. I mean, have six kids,
you have to have a big They rented like a
church fan or something. When we were out and he
had to drive the kids. His wife Liane. He's awesome
to him. He's a guy that I really root for. Man.
He obviously loved the music when I heard it online. First,
(01:23:12):
that's hit you about it, and we talked about Halloween,
but getting no him out on the road, like hearing
his story. And when I heard that, Craig's honestly crowd.
When I did so, I texted him immediately because I
wouldn't listen to it earlier. We were crying thinking about it.
Right now, we're working on my stuff and Walker was
producing it because we wrote that song together. And then
I said, Walk, are you produce? He's I never produced anything.
I was like, it doesn't matter if you have that instinct.
(01:23:34):
You have that instinct. So we go on. He's producing
it because I want you to hear Craig, did you
do it at the shack? I said, we wrote it
at the shack. Oh, yeah, we produced at a different place,
but we did write in the shack, and so then
I said, I'm not gonna listen to any song with you.
But then I had it when it came out, and
I bought the record and I listen to Craig and
I cried and I don't cry, and I text him,
(01:23:56):
I said, dude, I just cried during the song. I
was so in. We were in Europe and I was
like on the treadmill and I literally heard him start
and I had to get off the treadmill and like
listen to the words, and I broke. It was insane.
I played it on the show and I played it
twice and I think I went to number seven. I
wasn't in the top two. That's how. That's how not
a mean thing. That's my listeners. It cut through to
(01:24:17):
them so hard, so quick. You listen. They're smart and
they've they've picked songs like I mean, that's kind of
what we're trying to do with this next record, is
pick songs that make people feel something, make people react.
Don't just pick it because it's up tempo and sounds like,
you know, quote unquote what a hit would sound like
if somebody, if we had a song like Craig and
played it for people and they reacted like that. I
don't know. I hope a guy like Walker Hayes will
(01:24:38):
take chances and put songs like that out as his
singles because like he can change the game with that.
Yeah he can. Well, we're gonna wrap. This has been
one of the longer ones in the history because time
had no measurement as we were talking. That's right. It
was like one of those first dates we'll know each
other while one of those first dates where time just
goes by and you all of the sudden you look
up at six am and the suns coming out. It's
send me to hear the Colby Key story. Yeah, yeah,
(01:25:00):
next time. We got it. Next time, Okay, Dan smiles.
From Dan and Shay, we learned which I wanted to
know a lot of pre Dan and Shay. You can
find all the Danna Shay stuff online just google it.
I didn't know a lot. I didn't know you played
running back in high school. I don't know you played
college football. I didn't do a lot of stuff I
didn't know. I know you're stealing from the man. Apologize
for that. Get back all right, thank you very much.
(01:25:23):
What episodes this with Dan Smyers. Thank you very much
for listening to the Bobycast. And uh Daniel Bradbery should
be in a couple of days, right, two days. Yeah, yeah,
we had to postpone that one because of the ice.
Uh so that would be the next one up. Thank
you very much. We'll see next time. By