In Case You Missed It: #98 Dan Smyers of Dan + Shay on the Origin Story of the Duo

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, guys, Bobby here, thank you for subscribing to The
Bobby Cast. You know, because Dan and Shay put out
their new album, I wanted to play an interview with
each of these guys. I mean even this was done
way back in the day, but it's kind of each
of their origin stories and the origin story with Dan
and Shay as a group. Up first is Dan. You know,
Dan is the producer of the band Big Songwriter, Big Reason.

(00:25):
You know, he's he's kind of making the band happen
in a lot of ways. And so we talked about
his pop punk days, how they would get by being
extremely broke, how they decided on a name, and a
whole lot more. Here you go. This is from three
years ago. This is very behind the scenes, old school
origin story of Dan and Shay episode the Bobby Cast
with Dan Smires of Dan and Shay. Al Right, welcome

(00:48):
to episode of the Bobby Cast with Dan Smiers of
Dan and Shay. 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 you I've never even talked to you
as Dan Smiers, is that even how you say that?

(01:10):
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 guy who couldn't afford to
pay his rent. Dan. It was. It was rough times

(01:32):
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 you bleed. I exist, I'm here,
I'm rocking. I was late, I was a few minutes. Like,
it's traffic, traffic, traffic gets me. Yeah, but it's ice,
it's traffic. It's you just can't win. It's Tennessee, where

(01:54):
we're not used to this I'm also not good at
preparing either, so I'll you know, see, it's as like
traffic is light, eleven minutes is your time, and I'll
leave eleven minutes before I belave. 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 am.
That's not true. My hill, though, to get up here
is just treacherous and steep. I was wondering was it

(02:15):
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 jeep 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 up in the two well
drive first, and I thought, this is the least interesting

(02:35):
story ever. But in my heart, it feels good to
tell this because I bought this jeep for this one thing,
and so I I put in two well drive and
I tried to get up the hill and it wouldn't go.
I was like, okay, good, good, good, good hard and
then I put it in four well drive and just
dominated the hill and my my pecker got a little puffy.
It was good man. I loved it. And then um,

(02:56):
but just so, there are two sides of this hill
where I live and this side over here. I don't
know what 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 he's a nail car
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,
and we've got a window there and there's people were
flying down on our street. It is completely covered. It's insane.

(03:19):
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, and I thought
he was gonna just wreck every car on the street,
but like he made it out alive. But I know
that guy or or girl whoever was driving that car
when they pulled up, probably a guy. Were reckless drivers

(03:39):
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. 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
a guy just pulls out right in front of me.
I it was I'd still be driving my car. I

(04:01):
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 had never on stage dropped the guitar before. I
was always like the guy who strump's underwhelming guitar chords

(04:22):
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 wouldn't be able to work. So I was running
around with a big cast on and we're like, this

(04:43):
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. So next is a headset
Mike m M. And that, by the way, that guitar
player also known as Eric Clapton. That's how I gotta start.
It is exactly. It was right before cream and then
you know it all happened. It was insane. I have
a tea here, so I asked the right question, because

(05:03):
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,
I should go down and check on her. Yeah, yeah,

(05:25):
go down and check on her. Yeah, she's good. She
didn't have talk for a minute. But are you okay?
I just hurt. They're still recording up there. I just
heard he had a wreck. Ye, 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 bend. And then someone just walks
out of there. And both of them were okay, that's good.

(05:46):
And 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 on the Southern page, like crazy
people like me who come in from Pennsylvania and are like,

(06:08):
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 lived in the South. I do.

(06:28):
I am a slow driver, though I'm I've knocked on wood.
I'm gonna get a ticket on the way home. I've
never gotten a ticket in my entire life. I've gotten
You've got a ticket. 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 the warning. I'm always
like super polite to whenever they pulled me over. But
somebody out there listening is a police officer, and they're like,

(06:49):
we're gonna get this guy's first ticket today. They're gonna
be looking for me. Yeah, 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 this out. Passion for Lacroix he's just
that's what he's drinking. I was like, Hey, you wanta water?
You definitely want water when you talk for now, I
was like, I gotta lacroise w dude. So I'm I
guess I'm interested in a lot of this stuff that

(07:12):
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
a We're gonna listen as Dan of Dan and Shay
or Dan Smiers, Dan, We'll get more hits. I'll listen
however you want. We can listen to Mr Smiers And
that's it. That's I like that Mr Smiers though Pennsylvania.

(07:37):
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 Wah here, but you
moved here to do what I moved here to be
a songwriter and producer. I moved here from Pennsylvania and uh,
you know, I grew up listening to all kinds of music.
I love country music, and I couldn't afford l A

(07:59):
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, it's
so cheap to live there with what everybody says. I
guess that's so cheap and everybody's so nice. But you
moved here in two thousand and ten to be a
producer and a writer. Huh Yeah. I moved here with

(08:19):
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 killing it now.
But it wasn't like that for a while. Was his
name is Andy Albert. He would be an interesting guy
to talk to as well, like he's crushing it as

(08:40):
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 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,
he was bummed. There were a few lyrics in there
that we're edgy, but it's cool. I mean, Blake Shelton

(09:01):
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
sitting like trying to pick what songs we're going to
record next week. Yeah, he's crazy, but he put us together.

(09:23):
He was like, you guys are both trying to do
the same thing. You plania are you in this? Dude?
He was from Georgia. You know, he's from outside of it.
Didn't move together, you just got here at the same time. Yeah,
exactly exactly. So we we connected on you know, a
I AM was still a thing. You know, we had
our screen names. 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

(09:45):
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's no heat,
no a C. If there was, we couldn't afford to
pay for it, so we didn't even turn it on.
In the summer. I would be like, people are Everybody's
like here to liar, you're exaggerating, But anybody who had

(10:07):
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 do like taste testings and
like research groups. You know where those things are, like
where here's twenty dollars you try on like ten Haynes

(10:27):
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. Oh yeah, that's how
you guys would make the money. Honestly, I'm still on
those email lists and I'm like, if there, 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
the list? So you would go to the place. It
was called Nashville Research and it was like about off

(10:47):
of 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 because they want
your feedback to either improve the product or improve how
they're 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.

(11:10):
So and so give your thoughts on this, and I
would literally take box as 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,
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

(11:32):
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
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

(11:54):
is like, hey, we we saw you the last six days.
I was gonna be like, you know what, I'm in
from out of town. I'm a guitar type for Zach
Brown Band and our tour manager. Yeah, and our tour
manager is not here yet. He told us, you know,
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

(12:15):
at the handsOn 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
right now. It's it's ridiclus. I'm interested in this though.
So you and him both moved down. Were you both broke? Oh? Yeah,
it was so. But what are you doing to make

(12:36):
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 crazy, but you know, to pay
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,

(12:57):
I was doing Logic then I hadn't even like I
couldn't ford 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
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,

(13:17):
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
himself 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,

(13:38):
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 Hey Monday warped towards. Yeah, we had a
lot of mutual friends and I wrote some songs. I
gotta dig back on the old hard drive and see
what I could can bring up. I mean, you know
who else played warp towards Brandon Ray? Did he? Really? Yeah?

(14:00):
He has 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 work to ward stories, so I would go out.
Who are you playing with? I had a band in
high school called Transition, and it was like a pop
punk kind of I don't know, just Relie singer. I was,
I was, and I would I had like long emoil

(14:21):
hair and did the whole thing. I had no idea
this is. I'm gonna send you some ton 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've said you have to

(14:42):
that's that boy. Hs I am so sad today and
my mama through my magazine away. It's so urgent to
It's like, right now, you gotta end everything right now.
Look at this. You guys were the real deal. I
was like fifteen years old when we poll. Have you

(15:03):
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? Were
you gonna make called Bono? 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, did you started here? Yeah,
we started it here at that house in Nashville and
we let me hear this one? Are you singing to

(15:24):
this one? I'm not. I'm singing harmonies? Okay, So he's
singing this one. You're sing this is a Bonaventure. I
think you're a better singer. Thanks dude. Yeah, I really
enjoy your punk pop boys. That's a that's a great
pop punk boys. I've got some great pop punk ideas

(15:46):
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, how
in a Minute. So, I mean we're going there right now.
I see Paul on Twitter all the time at I'll
b l G. I did not know that he was
the guitar player for Boys Like Girls. Yeah, the tall
handsome guy. He wrote how Not to our latest number

(16:10):
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. I mean,
he's honestly getting calls from guys left and right, like
Keith Urbin or whoever is like, hey, we need you

(16:31):
to come and make this awesome, and he's just crushing it.
Did you know simple plan? Hey? Yeah, dude, dude. They
were awesome to 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. They used
to play all of our radio shows back when I
was you know, and they're still doing radio shows. I
think maybe do you We were Bowling for Soup. Hey, yeah,

(16:51):
we were talking about them the other day, I said,
I pulled up on Spotify I was Bowling for Soup.
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 Pursuit, Yeah,

(17:11):
because he was from near Dallas, so I knew him.
But ninety 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 Demi Lovato. It's crazy look at that. Yeah,

(17:32):
here's from Bowling for 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 punk singer.
I've never heard you do straight ahead vocals. When I
hear you you're doing harmonies for Shay most of the time. Yeah,

(17:53):
I like me in the background, guy, Now you do that? Yeah,
being the Dan of Dan and Shay, it's a little
less pressure. But your name's first though too, so people,
that's anothering I want to talk about that. I just like,
how do you decide who goes first? Danna sat 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. Actually it was we

(18:15):
were when Shaye 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 which 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. Nah. And then when we became a band,

(18:37):
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 LifeLock is awesome. Sponsor the show
researcher do you have? Because I have? UM, I'm gonna
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(18:57):
That's that's enough. Don't you should listen into this because
Mike and I just had a conversation before down. Because
I'm putting a new one in because people, I read
a story. 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

(19:18):
and they can use this little hacking machine and everything
that you see they see. So you're typing stuff that
they can still pass all the stuff. That's why don't
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Feeds will sell your information too, and then all of

(19:40):
a sudden they have your info. You can get on
the dark web. That's what I want to do, Mike.
I want to get on the dark web someday and
see what they have up there. I mean, I shouldn't
dark webs. Have you been on the dark No? No,
I'm curious about it. Me do. It seems like an
old Yahoo chat room, but everything bad sold there. That's
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(20:00):
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(20:22):
and uh, I use it. I love it. It's tell
me once that had a guy. This is another 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

(20:44):
dollars or something like that. But we were trying to
make 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

(21:06):
it up on Craigslist, 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 gotta
like send a check so they can cash it and

(21:28):
do the whole thing, or no, no, they they were
trying to scam the scammera they were trying to scam
the scam I'll dude, I've been scammed for years. Did
you get 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 we should try to get the cash quick,

(21:49):
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's Ville Road, and you know,
it's like a glass window and you slip it through
like you're paying 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, we we don't know what's happening, like we

(22:09):
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 fraudct I
guess this person had done it before and uh we
sprinted out of itting. No, we got the painting. We
never sent the pain said the pain No, the whole issue.
I don't know how this scam worked. We figured it
out one time, but it was, yeah, it was we

(22:32):
didn't what'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 moving into
this house, moving to this house, you're both what's he doing?
You're out cutting demos for artists? What's he doing kind
of the same thing. You know, he was writing and
just like scraping by on what he could. Were helping

(22:53):
each other. We supportive of each other, these two guys
living together. No, we were. We were working together. We're
writing songs together and you know, putting 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 like we
saved up our money or I don't know how we did.

(23:13):
Are like borrowed my dad's airline points and uh flew
to New York one time and showcase for Mercury Records.
This guy David Massey as Bonaventry. So we were like,
we didn't know whether we 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, come
in and play for the President. I mean this guy

(23:33):
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 a mantle in in their pop track.
This was like before that became cool. And I would
walk into this New York office Mercury Records, and it's

(23:54):
the two of us singing country songs and they're like, so,
you guys want to sign this pop label. Uh, 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

(24:15):
you guys break up the idea 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 deal

(24:37):
to Warner Chapel, I had sixty 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 the publishing company.
We would we would. There's this guy, Alex Hedel, he
runs he's that big machine publishing. He's still it gives

(25:00):
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 the Soul Shine and spent
like fifteen dollars at the bar and like, I'm like, no,
we did. We we went out one time and got
a pizza and beer. But we always give 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 they want to buy you
a car, if they want to buy you, just take it.

(25:22):
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 deal, 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 demos.
So yeah, I was like, okay, cool. The artist thing

(25:43):
wasn't a thing. It was just not as friends, not
as friends who like drank 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 working for a pop station or doing 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

(26:04):
still doing the band. 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

(26:25):
the time you guys went on with Warner and became
a thing. But again, you weren't Dan and Show. You
were Dan and shape to dude 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 big Tim McGraw fans and we're like,

(26:47):
well we has red rag Toop. What if we like
flip it ragtop Red. There have been much summer names.
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 the U. 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 thing that was crazy. The first

(27:09):
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,

(27:29):
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.

(27:50):
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 was 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

(28:12):
the corner p F Changs in Austin, and he's like,
I got it, and we're sitting there like he 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 to me this, yeah,
So like if we ever get big like Dirk's Bentley
or something and can do the you know, country night,

(28:37):
that's funny. I remember that. Man. 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 are, by the way,

(28:58):
we're still running country. It's 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 are satisfied and love it. They quiet,

(29:19):
they just love it, 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 Twitter,

(29:39):
I shouldn't do this. I don't like search Dan plus
Sha not country, you know. And and there's some like
really vulgar stuff in there, 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,

(29:59):
I've all he's been 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 win. I've never fit anywhere. But it's
thickened my skin so much. But it's also made me

(30:20):
more like the people that 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. Yeah,
it's great, it's interesting you say that. Do you ever like,
are you impacted more by the haters than like, there'll

(30:41):
be I talked to Thomas read about this all the time,
and his dad always just like Thomas. He 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,

(31:02):
why are you wearing those jeans? You 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 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 want to get that guy. You know.
I was talking to Kip More about this, and Kip

(31:25):
More and I had the same management 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
are just rocking and it keeps intense and you're talking
about loves his art that he keeps like, Man, I
have everybody going, but the one person, not one person

(31:45):
I'll focus on, is the guy who's just looking 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 be Mine is 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

(32:07):
an okay comic. But Steve Martin is 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

(32:30):
joy how you experienced joy, you think, oh, 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 reason I keep sweets my refrigerator. I don't go
to Facebook. Yeah, the show Facebook, because it's people that

(32:53):
a lot of people that are just angry, and 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 Moore. I
hope Kip doesn't hear this because he kill me. You know,
he wants to put off the tough guy. He's a
sensitively he's like in touch with his feelings and his emotions.

(33:13):
I mean you could hear it in his music. He's
an incredible songwriter. Play this thing on the Pepsi golf coast, Jam.
I believe whoever hears this is not gonna ever book
us there again. But uh, 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

(33:36):
me come up there and hang out. And he's like
he was so bummed 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 was
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 a

(33:57):
mad dude, I'm done with this, Like I'm never playing
were like all right, we we talked 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,

(34:17):
I'm commentating on what's happening, good or bad. I've a
one point made friends and enemies at the 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

(34:38):
cool again. But we kept. One time, I said, Kip,
you gotta relax on the cell phones. This is me
talking over the year. Stop yelling at people with their
cell phones. Everybody uses their phones 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,

(34:59):
we just walked it out and there was an understanding
that we're both super sensitive in different ways, 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

(35:20):
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 wavy water.
I only grew up around lake water. So I can
have a supposed 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 put on your wrist.
And so I talked about the story I actually talked

(35:42):
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 video was with him
strapping himself to a board over in a keeps a
passionate dude, and I like Kip. Yeah, I like him too.
He is a good guy. Okay, let's get back to this.

(36:06):
This podcast has gotten so big and we never expected it.
It's amazing, dude. It's killing it, I guess. But look
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 tried to get you in for months and either

(36:26):
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 and we're hanging I like it. Thanks for
having me. Man um story is so ridiculous. I didn't
know some of this, and a lot of times I
know everything. I'm gonna I'm gonna keep giving lessons that
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

(36:47):
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 t buffet.
It's four ninety nine, which was 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 CCS buy.

(37:09):
Our house would close at nine pm. We'd go at
eight forty and we would order two pizzas like customer
back of mac and cheese and Buffalo Chicken or something
like that, pizzas right off the front, and they'd be
like cool and they 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,

(37:29):
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
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

(37:51):
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 was. He's
retired now he coaches middle school soccer now 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

(38:13):
like an a man. Yeah. Maybe that speedo I warre
in here is a choice. Uh yeah, So I played
football for a year in college. I went that's like
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 kl a by

(38:33):
there one time and Jimmy World in the pop Pung days,
it was killed her. I love Colby kel A so good.
She came through. We went to lunch one time. I
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

(38:54):
need to make sure it's right though before I say it,
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
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 play play? I played running back, so I

(39:15):
actually was touring through high school, so I and then
I I played all growing up, and then like the band,
the Transition band started sort of happening a little bit.
We were touring on weekends and then my parents like
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.

(39:35):
Like I wanna like drop out of high school and
go on the Warp Tour, which I wasn't even invited.
On the Wark 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 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

(39:56):
like two of the acts would get to play. So
there would be days we'd build the whole age right
to stage down and not even get to play. We
were well, it's like an open micare in Nashville. We
show up, but maybe you get on, maybe don't. You
had to drive the van from city to city, so
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 seventeen nineteen radio going to school full time, taking

(40:18):
twenty hours broke as a joke. Yeah, 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 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

(40:39):
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 to you know what I mean. There's
not even hard compared to what normal people like my
step dad worked at the sawmill. Yeah, every day, hated it.
That was hard work. What we do is not hard work, No,

(40:59):
it's not. 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 I
was getting paid, I was so happy because I didn't
know any better, and money wasn't a problem because I

(41:20):
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 and 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 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

(41:41):
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 perfect just
for 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. I
mean people were generous. I don't know if that still
is a thing, but I mean that hustle, Like all

(42:03):
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 doing
so many things? Are writing all these songs or applying
to fans on social media and stuff. But it's just

(42:24):
what I what I'm used to when 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 have a
lot of success. You know. You know that there's a
parallel that I see between we're talking about kit, between

(42:44):
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
to say that people don't give you credit for, becase
you're not looking for the credit, but you guys just

(43:06):
from knowing what it's like two 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
bigger acts will do eighty five shows a year. Then
that's a big touring here. But and we try to.

(43:27):
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.
Let's go out and do We don't need to just
play Friday and Saturday night. We can play a Tuesday

(43:48):
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 but Wayne because our fans are passionate. Man,
they did and they they want to see the full set,
and you know, there's opportunity obviously business wise to go
do those shows. But it's good for us too to

(44:10):
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 thinking 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, you know,
in the middle of nowhere, like no one ever comes here.

(44:31):
This is the best 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 the the great thing
about what I do so in the radio. Most radio
people don't do things outside of the radio show, right
I do, And I think one of the greatest things

(44:51):
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 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 I
go and and talk to people, meet people because that

(45:12):
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 too, you get out of Nashville, you
see what's really happening, not what's in this stupid bubble
of well, what's the coolest thing that's happening right right?

(45:34):
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,
it is like, give a hundred and ten percent because
even like if there's five people there, those five people

(45:57):
don't care that there's not six people there. That was
a hard thing for me to do, but 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 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,

(46:18):
like you know, in front of five people, like we're
playing in front of 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 for the book said, uh, don't look at them.
And that's something over the past couple of years that
I really appreciated is putting forth the effort when it

(46:42):
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 Crowler. Here's an example, Mike, did I
want to watch Anamla And yeah, back and the place
was half full, and I was and I was looking
around like, wow, why is it that full? I kind
of feel, but nobody there was looking behind them and
in its single seat. And it again. Going to shows,

(47:03):
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 set short and 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 then

(47:26):
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 through
a meet and greet line to see what it's like
to go through a meet 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

(47:46):
I've known John Mayor for a bit, We've probably a
tenantance 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 so maybe we'd
recognize he'd recognize me, I'd recognize him. I'll be like,
what so. But I went to the meet and greet
line and it was forty five minutes or so, and
I sat and I just talked to people, and it
just gave me a new respect for even people that

(48:07):
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 Pennsylvania, where
we live now in Nashville. We're an ocean away and
there are people who like canceled their plans, book flights,
whatever it is to come see us play. That It

(48:29):
kind of blows my mind. It doesn't make you feel
a little guilty. It does to me, it does. I
feel like 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 just
maybe you know the thirty bucks and I hope I
do good. Yeah, yeah, exactly. I feel like we have

(48:51):
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. She out the Steelers game the other
day and she her and her friend like took a
flight or drove and came all the way 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

(49:12):
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
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

(49:34):
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
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

(49:55):
you need to shape up, like get you know, punch
the other guy any arms. So when you guys 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
gonna be Dan and say, yeah, what was that conversation
And who was the one that said, Okay, we think
it just should be Dan and Jay? Was it? Vo

(50:16):
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 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

(50:37):
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 had met with Scooter. We'd flown out.
We've had like insane experiences at Scooter's place. Like Scooter,
by the way, it's Justin Bieber, Kanye Carly class manager,

(50:58):
like yeah, monsor on Grand anybody, and we would like
go out and jam with Justin Bieber and Selena. We'd
be playing guitar and singing and doing all this stuff
and like the crazy like these nights that you see
and you know at HBO series like crazy stuff and
uh he was always 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

(51:19):
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, the Dark training with
us for a long time. But he's he's crushing it now.

(51:39):
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.
I just like, I just love the new artists, man fascinated.
You're such a big part of their careers though and

(52:01):
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 say didn't We were both there, just checked out.
Yeah he was. He was physically there. Okay, he was rocking.
So you and I were talking at a bar in Chicago,

(52:24):
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
Davin thought a Warn Brothers, but our buddy who was
had a promo over there and played it for him

(52:45):
and a bunch of people on the label. And you know,
I have a great relationship with jonas talent. 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
artists on those friends? Devin 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,

(53:08):
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, 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

(53:28):
in your house. Yeah, 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, Yo, 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 our
singles and the whole deal. Um. 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,

(53:51):
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,
when he was playing that, you know, so he was
in that scene, he was like, well, we just spent

(54:12):
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 in
that bad house that I was living in, so asked
her about that place. But yeah, she's awesome, man, and

(54:32):
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. Whenever you announced her into that class
that she was like, oh, this girl just like God,

(54:53):
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 everyone 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

(55:13):
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

(55:34):
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 her 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 amper sand with their hands,
so like let's use uh so they're gonna do plus

(55:56):
times their fingers. They yeah, we don't really do it
as much anymore. Our shows 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.
And 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

(56:18):
at 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 sign thing and
we'd be like, put your hands up, and you'd have
to explain it at first because they're like, why am
I doing? Okay, I see it now, but we would
make them put the plus sign up with their fingers,
and that'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

(56:39):
it back. I 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 have somebody do it. It did like at first
it confused a lot of people and are like some
folks that are 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. It's fine.

(57:02):
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 what my story is wrong again.
You can just always say, hey, stop talking. So she
was working at your label, she was, and you were dating.

(57:23):
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 word, but it's a tough job. Yeah, I'm
a dramatic guy, but in the music industry, I think

(57:43):
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,
ore 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 on a radio tour and that's like so grueling.

(58:05):
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. Sure,
we've had great luck, you know, people have been so
kind to us. But it's we guys are nice though,
because there's nothing super pretentious about YouTube. When you show

(58:28):
up in a room and you have Shay who's just
like no, no, no, no. You know he's a good one.
Say 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 right
it on a computer right here, and I'm just not
that outward. But I can take Amy and people will

(58:49):
like me because Amy's awesome and she's so gious room. So,
but you guys are nice to be around. Thank you
for saying that. Likewise, I never disliked you. Don't know
if 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
got a big audience and people were talking, and you
guys came in and saying Savage Garden and crushed it.

(59:10):
And I thought that's when 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

(59:31):
a big luck guy. But that being inside, 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. But you guys weren't around a
lot because you're 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

(59:52):
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 you boy two men? Yes,
So you guys came in and you know, I mean,
I love all formats of music. I think formats are
garbage about 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

(01:00:15):
them 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, but I know loves all
kinds of music. The artist people yell about like that's
real country, that's that person is probably listening to twenty
one s Avage right now, like I hate to bust bubble,
but they got yeah yeah. And if you restrict yourself

(01:00:37):
to a 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 multiplees. But the reason is because
of you, guys. Well what happened was so he's he
manages you guys. Him and Jason Owen at sand Box

(01:00:58):
in town. He came in and we were going back
and forth and you guys are 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's like, So
I thought, I'm gonna keep that guy's name and when
something that comes up, and then he calls, and then

(01:01:21):
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 something yeah, like
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.
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?

(01:01:44):
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 Danny 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

(01:02:05):
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

(01:02:26):
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

(01:02:46):
should go in the studio and pay for that to
be recorded. We should cut that, and then it gets
mixed and mastered, and then there's a lot of steps
that the 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, and editing vocals, and we do it

(01:03:08):
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 place now where you know, luckily

(01:03:30):
ballots have worked for Dan and Jay. We've had success
on from the ground up. Was our biggest song previously
and that's out and this one had probably the second
biggest from the from the beginning, we felt it this
was a big one. U and uh we've been It's
it's funny because that the song is our biggest hit,

(01:03:50):
changed our lives, changed our career. We've been on a
whole other level since this song came out, but uh,
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,

(01:04:11):
so almost double. An additional stat is that the market
in general on track sales is down, you're going up,
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

(01:04:33):
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 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 don't know,

(01:04:54):
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, we you know, we

(01:05:15):
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, you

(01:05:36):
guys are ruining country music with that Myrtle Beach song,
the Ninetenue 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 was the
one that ruined country music, I guess, but totally ruin
the because everybody's saying it every time I came on
the right. You hear this now and this is like
down the middle of country. But at the time it
was very left to center. Um. But all the artists

(01:05:58):
that break through. Samhi, 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

(01:06:20):
he was doing was so different than everybody else that
he was running country music. And not to compared Kelsey
or you are 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 for sure.

(01:06:41):
I mean on this record, we were just we were
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. It to
have a successful artist career, you need to always record

(01:07:02):
the best song, whether you write it or 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 that? No, this isn't even
the rest time I heard of this. He recorded, I
think this sounds amazing, you got it. Look at that.
Here's the work tape. I've never heard this, you know.

(01:07:32):
So if we took out him out with us and
he played with Raging Idiots for four months, and so
he would play this song and every every night I
played had a little bit of you guys in my 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
bit difficult now that we're doing our own projects because
you write, you know, I think I wrote like ninety

(01:07:54):
four songs last year or something insane. Uh, But you
always want to keep the best songs for your helf,
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,
She's brilliant. She's like one step ahead of everybody else

(01:08:14):
right now. She's got female from Keith Urban out there.
She's boy, 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. It was the same thing
where we sat on the demo for a little while,
sat on it for like a year before we recorded it,

(01:08:35):
and it's circulated to other artists, you know, publishers and
even to tequila circular 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, you know, we may have beat it
or written something else, like I should have give that away,

(01:08:57):
But you know, it always finds the right somehow. I
don't know, or the home that it has is just
what you know. It's true because there could have been
song listen. I'm just not I'm just not as a
destiny guy. I'm but your own. I do enjoy tequila
the song. I've never actually tasted tequila to drink, but

(01:09:18):
I do enjoy to kut background. I saw you post that.
I didn't know that. Yeah, like the first time ever
on the track, we just do all this the way there. Yeah,
that little Justin Bieber thing in the back I should

(01:09:39):
have put up my I saw zak Rowl was on here,
like soloing out tracks. We'll do that next time. It's
a kidding. So I just took the tequila thing and
it shifted it up towel sense and it's made that
little crazy tequila sound. And the thing is, you're such
a pretty Like this is you doing this stuff? People
don't know that you're that. Shaye is excellent. It's it's

(01:10:02):
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 Shade singing his freaking brains out
on stage. But you're both doing the other things too.
For sure. It'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

(01:10:23):
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

(01:10:43):
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 you can wake up in the
morning and sing too. It's like, you know, come in
on the radio show and sing boys to 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 him saying, I was like, no, I
think they need they Let's let's have a little time
there in the middle. You guys have just crushed it

(01:11:04):
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 there. I didn't know
what I was doing when you started. I wish I
could have been the guy that was like, dnit say
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

(01:11:24):
and we just do us, you know, like you doing
your thing if there's a few haters out there, so
what they don't have to listen. You do your thing,
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, maybe slower than some of the

(01:11:46):
other stuff we've recorded. Explained yourself, everybody, And I feel
like you've been built defensive because people have been saying, oh, yeah,
I'm just being honest. Man, screw it, don't be defen
We just did don't explain it. That's right, just did
our thing, did it and it's awesome, Thank you, thank you.
That's it. Likewise, no, you do care about me. I did.
It's true, though, you're doing your thing definitely Bellerini's album title,

(01:12:11):
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. 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,

(01:12:32):
went to number eleven on the chart. That's all that
song went, you know, Keith said to me. I went
to Uh, it doesn't matter. I was hanging with Keith.
I started name dropping too much, even I know myself,
so I start, I'm hanging with youither 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

(01:12:54):
don't 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 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 everybody out there I care. I want our songs
are good at number one, obviously, do you want to eat? Yeah,
it's rewarding. I mean, it doesn't get any higher than

(01:13:16):
going number one. So that's that's a great place except
number one for two weeks. Listen, there's place I'm gonna spill.
That's why top. 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. See here I go to name drop vacation,
vacation that to him get crushed him to the song
didn't do that well at all. Yeah, and he's like,

(01:13:38):
I play it live and people freak out. We 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 that was awesome. That was
a risky. That was a bold move at him, and
it's I mean we toured with him. It goes off

(01:13:59):
at his shop. Yeah. He even played 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 force behind what we do. It's like, you
want to have hits, but I mean it would be
a lot tougher for Thomas started to put out vacation
had he not a die happy man? You know, so

(01:14:20):
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 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 said this before Spotify, for example, I have friends

(01:14:42):
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 do? They don't tell us.
They also Apple also doesn't reveal theirs. No one reveals theirs,
but I would s there with some kind of real like,
this is how I would do it in a perfect world.

(01:15:04):
First of all, the would be legislation, but there should
be anyway 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 and

(01:15:25):
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 heard of that.

(01:15:48):
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
Kevin 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 in Austin, right,

(01:16:11):
I would do all this stuff and make the show
look bigger because people didn't know the show would see
the number. Oh they must be bigger. Let them book.
It was always for a later habits repressed 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 is really right now,

(01:16:32):
we might have goggles on. So my point is, I
wish there was some sort of thing to look at
where they used to actually beat record sales. But even
then people would buy bulk records themselves. It was maybe
even easier than for just a common common artists to
do it. Nothing is real. The only thing that's real
are people's faces that come to shows and buy tickets.
That's the only real thing. Now is a great time

(01:16:53):
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 up
a 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 quality better

(01:17:14):
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 the charges stupid. Don't even start about
the charts. There's so many songs and they're all great

(01:17:35):
because they're not all great. There's big turns at how
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 a little

(01:17:56):
oversaturated when you're an artist and you're like, grap he's
really good too. But for the it where You're right.
There's 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 there, that's
a huge infrastructure. Well, uh, tequila is out. While we're
looking at time frame for a full record, I'm working

(01:18:18):
on it tonight. I was working on it today. So
we're in the process right now. We've recorded maybe like
a quarter year sometime this year the middle of 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

(01:18:39):
listen to songs. Early. I've come from my friends. The
only people listen to it with you. When Keith Urban
sent you a song once, yeah, you brought you how
to listen to? I just what Keith sends you this song?
Come on, you literally blew up And it was 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 send me new every time

(01:19:00):
he sends me new songs, like two or three weeks.
He's the coolest guy 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 single time, and anybody

(01:19:22):
that works with goes, oh yeah, I used to think
somebody was good and took Keiths 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 rare.
I wouldn't even listen to Stapleton's record he sent it
to me early said, Chris, I'm not gonna listen to

(01:19:43):
it because I want to experience it with my people
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, Yeah, because
when I first heard I was like oh and you
were like oh you text me like, oh yeah, it's

(01:20:04):
off the wall listen and Halloween. Yeah, we took him
on tour and so yeah, yeah, he's prolific. To have
your words smith Man, you've written a song with the movie, Yes,
we wrote Nama Stay Together Sick. Yeah, he's brilliant. He's
another guy who 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 in his flow. His jawline

(01:20:27):
go on and gone on, shoulders, shoulders an pretty. He's
insane and he's got He had all his kids. So
we wrote 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 friends came over to Amy's

(01:20:50):
and it was all just people in our circle because
it was a very personal thing for her and totally
but in our circle. There are some artists and it
was Walker, it was Eric Pass with Steve Mockler. I
grew up with Steve. Really my guy. Yeah, nic the
best I mean immigrades, so it's sound nice, the nicest people.
So another brilliant songwriter in words Smith. Walker had his

(01:21:14):
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 was
a story. But they're all like they're also well behaved.
He's so fertile, so fertile. This is so buff and fertile.
He was. We were out on tour Thomas Rhett and

(01:21:34):
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 and we um
if we played a show where we didn't fly because
that he opened for me doing stand up, which he
was the perfect opener because he had so much energy
even by himself with yes. So he shows 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,

(01:21:56):
that's just our family car. He said, I just drove it.
I mean, you have six kids, you have to have
a big audio billy. They rented like a church fan
or something when we were out and he had to
drive the kids. Really his wife line, 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,
that's hit you about it, and we talked about Halloween,
but getting no him out on the road, like hearing

(01:22:17):
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
what I said, what can we produce? He's I never
produced anything. I was like, it doesn't matter if you
have that instinct. You have that instinct. So we go on.
He's producing it. He I want you to hear Craig,

(01:22:38):
did you do it at the shack? I said, we
wrote it at the shack. We produced at a different place,
but we did write it 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 texted him, said, ude,
I just cried during the song. I was so in

(01:22:58):
We were in Europe and I was like on the
headmill 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 them so hard, so quick. You listen.

(01:23:19):
They're smart and they 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,
made 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 take chances and put songs like

(01:23:40):
that out as his singles because like he can change
the game with that. Yeah he can. Well, we're gonna wrap.
This has when 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 know each other wild one of tho first dates
where time just goes by and you all of a
sudden you look up at six am and the sun's
coming out. Send you to hear the Colby kelis. Yeah, yeah,

(01:24:01):
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 say stuff online just google it.
I didn't know a lot. I didn't know you played
running back in high school. I didn't know you played
college football. I didn't then a lot of stuff I
didn't know. I know you're stealing from the man apologize
for man back. All right, Thank you very much. What

(01:24:23):
episodes this with Dan Smyers. Thank you very much for
listening to the podcast. 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 you next time. Fight

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}In Case You Missed It: #98 Dan Smyers of Dan + Shay on the Origin Story of the Duo