#98 - Dan from Dan + Shay

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 for a while. That's gotta be frustrating to be one and awesome, because there are times two where you can lean on someone and it

goes back and forth. But to be because you're you're a real life human like when you prick you bleed. I exist, I'm here, I'm rocking. I was late. I was a few minutes later. This traffic, traff traffic gets me. Yeah, but it's ice, it's traffic. It's you just can't win. It's Tennessee, where we're not used to this. I'm also not good at preparing either, so I'll you know, see it'says like traffic is light, eleven minutes is your time, and I'll leave eleven minutes before I have to leave.

That would drive me crazy. If it says eleven minutes, I'll leave twenty one minutes. Yeah, and prepared. That's why you're more successful than I. That's not true. My hill, though, to get up here is just treacherous and steep. I was wondering was it bad the last few days? Terrible? I couldn't. Luckily, I have Jeep, and I put the jeep in for we'll drive. I've never driven anything for

will drive in my life. So I bought the Geep because I have this humongous hill that I live on, and I knew one day with ice, so I bought the jeep off for the big build up in this last weekend and it were, and I tried to get up in the two well drive first, and I thought, this is the least interesting story ever. But in my heart it feels good to tell this story. Like I bought this jeep for this one thing, and so I I put in two well drop and I tried to

get up the hill and it wouldn't go. I was like, okay, good, good, good, good hard. That's brute. And then I put it in four wall drive and just dominated the hill and my my pecker got a little puffy straight straight to the sky. It was good man. I loved it. And then um, but just so, there are two sides of this hill where I live and this side over here. I don't know which side you came up on, but there are cars that park on the side of the road, and I've seen other cars fall and it's in nail cars

all the way down because you can't. Once you start sliding, you're done. I almost saw it. I was. I was working uh on my computer in the front of the house, and we've got a window there and there's people were flying down on the street. It is completely covered. It's insane. I live in East Nashville, so Gallatin is like it looks like there was never snow. But at my house on my street, it's completely covered. I could ski down it. Some guy was cruising down and I mean literally it

was like fishtail and like going back. I thought he was gonna just wreck every car on the street. But he made it out alive. But I know that guy or or girl whoever was driving that car when they put up probably a guy were reckless drivers brought up that stop sign. I was like, yeah, I got out of that one. That was good. Have you ever been in a wreck? I have. I broke my wrist in a wreck here actually in town. Were in town. It was you know the turnaround down by the convention center. Yes,

that's a that's the round the circle. Yeah, you're round about. It was ridiculous. I was coming around the thing and a guy just pulls out right in front of me. It was I'd still be driving my car. I had the same car for like, you know, fifteen years, the same one I moved down here with. And a guy came out t bone me. Of course, no insurance, and I tried to turn the wheel and I broke my wrist. It was you turned it on reaction. I turned it on reaction. Yeah, when the guy was pulling out, and

it was kind of like a blessing in disguise. I had never on stage dropped the guitar before. I was always like the guy who strump's underwhelming guitar chords on stage. But we were on an acoustic tour. We were opening up for Hunter Hayes, and I was like, oh, we can't miss these shows. We're getting like a hundred dollars a night. We don't want to miss out on that money.

And uh, we didn't cancel them. We had we hired a guitar player, got insurance actually to cover for the guitar player to come out because otherwise, I mean, I wouldn't be able to work. So I was running around with Big cast On and we're like, this is kind of cool, Like we can entertain twice the amount of people in the same amount of time if I don't have a guitar are So next is a headset Mike m and that, by the way, that guitar player also known as Eric Clapton, that's how he got a start.

It is exactly. It was right, and then you know it all happened. It was insane, but I have a tea here. So I asked the right question, because so when you came in downstairs, my assistant is down there. She got into a wreck today. Someone pulled out in front of her. Their side window was fully iced over and they couldn't see. And she's driving down the road. They pull out. There was no ice on the road, but because the cars are cold pulled out and boom

nailed each other. That's brutal. And so she all right, I should get on and check on her. Yeah, yeah, go down a check on her. Yeah, she's good. She didn't talk for a minute. But are you okay? I just hurt. They're still recording up there. I just heard you had a wreck. Now her she has a suv. It's completely smushed. It's crazy when you see metal like that go and bend in ways that metal is not supposed to be. And then someone just walks out of there. And both of them were okay, and it also was

it I don't know. Yeah, somewhere there are some I'm about to throw through our town under the bus. Here there are some bad drivers in Nashville. They are bad drivers everywhere, It's true, but here is like especially worse. I don't know what it is. I think it's a combination of the Southern pace and then a lot of transplants, like the Southern pace like crazy people like me who come in from Pennsylvania and are like, get out of

the way, get out of the way. Let's like, let's pass this guy, let's turn before the light, you know changes, and uh, that's funny. The Southern pace. Maybe that's just the pace that I live my driving life because I've only ever in Arkansas to Austin, which isn't really the South, but it's still in the southern part of to Nashville. Maybe I only know the Southern pace because I've only lived in the South. I do. I am a slow driver, though I'm I've knocked on wood. I'm gonna ticket on

the way home. I've never gotten a ticket in my entire life. I've gotten my my parents or somebody must be friends with the police or something, because I've gotten pulled over, like I don't know five or six times. So we're gonna let you off with a warning. I'm always like super polite to whenever they pulled me over. But somebody out there listening is a police officer. They're like, we're gonna get this guy's first ticket today. They're gonna be looking for me. I feel like calling one and

on you're on the way out. He had a little to drink at the house and maybe maybe you want to check out passion for Lacroix. He's just that's what he's drinking. I was like, Hey, you wanta water? You definitely want to water. We're gonna go talk for now. I was like, I gotta Lacroix. W dude. So I'm I guess I'm interested in a lot of this stuff that was you before Dan and Shay, and I want to get to a lot of this, especially now. And people will listen to this for years because with podcasts

you kind of look through and pick things you like. Um, and I think people will like to see your name and listen to this. So I want to get to Are we gonna listen as Dan of Dan and Shay or Dan Smiers Dan Dan, We'll get more hits. I'll listen however you want. We can listen to Mr Smiers

and that's it. That's I like that. Mr Smiers though Pennsylvania, Yes so, but when you moved to town, obviously, and people may not know the story and you've told on the air before, but I'll have you retell it again, just briefly. But you met Sha while here. I did, But you moved here to do what I moved here to be a songwriter and producer. I moved here from Pennsylvania, and uh, you know, I grew up listening to all

kinds of music. I love country music, and I couldn't afford LA or New York even if I wanted to move there. So I was like Nashville. When I moved here was two thousand and ten, it was still affordable. Now it's getting a little out of hand. But for anybody from l A or New York listening, they're like, Nashville is it's so cheap to live there with what everybody says. I guess that's so cheap and everybody's so nice. But you moved here in two thousand and ten to

be a producer and a writer. Huh yeah. I moved here with my buddy. We were kind of we had actually like never really hung out in person. This is kind of like this blind dating, let's move to Nashville together thing. He's like still one of my best friends. Was in my wedding has a couple of cuts that are going to be on our upcoming album and he's he's killing it now. But it wasn't like that for a while. Was his name is Andy Albert. He would be an interesting guy to talk to as well, Like

he's crushing it As a songwriter. He's written a few hits. Uh. He wrote She's Got Away with Words for Blake Shelton, which was one of my favorite songs Blakes put out. Um, I think it ruffled a few feathers when you put that song and not to sidetrack, but that was the only one of Blake's songs to not go number one. It was the first one of like the after thirteen in a row because some people were irritated the song. Yeah, he was bummed. There were a few lyrics in there

that were edgy, but it's cool. I mean, Blake Shelton is that guy. He can put out edgy lyrics like that, and I was so happy for him. We had been like really struggling, so we moved here. Uh. We We had a mutual friend who his name is Rohan Colie. He's now he's actually his his wife's sitting labor like right now, he's his kid, first kid. Yeah, and we're sitting like trying to pick what songs we're going to record next week. Yeah, he's crazy, but he put us together.

He was like, you guys are both trying to do the same thing. You would this dud in Pennsylvania. Are you in this dude? He was from Georgia and yeah, he's from outside of it. Like, I didn't move together, you just got here at the same time. Yeah, exactly. So we we connected on you know, a I AM was still a thing. You know, we had our screen ms. I don't know what mine was like branded BOYD two three zero nine because I like you a huge fan and uh he's over here laugh and making fun of him.

But you know, we we kind of connected on the internet. Were like, let's send some demos back and forth, and we were like this could work. And we moved to Nashville. Found this house on Craigslist. I mean literally, this place was a disaster. There was no heat, no a c. If there was, we couldn't afford to pay for it, so we didn't even turn it on. In the summer.

Would be like people are Everybody's like here to liar, you're exaggerating, but anybody who had been to that house was like, no, this is it was a pretty bad place. Ninety degrees in the summer and forty six in the winter. So we were struggling to get by, and we were just doing anything we could. Like we would go I've got a few funny stories, but we would go and

do like taste testings and like research groups. You know what those things are, like where here's twenty dollars you try on like ten Haynes t shirts and get up in front of the crowd and tell your thoughts. So we would do that or luckily like you were doing that. Yeah's how you guys make money. Honestly, I'm still on those email lists and I'm like if if it's like thirty dollars to go try some pizza, I'm like, yeah, I'm gonna go do that. How would you get on

the list? So you would go to the place. It was called Nashville Research and it was like but offer Rosa Parks. So anybody out there like struggling to make some money, struggling to get by, that's where you go. And you get on these lists. You do one trying to think we did one. We taste tested hard cider, which was pretty cool. And they pay you because they want your feedback to either improve the product or improve how the marketing the product. Yeah, exactly. So we would

do pizzas. I mean, you know, we would know that it was Domino's pizza, but they would say, here's random pizza company, so and so, give your thoughts on this, and I would literally take boxes a pizza home. It was insane. Another ridiculous. Oh dude, I can go on for hours. This is this is crazy. So there's a Hampton in across from Vanderbilt, you know that Hampton in like, uh, I don't know what. There's like a Kidoba off the twenty one over there regardless as a hotel, and there's

a back parking lot. I would go every single morning because I couldn't afford to eat anything. I would go in the back parking lot. I would intentionally wear sweatpants and like dress like I was actually staying at this hotel, wait for somebody to walk out of the back door to the parking lot, sneak in like hanging the bathroom for a second, then walk in and eat Continental breakfast

every single morning. Wow. I had this whole plan in my head to people like, aren't you afraid you're gonna get caught if like the Maids or somebody you know is like, hey, we we saw you the last six days. I was going to be like, you know what I'm in from out of town. I'm a guitar tech for Zach Brown Band and our tour manager. Yeah, and our tour manager is not here yet. He told us, you know, when we arrive off the flight, just to go and grab a little breakfast and he's gonna come check us in.

And luckily it never happened. Everybody was so sweet, They're like, hey, good to see you again. You know, the extended stay at the Hanton End, and I would take like little boxes of rice crispy treats, you know, back to the house and survive all day off that. So it was. It was rough. We also made fake cupons. I'm rambling right now. It's I'm interested in this though. So you and him both moved to town. Were you both broke? Oh? Yeah, it so? But what are you doing to make money

or not even make money? What are you doing to make a progress creatively? We both, you know, came here with probably like a couple of hundred bucks in our pockets like nothing thing crazy, but you know, to pay whatever rent we could for the first month. I mean literally our rent was like hundred or a hundred fifty bucks, nothing, nothing insane. And I was producing demos. I you know, I was doing Logic then I hadn't even like I

couldn't afford pro tools. I got a cracked version of Logic, which is, you know, an illegal download, and I was just rocking on there. Didn't really know what I was doing, but you know, writers and stuff would come to town or artists and I'd produce a demo form literally like thirty dollars a song, and I was spending like, you know, the same amount of time I spend making our records now, like weeks at a time doing songs and walk away with thirty bucks. But hey, you do three or four

of those and you're paying your rent that month. So did anyone back then, did you work with anyone that has done anything as far as made a name for themself in any capacity I'm trying to think. I mean, I knew Cassidy Pope. Cassidy Pope and I kind of came from the same world. We had done, like you know, rock and pop kind of music in the past, and um, we had a lot of mutual friends, so we like wrote some songs together into demos and casting still a

good friend. You knew her before the boy she knew her from Monday warped toward days. Yeah, we had a lot of mutual friends, and I wrote some songs. I got to dig back on the old hard driving and see what I could can bring up. I mean, you know who else played warp towards Brandon Ray? Did he really? Yeah? He hasn't got the energy for it. He has the greatest stories about going out and passing out flyers and

just and he would play at the eleven Am. Dude, I've got warped toward stories, so I would go out. But who are you playing with? I had a band in high school called Transition, and it was like a pop punk kind of I don't know, just relad singer. I was, I was and I would. I had like long emo hair and did the whole thing. I had no idea. This is I'm gonna send you some Pectus tonight. You knew his pop punk stuff? Have you? Oh? I have some here? How about this? Here we go? This

is a from transition called excusable. Oh no, you got pulled up? Yeah yeah, I got that. Every word we s you have that, boy, I am so sad today and my mama through one magazine away. It's so urgent to it's like, right now, you gotta end everything about it right now. Look at this. You guys are the real deal. I was like fifteen years old when we were a cold. Have you ever heard of them? Mike? Come on, show that tattoo. You got the tattoo. You got my signature tattooed on your arm. That's so funny.

How about this one we're gonna make called Bonavo? What's what's this one? Yeah? That Bonaventure was the band that my buddy Andy and I who I moved here with at the same time, started and we were trying to like you started here. Yeah, we started it here at that house in Nashville and we let me hear this one. Are you singing in this one? I'm not, I'm singing harmonies? Okay, So he's singing this one, you're singing. This is a Bonaventure.

I think you're a better singer, thanks, dude. Yeah, I really enjoy your punk pop. Boy, that's a that's a great pop punk boys. I've got some great pop punk ideas floating around. We've got like a lot of buddies who used to be in that scene, like our buddy Paul d. Giovanni. He played guitar in a band called Boys Like Girls. He wrote, he wrote our last number one song right in a minute, So I mean we're going there right now. I see Paul on Twitter all the time. Yeah, Paul b LG. I did not know

that he was the guitar player for Boys Like Girls. Yeah, the tall handsome guy. He wrote how Not to our latest number one song? Yeah, he wrote Did you write that with Adam? He did? Yeah, that's that's crazy to me. He was in that band. He's dude, he's like the sickest. They call him track guys, you know, and he's doing and he's producing Jordan Davis. He's got that singles up song on the radio right now. And I don't know.

I mean, he's honestly getting calls from guys left and right, like Keith Urban or whoever, is like, hey, we need you to come and make this awesome, and he's just crushing it. Did you know simple plan? Hey? Yeah, dude, They were awesome. Their music holds up. They were ahead of their time. They and they were Canadian. I believe they were a Canadian. I used to play then used to play all of our radio shows back when I was you know, and there's still doing radio shows. I

think maybe do you remember Bowling for Sup? Hey? Yeah, we were talking about them the other day, I said, I pulled up on Spotify I was Bowling for Sup. I was like, this is the coolest idea. And they recorded Stacy's Mom and the album cover for the single was because everyone because everyone thought we sang this song, we actually sang the song, so they did Stacy's Mom. That's funny. I remember Jared Well, the lead singer Bowling for Suit, Yeah, because he was from near Dallas, so

I knew him. But nine Day five was their big song, remember it was you knew that song was written by It was written by this guy, Mitch Allen, who also came from the pop up world. He was in a man called SR. Seventy one and he's written like he wrote one to Want Me for Jason Derulo. He wrote like a bunch of hits for Demilovado. It's crazy look at that. Yeah, here's from Bowling Suit. This was a for a pop punk song. It became a pretty big pop song. Yeah, this was their biggest song. How about

how about you? And you sound good as a as a singer. I've never heard you do straight ahead vocals. When I hear you, you're doing homonies for Schet most of the time. Yeah, I like me in the background, guy, now you do that? Yeah? Being the Dana Danna say, it's a little less pressure. But your name's first though, too, so people would That's another thing I want to talk about that. I just like, how do you decide who goes first? Danna is at a coin flip? Is there

a fight with the order of importance? Yeah, that's a fight. You know. There's a lot of other things, you know, But how did that? I don't know how that happened? Actually it was we were when Sha and I met. That's like a lot later in the in the saga there, I guess the tragic tale of Dan Smiers in Nashville. But whenever we would walk into publishing companies because we were just trying to get a publishing deal, we were

what we just wanted to get paid, right songs? Yeah, yeah, we were like, we just want to write songs for Rascal Flats or whoever. And we would walk in and they're like, Danna chase here again, Dana Sha. And then when we became a band, we were searching for band names and we we had some band names floating around for sure. Let me read this because I want to want to get back to that. Uh do this because LifeLock is awesome. Sponsor the show researcher do you have?

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be stolen in ways that you can't detect. Feeds will sell your information too, and then all of a sudden they have your info. You can get on the dark web. That's what I want to do. Like, I want to get on the dark web someday and see what they have up there. I mean, I shouldn't have you been on the No, No, I'm curious about it. Me do. It seems like an old Yahoo chat room, but everything bad sold there. That's what it seems like to me. Life Flock detects a wide range of identity threats. I

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me once I had a guy. This is not commercial, but somebody trying to open a bank account my name, oh, I have a my identity attempted to be stolen at least ten times. Dude. We had a situation happened to us. This is back to good transition. Back to the house. We were living in Andy and I we found this painting online. It was I don't know, maybe like twenty dollars or something like that. We were trying to make our decrepit old house look a little better. We found

this painting and this thing was massive. I mean it was like six ft long, like eight ft highs big old canvas painting. And we're like, you know what, we should like lie about this on Craigslist and put it up and be like this is like a famous like painting. It's worth you know, fifteen hundred bucks or something like that, and see if anybody bites. We put it up on craigslist,

I could you not. Within like an hour, somebody hits back and it's like we want the painting, Like, can we email you, and we're like, oh my gosh, this is huge, this is massive. And they hit us back and they're like, but we want to pay you. We want to pay you more than what we asked for. But it was like one of those situations where they try to scam you. You've gotta like send a check so they can cash it and do the whole thing.

Or no, no, they were they were trying to scam the scammera they were trying to scam the scam I'll dude, I've been scammed for years. Still did you any money out of it? So they sent us a check and it was for like, I don't know, seventeen it was. It was more than what we asked for. It was a lot, like in the thousands, and we took it to it. We didn't want to take it to our own bank because we were like, this could be like we should try to get the cash quick, even if

we have to pay like a low commission. We took it to Advanced Financial, like one of those check cashing places on Nolan'sville Road, and you know, it's like a glass window and you slip it through like you're paint at a gas station, and uh, they look at the check and they looked at us and they're like, uh, we're gonna have to call the police. This is a

fraudulent check. And we're like no, no, no, like seriously, we we don't know what's happening, Like we just try to sell painting on Craigslist and this guy like and they're like, Okay, well you need to get out of here immediately because this is a frauduct. I guess this person had done it before. And uh, we sprinted out of there. No, we got the painting, We never sent the paint. No, the whole issue. I don't know how

this scam worked. We figured it out one time, but it was yeah, it was we didn't that's what you deserved. You were trying to cheat and it was a good painting. Though it looks pretty good. You still have it. He still has it, honestly, still has it. It's funny, so you and him move into this house. Moving to this house, you're both what's he doing? You're out cutting demos for our what's he doing kind of the same thing. You know, he was writing and just like scraping by on what

he could. We're helping each other. We supportive of each other, two guys together. No, we were we were working together. We're writing songs together, and you know, putting We started putting the Bonaventure band together while we were down there, and we were like, you know, we had a little

bit of stuff going on. We we had connections, I guess from what we had done in the past and who we knew before we moved to Nashville, and we like we saved up our money or I don't know how we did, or like borrowed my dad's airline points and flew to New York one time and showcase for Mercury Records. This guy, David Massey as Bonaventure. So we were like, we didn't know whether we were obviously writing country songs, but we were just telling people whatever they

wanted to hear. So this pop label, like I was like, yeah, come in and play for the President. I mean, this guy signed like Massive Acts, and we go up there. I have a banjo, five string banjo and he had an acoustic guitar. This was before like the resurgence of the banjo and pop music happened. Like Mumford and Sons and Imagine Dragons put him handling in their pop track

this was like before that became cool. And I walk into this New York office Mercury Records, and it's the two of us singing country songs and they're like, so, you guys want to sign this pop label? Huh. We're like yeah, we would do anything you want, Like have you ever thought about being in a country act? And we're like no, no. We just start telling them what they wanted to hear, what we thought they wanted to hear, and they're like cool, Uh, yeah, we'll be in touch.

And we went back to Nashville and nothing ever came a bit. So did you guys break up the idea of Bonaventure after they didn't work? It was kind of not immediately there. We were kind of just fizzling out, like focusing a little more on the writing thing. We I mean, we've been here for like four or five years before Shane and I met, and uh, what was the big I wouldn't even say break, but what was the pop for you? Where you go? Okay? I can

at least relax a bit on rent. So when I signed my publishing video to Warner Chapel, I had sixty three dollars in my account, like cold sixty three that I know that number for a fact, And I mean my rent that month was like a hundred fifty, So I was I hadn't figured it out yet what I was gonna do, but it was pretty nice. While we were like, you know, negotiating deals and with the record

label and a publishing company, we would we would. There's this guy Alex Hedel, he runs he's that big machine publishing. He still like gives me a hard time because he was like, we wanted to sign you guys, and you just like let us on. And we went out to soul Shine and spent like fifteen dollars at the bar, and like, I'm like, no, we did. We went at one time and got a pizza and a beer, but we always pike each other a hard time about it.

So whenever you're doing that, if you're an artist out there and like you're you're being courted by labels, if they want to buy you a car, if they want to buy you, just take it. You know. It's funny. How I knew you guys first was not as friends who were trying to be artists. I don't think we had a deal at that point. You didn't have a no, but that's not always like I had these friends then we were doing karaoke and I was like Dan and she was like, it's Dan and Shay and I was

like we had demo. Yeah. I was like, okay, cool. The artist thing wasn't a thing. It was just not as friends, not as friends who like rank other people's beer and partied and yeah, this is crazy. I knew not a way back. I met her. Uh, she was working. I think she was a pop station or doing she was for the River, Yes, for the River and Boys Like Girls who I I know, and I'd go way back with those guys. They were still doing the band, and they came and played a show, a Christmas show,

and I met Nada there. She was like doing promo for the station and they did an acoustic radio show. And I was hanging with Paul and Martin from Boys Like Girls and I met Nada and we became friends. And she'd been to that terrible house. She knows all about it. That's funny. I just think back because all these memories are hitting now, because that's right when I moved to town. Is it right about the time you guys went on with Warner and became a thing. But again,

you weren't Dan and Show. You were Dan and Shapes to do just to her friends. Still looking for a band name, Yeah, that's crazy. We were honestly under SoundCloud. I don't know. I hope it's private because somebody's gonna go out there and find it. We were on SoundCloud as Ragtop Red. That was our name. We were like big Tim McGraw fans and we're like, well he has red ragtop what if we like flip it ragtop Rad. There have been there is one. We were in Austin, Texas.

We did south By Southwest and uh, we were down there. It was I don't remember exactly the timing of this. No, this was the first. We've done south By Southwest twice. The second time Justin Bieber came out on stage with us. It was a whole the whole thing that was crazy. The first time we did it. There's a picture of it. There was only we played a showcase and like Shay's lawyer at the time, this guy Jim's I'm Walt the Man, great guy. Uh, he was like, come down to do

this showcase and we can hang out. And we were like, this is awesome, you know, We went down and there was literally three people in the crowd, my lawyer Jonathan he's the man, Jim's I'm Walt, and Paul d. Giovanni, 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. I'm wearing like a Boston Red Sox hat and we're dancing around like we've got something going on, and he zooms out. Literally no one in the crowd was so embarrassing.

But what is your name? So we go to p F Chains after that little showcase, and Zombie's like, you guys are poised to be the next big stars, like whatever, we need to come up with a name. So he's got his little iPad. We're sitting at the roundtable in the corner of PF Chains in Austin and he's like, I got it, and we're sitting there like you might have it. This is awesome, let's hear him out. He's like not showing us. He's got a big surprise and he's typing it out on this little iPad and he

flips it around. And his big pitch to us was that the name should be Schools Out. Yeah. So like if we ever get big, like Dirk's Bentley or something and can do the you know, that's funny. I remember that. Man. It's so funny because I think of you guys as part of my memory when I first got to town, because you guys were being a thing right when I whatever I was being and whatever I am, I started to be a thing right when you guys were being a thing. At the same time, people hated all of us,

all of us. They we were ruining country music and still are, by the way, we're still running country. It's a very vocal minority. It's it's insane, it's it's I've never seen anything like it. I was talking to someone that I do business with the other day and we were talking about the people that listen to country music, and I said, you can't pay attention to the people that talk to you about it, because the people they're satisfied and love it. They quiet, They just love it,

and they consume what they like of it. They don't complain about what they don't. They just go to what they like. The people that are the ones going this sucks that ain't country. They're out there, but they're the loudest, and they're a very select minority group. They're aggressive to man. They every once in a while when I want to like get into it on Twitters, I shouldn't do this. I'll like search Dan plus Sha not country, you know. And and there's some like really vulgar stuff in there,

are like really aggressive. It's like, if you don't want to listen to our music, just don't listen. Nobody's forcing anyone to do anything with anything creative, period. It's it. And at this point in my career, I've always been hated because again by a vocal minority, because when I was doing pop, I was too country. When I do country, I'm to pop. When I was doing alternative, I had too much of a Southern accent. When I was doing sports,

I've never been a professional athlete. I just can't I've never fit anywhere, but it's thickened my skin so much. But it's also made me more like the people that actually consume. And that's been what was to me the hardest thing in the biggest obstacle was oh, I'm never fitting. I actually fit exactly with the people that are consuming it. They just don't scream. It's great. It's interesting you say that.

Do you ever like, are you impacted more by the haters than like, there'll be I talked to Thomas read about this all the time, and his dad always was like, Thomas gets so bent out of shape about the people on Twitter, Thomas Rhett and he'll hit people back. I see it on his He has so many followers on Instagram, He's got millions and millions of people saying, Thomas, you're the greatest artist I've ever heard. I like, have your lyrics tattooed on myself. And then one guy comes on

there it's like, why are you wearing those jeans? You look like whatever you know and your music is not country. He'll reply to him and he'll hit him back and like, but you just scroll past. I love your song. I love your song. You guys are amazing the show is amazing at night, and then there's one hater out there. It's like nice haircuts or whatever, and it's like, Oh, I'm gonna get that guy. I wanna get that guy,

you know. I was talking to Kip More about this, and Kip More and I had the same management yep, and we were sitting in a in a room, and he was talking about at times he can be upset by people not enjoying the show. He could say, there, let's say people just rocking and it keeps intense and you're talking about loves his art that he keeps like, Man, I have everybody gone, but the one person, not one person I'll focus on, is the guy who's just looking at the ground. And I'm like, how do I win

him over? And I can't win him over? And he says, he what do you do? Said? Well? When I do stand up? Well. I also like to read about really good famous people. I'm a B minus comic. I'm funny if you want to come to the show. But I'm nothing like this. I'm nothing like the people that are really good, like it's their profession. I'm a really good

radio host. I'm an okay comic, but Steve Martin is one of my heroes, and before I was born in the eighties, so I didn't really get to experience Steve Martin as when he was new and it was groundbreaking. But he would say, watch the top of their heads, don't watch their faces, because everybody experiences joy differently, and you're you're projecting how you experienced joy on them, and if they're not experiencing joy how you experienced joy, you think, oh,

they're not enjoying it. So we had that conversation and then we talked about why we get effected so much by when someone say something bad about us. And I tried to go, you know what, I'm better than that, and I don't let it get to me. But I keep myself the same. He's gonna keep sweet, smart refrigerator. I don't go to Facebook. Yeah, the show Facebook, because it's people that a lot of people that are just angry.

But I can't. It drives me so crazy. I just know that's my weakness and it hurts my feelings, and I'm I'm a sensitive artist. It's tough, dude. We all are. We are and honestly, we played a show with Kip More. I hope Kip doesn't need this because he kill me. You know, he wants to put off the tough guy. He's a sensitively I he's like in touch with his feelings and his emotions. I mean, you could hear it in his music. Is an incredible songwriter. Play this thing

on the Pepsi golf coast, jam. I believe whoever hears this is not gonna ever book us there again. But it was it was an interesting show. It was like I blame the fact that it was insanely hot. It was like a hundred and ten degrees outside. It was in Florida, and uh, Kip had just gotten off stage and we were on the bus. He's like pounding on our bus stories like boys, let me come up there and hang out. And he's like he was so bummed about there was like the crowd was we saw his show.

People were throwing beach balls around and like they were for the most part, having a good time. But it was hot, and it is late in the day. You know, it's probably seven thirty or eight at night, and they were like a couple of guys down in the front row or in the pit who were probably drunk or hungover, and they were giving him a hard time and he was like, I've bad, dude, I'm done with this, Like I'm never playing out. We're like sorry. We we talked

about but he was emotional about it. And yeah, he's a passionate guy. That's awesome though his his true fans like can feel that he believes for his art, and it's like, that's why he died hard. He has die hard fans and he's die hard. And I kept and I got into a huge blow up one time because I go, well, I'm commentating on what's happening, good or bad. I've a one point made friends and enemies at the

same time of every single art. It's just about because where I've said I've really enjoyed them, I've also said things I don't like about them, just because if I say enough things, eventually they're all not going to be great. Of course, so and I can't worry about that. And at times it makes an awkward in town. But then again it comes back around and we're cool, and then we're not cool again. But we kept. One time I said, Kip, you gotta relax on the cell phones. This is me

talking over the year. Stop yelling at people. With their cell phones. Everybody uses their phone ones now, yes, But he got so pissed at me and we ended up three months later after we just wouldn't refuse to talk to each other, going to breakfast right after for like three hours, we just talked it out and there was an understanding that we're both super sensitive in different ways, and we're not on the same exact wavelength, but we're

absolutely on the same highway. And since then it's been fantastic. He is, he'll shoot you straight, and I'll still make fun of him if I need to. He sent me a video I went to Hawaii. I don't know how to you know, and I told you this, I don't know how to serve. I don't know how to do any of the water stuff. You never grew up around wavy water. I only grew up around lake water. So I can have a post to be a paddle stand

up paddle boarding. And you take that strap and you put it on your ankle, but I put it on my wrist because I'm an idiot. I thought you was put on your wrist, And so I talked about the story I actually talked about with you guys when you came on the show and kept heard that segment, and he sends me a video of just him over and over strapping. I think to his leg that's all the video was, with him strapping himself to a board. Over keeps a passionate dude, and I like kid. Yeah, I

like him too. He's a good guy. Okay, let's get back to this Wow Warby Parkers back on. Look at that. I have so many pair of Worry Parker glasses. I'm gonna just do the spot in real Q. Oh, dude, you can go in. I don't even know what the spot says, because I've looked at it. The Warby Parker store is like a candy store. They have so many days like over there, and they don't have um brick and mortar stores everywhere they do in Austin to do in Nashville, and which, by the way, I live right

near that PF Change where it schools out and awesome. Yeah, I live right there by that PF Change. So um, war Parker has all these glasses for like a hundred bucks and it's like a shopping spree. Okay, there's a free home trial program for Warby Parker. I haven't haven't pre read this, so I'm just gonna read it, but I think I know most of this. Guy bought them so many times. Order five pair of glasses and try them on for five days. There's no obligation to vibe.

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Lenses include anti glare and anti scratch coatings. For every pair you buy, two Apparents distribute to somebody in need. So there's also a Warry Parker iTunes app. The try a home kit thing really is fantastic though, because it comes right to your house and you put them on, and the ones you don't like, you go aoh, these don't put my face. You just send them back. And so there is there any part of this that I don't know about yet, because all that I just know

from my heart. Uh, if you have an iPhone X, you can download the work Parker app and use their brand new feature fine your fit. Well, that's interesting. It uses the iPhone x is True Depth camera to map and measure key facial features. Man, I need that to see if I'm ugly even for not the glasses. Uh warwy Parker dot com slash Bobby. If your glasses where just go to war we Parker dot com slash Bobby.

That's a pleasant treat having more we parked about This podcast has gotten so big and we never expected it. It's amazing, dude, it's killing it, I guess. But look at this equipment, this equipment that I just bought. It might put it together. This is not even a real studio, and now we have two million subscribers. It's it's absolutely insane. Cool. Okay, So here we are and by the way, I'm trying to get you in for months and either you could do it and I couldn't, or I could do it

and you couldn't, And finally we got it. We're here. We're hanging I like it. Thanks for having me. Man Um story is so ridiculous over the place. I didn't know some of this, and a lot of times I know everything. I'm gonna I'm gonna keep giving lessons to all the struggling artists out there were trying to get by. So we had like Microsoft paint on our computers or like some some iteration of it, and we would make

we're scammers. We made like fake coupons, or we would find a keep on that it was expired and we would change the date, and then we would go to CC's Pizza. You know, CC's amazing. So CC's like to Buffets four ninety nine, which is out of our price range. So what we did is we made it like by one game one three secs, because when you're in like the two fifty range, it's like it's okay. Not only did we do that, we would go with the CC's

by our house would close at nine pm. We'd go at eight forty, and we would order two pizzas like customer we back of mac and cheese and Buffalo Chicken or something like that, pizzas right off the front, and they'd be like cool and they'd make them up and then we'd be sitting in there and then they'd be like, gentlemen, we're about to close the store. And we'd be like, what are all those pizzas up on the thing. Are you guys throwing those away? And they'd be like, yeah,

we have to take him to the dumpster. And we're like, if we meet you out back, could we take the leftover pizzas? And I mean the people working in SEC's were like sure, we don't care. Sure enough. We'd walk around the back of the place with the two custom pieces that we had just had made, and then we would get the like the pizzas they were throwing away, and we would literally eat off this pizza for like six weeks at a time, and as it became not really edible anymore, we would put it on the grill

out back. It was dark times. So what did your parents do? My dad's a chemical engineer, he is. He's retired now. He coaches middle school soccer now really yeah? Yeah? So was he a soccer player? He was? He played in college? And were you an athlete? You're built like an athlete? Yeah, you don't mind me noticing you're built like a man. Yeah, maybe that speedo I warre in here is a bad choice. Uh yeah, So I played

football for a year in college. I went that's like the weird thing about what I'm doing because I graduated from college from a great school. I graduated from Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh, which is I'm playing that theater, Carnegie Theater. Yeah, yeah, that's amazing, it's beautiful. That's not Colby kel A play there one time and Jimmy World in the Pop Pung days. It was killer. I love Colby kel A so good. She came through. We went to lunch one time. I

don't think it was a date. It could have been. It could have been a date, though, but she played and Amy would know the real story because she's it doesn't matter, it's that's for a different day. Yeah, I need to hear this story that Yeah, I need I need to make sure it's right. Though, before I say I need to, I need to, you know, it's been so long. You want to talk to the people that were also experiencing it with you to make sure it

didn't turn into some fantasy in my head. Yeah, so all these stories are now that we're talking, all these like crazy stories I have when I'm of here coming back, I had another good one on deck here in a few minutes. Whenever you played for one high school, what would you plays to play? I played running back, so I actually was touring through high school. So I and then I played all growing up, and then like the band The Transition Man started sort of happening a little bit.

We were touring on weekends, and then my parents like they hated me. We had kind of a weird falling out when I was in high school because they were like, you're so good at sports, you should play sports, and I was like, screw you, mom and dad. I'm playing music. Like I want to like drop out of high school and go on the Warp Tour, which I wasn't even invited on the Warp Tour. We would show up and we would build the stages. There was like the Kevin

Says Stage. Kevin Lyman, who ran the Warp Tour, had this thing called Kevin Says Stage, and it would just be new and upcoming artists get up at six in the morning every day, you know, lee putting like trusts and pipes and all that stuff together and build the stage and like two of the acts would get to play. So there would be days we'd build the whole stage right to stage down and not even get to play. We were well, it's like an open micare in Nashville

show up. But maybe you get on maybe, but you had to drive the van from city to city. So I bet a lot of people did that. You know, you're all so young at the time, and I was like, this is awesome. Yes, that's how I feel. When I was radio, going to school full time, taking twenty hours broke as a joke. It was, I think, the happiest time in my life, much happier than now because I've now put all these problems into my head that really

don't don't matter. Money is like absolutely unfortunately, it's the reality of what we do. I mean, I wish I could just like write a million songs and just chill, but like we have to go out and play shows and you know, travel through the night or take red eye fights to play shows, like because we have bills to pay and we have to pay our band and we have you know what I mean. There's not even hard compared to what normal people like my step dad

worked at the sawmill. Yeah, every day, hated it. That was hard work. Absolutely, what we do is not hard work. No, it's not. It's we spent a lot of time creatively competing against other people. It's exhausting, sometimes we can still

be mentally exhausted and physically without sleep. Sure, But when I was grinding it and actually doing the work, when I was getting paid, I was so happy because I didn't know any better, and money wasn't a problem because I never had there was an option of any Yeah, there was no option of money. So I just enjoyed the art. I agree with you, that's that's that's so true. But yeah, we were we were grinding, we had nothing,

we were not getting paid. We're doing these shows, and like we would have a CD or a demo, we'd be selling them to the line. You know, I had the whole pitch down. I had like a little headphone set and it's like you guys like fall Out Boy and they're like, no, we like like hard stuff like

No Effects or something. We'd like, you're gonna love our stuff, And it was otherwise, you know, we'd be like like no Effects are like no, we like pop music like fault Boy would be like, you're gonna love O Perfect just to you. And we would like sell CDs for five bucks to get to the next city, and that's just what people buy them. They would, yeah, they would. I mean people were generous. I don't know if that

still is a thing, but I'm in that hustle. Like all the guys in our band and our tour and crew came from that world, so we all kind of have that mentality. And I you know, we have an amazing team around us. Now, we've got amazing connections at country radio, and we have amazing fans. But I try to still keep that mentality with what I do. You know, here in Nashville, it's like people like, why are you doing so many things? Are writing all these songs or

applying to fans on social media and stuff. But it's just what I what I'm used to, what I came up on, and it's I mean, now we've got more of a platform, there are more fans that will come to the shows, you know, without me begging them to come to the shows. But I try to keep that same mentality. If I work as hard as I did when I was building stages at Warp Tour, We're gonna

have a lot of success. You know. You know that there's a parallel that I see between we're talking about kit, between Kip and you and Shay, and that you have very passionate fans and you guys grind the road hard, hard, harder than people give you credit for. But you know what, you're not looking for credit. So it's a weird thing to say that people don't give you credit for it

because're not looking for the credit. But you guys just from knowing what it's like to tour, because I do a little myself and seeing you guys all out, you're on the road a lot more than the normal country act. Yeah, we are, we are. We did I think a hundred and seventy three shows last year, which and just to compare most people to do weekends, yeah, most like the bigger acts will do eighty five shows a year. Then that's a big touring here. But and we try to

I'm you know, we're with CIA, our agency. And when we met for the first time, I was like, I come from the you know, the world of warp tour where you're playing five six nights a week. Like now, I like the country thing. I like doing three nights and then coming back to Nashville and resetting the years. But we were like, let's just tour like a rock band. Let's go out and do we don't need to just

play Friday and Saturday night. We can play a Tuesday night or Wednesday night if you're playing clubs or House of Blues or whatever. It is, like we were grinding playing every night. We're still doing that. I mean, we would go even when we're on tour. We're on tour with the Flats this summer, but we're booking our own headlining dates in between because our fans are passionate man and they they want to see the full set, and you know, there's opportunity obviously business wise to go do

those shows. But it's good for us too to be in those cities playing for those fans, not just Okay, we're gonna play the major cities you need to. I mean, that's the thing about country Their country music fans everywhere, So you're not just playing New York and Boston or you know, big major cities. You're playing all over the place. And sometimes those shows are even crazier because the fans, you know, in the middle of nowhere, like no one

ever comes here. This is as I enjoy going to places where they're not huge circles on the map with a big city because people are so much more appreciative and I may not sell many tickets exactly. But that the great thing about what I do so in the radio. Most radio people don't do things outside of the radio show, right, I do, And I think one of the greatest things I get from it is getting to have a dose of reality and actually seeing a meeting people because I

do it every unless I'm sick. I've only ever not done it two or three shows ever, unless I'm sick or something as went wrong, I always go and that the theaters get mad at me for doing it, but I go and talk to people, meet people because that is important to me to to stay grounded. I can be in a room absolutely and just talk to my friends and it goes over the air waves, but I will lose what's really happening in the world. Yeah. Me being able to go out and see people as much

as I do resets me back to normalcy. Yeah. I like that. It gives me out of the bus and for you guys to you get out of Nashville. You see what's really happening, not what's in this stupid bubble of well, what's the coolest thing that's happening right right? It is a bubble, And I mean where I grew up with a bubble too. It wasn't until I moved out and started touring it was like I thought everything was perfect. It was awesome. But it's not always like that.

And you see the way like certain people live, and that's why we try to when we're on stage, even if there's like technical difficulties, if the venue sucks or whatever, it is like give a hundred and ten percent because even like if there's five people there, those five people don't care that there's not six people there. That was

a hard thing for me to do. Absolutely right, you have to give your all of those people because like and and it it's even more impactful than when you play for twenty people in an arena because those people

they feel special. And like I remember being a kid going to shows and if an artist got up there and phoned it in because the show wasn't sold out, it's like, you know what, I don't know if I love that artist, But if we go out there and play, like you know, in front of five people, like we're playing in front of a big festival crowd, it's it's

gonna go along. We've always had that mentality, so it's that took me a while and I somebody wrote a book, Charlie Daniel over the books said, uh, don't look at the And that's something over the past couple of years that I really appreciated is putting forth the effort when it when it feels like you should be down, like, oh man, this didn't sell out. But again, nobody knows. I want to watch Adam Crowla. Here's an example, Mike

did I want to watch Amla? And yeah, back and the places are half full, and I was and I was looking around like, wow, why is that full? I kind of feel but nobody there was looking behind them and anything old seat and it again. Going to shows. We set me on how to do shows, absolutely absolutely, because you also, you know, on the other on the flip side of that, you'll go to shows and see artists who do notice those empty seats and are complaining.

You could tell they're just cutting the set short and doing whatever, and you're like, that's the guy. I don't want to be so And I was early that guy, but now I'm exact opposite. And I appreciate it because and I went to John Mayor show in Minneapolis and I went through the meet and greet line not as later later I went hung out. I was cool later,

but he was at the beginning. I wanted to go through a meet and greet line to see what it's like to go through a meet and greet line because where I am now, I get a lot of things because in my position, people say, hey, don't worry about it. And I've known John Mayor for a bit. We've probably a ten instance this together, so I don't know him know him, but professionally we know each other, and now we actually follow each other on social media and stuff,

so maybe we'd recognize. He'd recognize me, I'd recognize him. I'll be like, what so. But I to the meet and greet line and it was forty five minutes or so when I sat and I just talked to people, and it just gave me a new respect for even people that come to the meeting. Totally. It was just it was it's really good for me to do stuff like that. It blows my mind. We were just in Europe, or in Europe in December, and it's like we came

in a long way. We're like really far from where she grew up in Arkansas, where I got in Mensylvania, where we live now in Nashville, we're an ocean away and there are people who like canceled their plans, book flights, whatever it is to come see us play. That it kind of blows my mind. It doesn't make me feel a little guilty. It does to me, it does. I feel like when they come to see me, I wouldn't go see me. I wouldn't go see me either, And

I'm so grateful to people that do. But I almost want to apologize before the show and say, oh, you just spent maybe you know, the thirty bucks, and I hope I do good. Yeah, yeah, exactly. I feel like we have We're so lucky. Our fans are probably all listening right now. But we've got fans. Our friend Kayla, she's like our biggest fans. She's so good to us,

so loyal. We at the halftime show this Steelers game the other day and she her and her friend like took a flight or drove and came all the way to the game to see us play two and have songs like die Hard. But last night her and a bunch of other fans of ours started gifting, like people not just buying our song on iTunes. They were like the guys are in the top ten on all genres.

We should see if we can get them to number one. Literally, we're just with their credit card and the thing gifting our song to like anybody who d m them on Twitter, probably spending a hundred dollars, like gifting the same song over and over and that's amazing. And I felt I had a message. I was like, look so nice to you. You can stop, Like I want to go to number one too, but like you're just like too kind and I feel guilty. That's yeah, you feel like I do. Anyway.

I feel like, man, I'm just not worthy of this. I feel the same, and I hope I never don't feel that way, if that makes sense, because I don't ever want to take it for granted. Neither do I. That's a good thing about being in a duo if we ever one of us ever is like starting to get a little bit taking it for granted. It's like you need to shape up, like get you know, punch

the other guy any arm. So when you get has finally decided on Dan and Shay the name the name, like we're really just gonna it probably had to be like, well, we couldn't come up with the name. So we're just gonna be Yeah. What was that conversation And who was the one that said, okay, we think it just should be Dan and Jay? Was it Espo? I don't remember exactly how it happened, but we are managers. We we

work with Scooter braun Um you know which. By the way, it is funny because I was a Scooter two weeks ago and Scooter goes hold on and facetimes you. He's the king of FaceTime. While I'm sitting with Scooter in Los Angeles. I don't know where you guys were. You were driving, you were driving though we were on the bus. I think you're doing or was I at home? I don't know, well whatever, I remember it. So Scooter is part of the Hey, we're gonna name you guys, Dan

and Shay. Yeah, he was part of that. He was like, you guys are like recognizable by your names because we met with Scooter. We'd flown out. We've had like insane experiences at Scooter's place. Like Scooter, by the way, it's justin Bieber Kanye Carly class manager, like yeah, Sana ground name very body and we would like go out and jam with Justin Bieber and Selena. We'd be playing guitar and singing and doing all the stuff and like crazy like these nights that you see and you know at

HBO series, like crazy stuff. And uh, he was always just like everybody knows you guys is Dan and Shay. It's cool, like for the branding and instead of having some band name that you have to reinvent some new moniker, It's like, why not just go buy your names then people will know you guys and do whatever. We're like, we don't have any other ideas, Sure, let's go with it. And then I got with my buddy Pete Tracy. Pete Tracy also moved to Nashville with me when I moved here.

He's from Pittsburgh and like he was on the Dark Time, the Dark training with us for a long time. But he's he's crushing it now. He's he did Did you see Jillian's new video Jillian Jacqueline? I did, Yeah for reasons, Yeah amazing, Yeah, just three months she opened for She's fantastic. I put her in my class of saw and took her out for three months. She opened for it, and Brandon is open it for me. Then I just like

I just love the new artists man fascinate. You're such a big part of their careers though and breaking them. I mean, they get to a certain level, I mean because of the exposure that you give them. So I'll play Stoked on Jillian whenever you did that, because I've known Jillian since Andy and I moved. We talked about this at the Hall of Fame, because you guys came up to my radio Hall of Fame and you did, didn't We were both there, just checked out. Yeah he was.

He was physically there. Okay, he was rocking. So you and I were talking at a bar in Chicago, and it was if I'm stepping out of turn, tell me, but you took Devon and Jillian both to the label. Yeah right, it's Warner Brothers. You took them, like, yeah, I played, Uh, I played Devon's music for our buddy who's now he's not at Warner Brothers anymore. And like Devin thought Warner Brothers, but our buddy who was had a promo over there and played it for him and

a bunch of people on the label. And you know, I have a great relationship with Jonathan and Talent because I'm trying they're because they're both fantastic, But are you close to that? Are you're closer to Devon though than you and another artist? Like? What's that? Was friend Stevin saying the first dance at my wedding. He's great, Like I believe in Devin so much. That's another talk about a guy who's passionate about his art. Yeah, his records coming out this week, So I mean, he is just

he's an amazing songwriter. We met first, we were just we were writing songs together, and um, I was just like, this guy's prolific, Like his words are insane. His voice, his voice to me. When I first heard him, he was playing at the basement, not the basement East, but the regular the small basement, you know, like basement in your house. Yeah, the basement. I don't even have a basement, but he was playing at the basement and we had written that day, and I told my wife Abbey. I

was like, you know, she's a huge music fan. Two, she's like R, A and R. You know, she knows all all the good artists before I do and picks our singles and the whole deal. But I was like, you gotta go see this guy wrote with today like he's insane. We saw him at the basement. I was like, this guy's a star, incredible. I mean his voice has like a soulful I mean it's like a Gavin de Girl kind of sound in his voice. He's got like a graspy kind of thing. I don't know. I just

think that guy. And he's got his old branding and the monochromatic vibe. And we told he's spent on people. Mike, Yeah, when he was in that scene. She was like, well we just spent on people. Yeah. I loved Evan. He's he's absolutely incredible. Um, we share a love of tequila. He brings nice tequilo bottles over my house and we enjoy him. But Jillian is one of my, you know, oldest friends here in Nashville. We've been writing songs together since that she'd been that bad house that I was

living in, so I asked her about that place. But she's awesome, man, and she's she's so cool. She's amazing. She's an amazing songwriter, amazing singer, she's beautiful, has a great attitude. She's been in this town. I'd like to find that happens, like the people who have the most success, have been here like cutting their teeth for a long time,

like everybody thinks. People people think whenever you announced her into that class that she was like, oh this girl just like god, it made like Bobby's gonna blow her up. Whatever she'd been here for she'd been here longer than me. So she's been here for probably ten at least ten years, and she's a new artist at the same time, exactly right. I mean, we really for new artists that these award shows. I'm like, dude, I've been had this thing, but I'll

take it. It takes forever to be an overnight success. It does. So okay, So you're dan Plush and that 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

a little more. But Pat and I P Tracy has been referring to him like we had this whole vision for the brand and you know, we could see like Taylor Swift does the heart things at our shows with their hands. I was like, I want to make our fans, you know if we ever have We didn't have any fans at this point. It's like, what if they like put their hands up and made It's gonna be hard for them to make an ampersand with their hands, so like, let's use uh so they're gonna plus signs of their fingers.

They Yeah, we don't really do it as much anymore. Our shows like so full throttle And you know, did you used to do that at the plus time every show? If you dig back on our Instagram, I should probably

bring that back. It's kind of a cool thing, like you know, I take a picture of the crowd, which I stole that from Ed shere and he would take pictures of the crowd every single night, you know, like even from when he was playing clubs and it's cool to watch his progress now he's doing five nights at Wembley Stadium, but he would always take a picture of the crowd. So we would do that and then we would try to do the plus sime thing and we'd be like, put your hands up and you'd have to

explain it. At first, kids are like, why am I doing? Okay, I see it now, but we would make them put the plus sign up with their fingers and it's a cool thing. And nobody does that that that exact thing. I haven't seen anyone do the plus sign thing, so I haven't seen anybody. You should bring it back. I might bring it back. It's hard. It's hard to have a thing nowadays because everybody's got a thing totally. So it's hard to have a thing when everybody's got a thing. Yep,

that's the thing. If you don't somebody it did, Like at first, it confused a lot of people and are like some folks at our record label like we should just change it to the end like this. I'm like, people will eventually get it. And if they're talking about us and they're playing our song, so what, it's fine. It's fine. You know, it's just one more thing to talk about. So yeah, we we had to grind away for a few years with the bus sign thing, but there are still a few people Dan blush, you know,

it's like, all right, we're done here. You bring up Abby your wife, So let's tell me about my story. Is wrong again. You can just always say, hey, stop talking. So she was working at your label, she was, and you were dating, So she stopped working at the label because she couldn't date you while working at the label. Is that true? Kind of Yeah, she was. She was working at the label. She was a regional, a promo rep of ours, which is like the toughest job in

the entire world. I mean not the world, but it's a tough job. Yeah, I'm a dramatic guy, but in the music industry, I think that is the most difficult job. They as much as we tour, they're working five or six artists simultaneously, and they're out knocking on radio stations doors at six am saying, hey, are Danna shaty record is looking a little weak that you know right now? Like we need to get some spins. And it's just

it's like a sales job. It's so tough. And then when a new artist like us comes out, they go on a radio tour and that's like so grueling. We'd be doing four stations a day and then you're going out to dinner and you're hanging with program directors and it all pays off in the end. It's great. You need to make those relationships, and country radio is very you know, close knit, and it's a relationshipship for sure. We've had great luck, you know, people have been so

kind to us, but it's we guys are nice though. Yeah, there's nothing super pretentious about YouTube. When you show up in a room and you have Shay who's just like you know, he's a good one. Shay is my Amy, yep, because I am. When I'm not working, I got nothing to say same. I'm quiet. I prefer to be creative in my own head, writing on a computer right here, and I'm just not that outward. But I can take Amy and people will like me because Amy's awesome and

she's so garious in the room. So but you guys are nice to be around. Thank you for saying that. Likewise, I never disliked you. I don't know you guys ever got mad at me when I was calling you the Savage Garden of country radio. I'll take that man again. People, somebody's talking about us. You've got a big audience, and people were talking, and you guys came in and saying

Savage Garden and crushed it. And I thought that's when I was like Oh, these guys are better than other people because to be on a certain level, I mean, do you have a deal, you have to be so good really, because it's a talent of elite talent and the elite of the elite. It's a record deal. And then and then it is luck involved too, because there are a lot of talented people in this town. They don't have record deals. Yeah, but I think you can make decisions to change your luck. I'm not a big

luck guy generally. I'm just not a big luck guy. But that being side, I knew you guys would have to be good to have a deal. But when you came in after, I would say, all these guys are like the Savage Guarden of of country radio, and you guys sang, I just remember going, oh, they're different, they're better than everybody, because you guys weren't around a lot because you were touring all the time too. But I

remember thinking, all, they're better than everybody. They're way better than people, and they're not asking for credit, but they're way better than people give them credit for. You guys did boys the Men, which is how Scooter and I got to know each other. Do you know the story I don't know the story. Okay, if your boys to yes. So you guys came in and you know, I mean, I love all formats of music. I think formats are garbage.

But honestly, and the people who say they don't, all the people out there who say I only listen to a certain things, they're in their truck or their car bumping every kind of music that anything that makes them feel something, they're they're listening to it. Even the most we won't I will not mention name, but even the most country of artists that I know, loves all kinds

of music. The artists people yell about like that's real country, that's that person is probably listening to twenty one Avage right now, like I hate to brust bubble, but they got yeah yeah. And if you restrict yourself to a certain thing because of his genre lines and say I can only listen, or you deny yourself from liking a certain thing that you actually like, you're just cheating yourself. I was doing a YouTube and I'm doing a lot of projects with Scooter now on the television side, so

um working on multiple ones. But the reason is because of you guys. Well, what happened was so he's he manages you guys, him and Jason Owen at sandbox in town. He you guys can amn and we were going back and forth and you guys were playing all these songs out a format and I'm like, oh, dud this one.

And I was singing along doing this and he was like, wait, you're not the normal country guys, he said, So I started going down the rabbit hole of YouTube videos and saw that you do all kinds of music and you have a different look about you. And he was like, So I thought, I'm gonna keep that guy's name and when something comes up and then he calls, and then that's how we started their business. It was I forgot about this. It was you freaking guys. He saw a

YouTube video of us singing it together. Yeah, look at that. So let's fast forward cause I don't know how I've been talking. I could do five of these. How long we wait? Okay, let's go to right now. Oh you and Shay, you plus each other, you met, you had a baby. I don't know what happened. Yeah, we we got all the comments, Stan Bush, what is that equal? I want to tell you about what's happening right now?

And again people will hear this who knows when, but they just put out Dan put out Tequila and what's playing over here? Mike hold on, I turned it off. I got it. I got it. So you put out this song Tequila, it's doing. It has cut through more than any other song I feel you guys have put 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 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 should go in the studio and pay for that to be recorded. We should cut that. Then it gets mixed and mastered, and then there's a lot of steps that a song goes through, uh, from when it's written to

when somebody hears it. And to see this song doing so well, I start tracing those steps back and it's like I spent a lot of time working on that track, you know, producing the you know, the drum loops or whatever, and editing vocals, and we do it all at my house, so it's like a lot of time went into that.

And I was so nervous before we put it out because it starts with the piano and a vocal, which you know, for the people out there you don't know, is like a little bit risky at country radio or radio in general, because it's like ballads are tougher to fit into a playlist because it's slowed down the base of your radio station. But we're just are in this place now where you know, luckily ballots have worked for Dan and Shay, we've had success on from the ground up.

Was our biggest song previously, and that's and this one had probably the second biggest. From the from the beginning, we felt it this was a big one. It was big for us, Yeah, and uh, we've been It's it's funny because that this song is our biggest hit, changed our lives, changed our career. We've been on a whole other level since this song came out, but since Tequila

came out. That's the stat comparison. So all get emails from s BO or you know whoever from the label and it says Tequila has sold in the first four days it was out, thirty two thousand downloads on iTunes versus fifteen thousand of from the ground up, so almost double. An additional stat is that the market in general on track sales is down. You're going up down, so you

can hypothetically say it's almost double what it is. So it's if you do that in your head, it's like, this is so impactful and just to see how that's how far that song went for us is insane. And this one is, I mean, it's been number one on the country chart, which is incredible. But then there's some heavy hitters in the all genres chart. There's Bruno, Mars has Filthy out right Now are just timber Lake, and

Bruno has Finesse imagine Dragons Thunder. All these songs are in the top ten on the radio at pop, which is an insanely big audience and tequila for some reason, it is like the little engine that could, and it's just camped out in the top five or top ten, you know, the last couple of weeks, and it's I don't know, it's it's surreal to me to see that happen because it's still so early in the radio, you know, country radio climb. It's it's a long time for a

new artist, but it is. And this song could cross over a bit. I don't know, you probably thought about that, never said it out loud, but this song could cross over a bit. Yeah, I think uh on this round, we you know, we did face a lot of the haters. I think that was kind of our evolution. When we first put out our you know, the Where It All Began album, we we didn't know what we're doing on

that album. That was just demos that we were doing in my living room or whatever on logic Um and we were just kind of like two guys figuring it out.

In the second record, we kind of were reactive a little bit of those people on Twitter at festivals saying like, you guys ruining country music with that Myrtle Beach song, the nineteen and Me song, you know that you guys are so we were like, we should do a little bit more of a country thing, and yeah, this is the one that ruined country music, I guess, but totally use everybody's saying it every time I came on the right.

You know this now and this is like down the middle of country, but at the time it was very left the center. Um, but all the artists that break through. Sam Hunt, whenever his stuff came out, was like so pushing boundaries, or even Kelsey or anybody who's doing their thing. But now you listen back to that and you like, that sounds like a normal country song, more traditional than some stuff on the radio. And what you just talked

about has been done a thousand times. But just my conversation with Garth about this specifically, and I talked Garth is the pioneer of that. He said they want to run him out of town because what he was doing was so different than everybody else that he was running country music. And not to compare Kelsey or you or Sam to Garth, because everybody's in their own space, but it's just the same story. Even from the biggest people where you think, oh, that's what country is like. He

always was No. I sat with Garth and he said, they told me that this is not country music. Yeah, I should stop making it sure. I mean on this record, we were just we're just like, you know what, we love, what we love. We take all our influences. Obviously, we moved here because we want to write country songs. We love country music. But we were just like, we should just record what we know how to record and record great songs, no matter who writes them. Figured that on

our last record. We you know, we came here as songwriters, but to have a successful artist career, you need to always record the best song, whether you write it or you don't. Adam Hambrick wrote, how not too. We heard that demo come in. That's a funny story too. But that song came in and we didn't write it, and we were like, you know what this is. You know, this isn't even the rest time I heard it. He recorded, I think this sounds amazing, you got it. Look at that.

Here's the work tape. I've never heard this hit though, you know. So if we took Adam out with us and he played with Raging Idiots for four months, and so he would play this song and every every I played had a little bit of you guys in a heart. I love it. I love it. But the thing is, you talk about artists writing for you, you also write for other artists. Yeah, we've had a little bit of

luck with that. We're we're still always it's a little bit difficult now that we're doing our own projects, because you write, you know, I think I wrote like ninety four songs last year or something insane. Uh, But you always want to like keep the best songs for yourself, you know. Our artist career is obviously the most important thing. And then when somebody hears something like that tequila song. I wrote it with Nicole Galleon, who I think you've

talked to her. We talked to days a matter of fact. She's brilliant. She's like one step ahead of everybody else right now. She's got female from Keith Urban out there. She's boy for Lee Bryce, which like some of the best most well written songs on country radio. Uh. And my friend Jordan Reynolds and uh, what was I talking

about writing that song? Oh? Yeah, we we wrote that song and it was one of the ones from the ground up was the same thing where we sat on the demo for a little while, sat on it for like a year before we recorded it, and it had circulated to other artists, you know, publishers and even to Tequilacula tequila. Yeah, and it's circulated. I would get text from artists and be like, dude, if you guys aren't cutting that song, I'm cutting that like I'm gonna put

it on my record. And then you're like, should I get that song away? Because you never know what's gonna end up making. That song may never have made our record, you know, we may have beat it or written something else, like I should have gave that away, But you know, it always finds the right home somehow. I don't know, or the home that it has is just what you know. It's true because there could have been so listen. I'm just not I'm just not as a destiny guy. I'm

but you make your own. I do enjoy tequila the song. I've never actually tasted tequila to drink, but I do enjoy to kick the vocals on is that I saw you post that. I didn't know that. Yeah, like the first time ever on the track. We just do all this. Yeah, that little Justin Bieber thing in the back. I should have pulled up my I saw Zach Rowl was on here like soloing out tracks. We'll do that next time. It's a kid. So I just took the tequila thing and it shifted it up to a sense and it's

made that little crazy tequila song. And the thing is, you're such a pretty like this is you doing this stuff? People don't know that you're that. Shay is excellent. It's it's such a great team. Yeah, because for the most part, you're the brains that's putting these sounds together, and it's in a lab and Sha singing his freaking brains out on stage. But you're both are doing the other things too. For sure. He's literally the best singer I've ever heard.

It's like insane. It's amazing to watch somebody who's never heard him singing person watch their reaction. Oh that's what 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 thing and look at where he is. I mean, he's like spot on. It's it's a gift, it really is. I mean it's and he can wake up in the morning and sing too. It's like, you know, coming on the radio show and sing Boys two Men, which is

like that's a hard song to sing. Yeah, I didn't ask you guys to sing the last time because I was like, you know him saying, I was like, no, they need they let let's let's have a little time there in the middle. You guys have just crushed it so many times. So man, I'm happy for you guys. Thank you. Man. You you've been there since the beginning. So it's been a kind of not really but kind of like I mean, I've been I didn't know what

I was doing when you started. I wish I could have been the guy that was like, dnit shade the best ever? You should trust me. I don't even know I was talking about you know what I think now we've settled into our places after we were like kind of on the same timeline, and we've settled in and we just do us, you know, like you do in your thing. If there's a few haters out there, so what they don't have to listen, you do your thinking and we're making the music we want to make. And

that's what we did on Tequilo. Like we could have went more country, could have went more pop, but we just did what we knew how to do. And we're like, you know what country music is just about great songs and great stories, and that's what we did. And yeah, it's maybe about it may be slower than some of the other stuff we've recorded. Stuff explained yourself, everybody. I feel like you've been built defensive because people have been saying, oh, yeah,

I'm just being honest. Screw it, don't be defense. We just did. Don't explain it, that's right. Just it's awesome, Thank you, thank you. That's it. Likewise, no, no, I did. It's true though. You're doing your thing definitely Bellerini's album title. But it's true. I mean, you're doing your thing and you have a huge following and it's massively successful because you're doing. I want to talk about me, but you

gotta shake that explanation. I don't have to explain how many number ones you have as an artist, three okay, and how many of you written on two? So it's funny. The nineteen You and Me was one of our biggest songs, went to number eleven on the chart. That's all that song went, you know, Keith said to me. I went to, uh, it does matter. I was hanging with Keith. I started

name droping too much, even I know myself. So I start I'm hanging with Keith everyone we're talking about songs and he's like, man, He's like, I don't know if it was stupid Boy or whatever. It was like, it wasn't the number one song, and it's what, I don't remember which one it was specifically, like our favorite song, you know, yes, And he was like, it wasn't the number one song, but it's the one that people I just want me to play the most. The fans don't know.

They don't care. If they love a song and it hits them like it makes them feel something, they don't care where it ends up. We in this town, we care, and I everybody out there that I care. I want our songs are good at number one, obviously, do you want to eat? Yeah, when it is rewarding, I mean, it doesn't get any higher than going number one. So

that's that's a great place except number one for two weeks. Listen, there's place I'm gonna but the fans if it connects, like we've had stuff Diet thirty five on the chart that pop off at our shows. I talked to Thomas read about this. He here, I go to name drop vacation, vacation that to him get crushed him to the song didn't do that well at all. Yeah, and he's like,

I play it live and people freak out. We were in the back of the bus and he he was about to go to radio with that song, and he said there was like eleven guys that had hit him up and said I will never play this song. And he was like, you know what, it's so good at my show. If we can get any visibility on this song, it's going to be even better in the show. So screw it. And that was awesome. That was risky. That was a bold move of him, and it's I mean,

we toured with him. It goes off at his show. Yeah, he even played it in New Year's Eve and I texted him afterward. I was like, dude, it was great. I don't care what stupid radio says. And I love radio and I hate radio, and I can be both. Now. Radio is in country music is the driving forest behind what we do. It's like, you want to have hits, but I mean it would be a lot tougher for Thomas start to put out vacation He do you not a die happy man? You know? So you know, and

we'll end on this. What's frustrating for me is I wish there were a way because people aren't buying music as much, they're streaming it more. Not totally, but a large market share is is streaming music. I wish there was a legitimate way to see how many people are playing the song because we're not knowing people's algorithms. I've said this before Spotify, for example. I have friends that have thirteen million plays on a song and they can't

sell fifty people at a bar. And then I have some friends that have three thousand and they can sell hard tickets. It's interesting, it's so weird. What's the metric? You know? How do you they don't tell us. They also Apple also doesn't reveal theirs. No one reveals theirs, but I wish to with some kind of real like this is how I would do it in a perfect world. First of all, there would be legislation, but there should

be any way for songwriters. But in order to say a song played this much because it's used for data, it has to actually be played singularly for a certain amount of time. We don't know if a song is just on a playlist. If one song gets played on the place, everybody gets an account of a spin, nobody knows, and it probably doesn't, but we don't know. And I wish there was a way to quantify that, but since

it's all private, they don't have to. I just wish there were away because it would make my life easier to go, oh, that's what people are really listening to, because music with Spotify with title that you can't look at those numbers because again they're artists. I've never even heard of that. And I have no problem with people gaming the system, buying YouTube views, buying. That's just part of the game, and I've been guilty of it too. Yeah,

you can't fake having tickets and absolute metric. What I've ever used it for when I gained the system is two like to get guests. When I was starting off in Austin, right, I would do all this stuff to make the show look bigger because people didn't know the show would see the number. Oh they must be bigger the book. It was always for a later habits pressed too.

We'll get a hit up for an interview. Is like this blog gets this many million views or whatever, and we're like, it seems like a great opportunity, let's do it. And it's like, is that real? I don't know. Nothing is real. Yeah, And as long as you know nothing is really right now, we might have goggles on. So my point is I wish there was some sort of thing to look at where they're used to actually beat record sales. But even then people would buy it bulk

records themselves. It was maybe even easier than for just a common common artists to do it. Nothing is real. The only thing it's real are people's faces that come to shows and buy tickets. That's the only real thing. Now is a great time to be a new artist, though, because there's so many platforms to get your music out there. You and you can make music in your bedroom. You can blow the laptop. We made our first record on my laptop. You know you can with technology. I agree.

Here's where I disagree. Counterpoint, there's so many new artists because it makes your job harder. It makes radio, it makes even the artist job harder. But it makes the quality better because that many more people are competing. So as the consumer, it makes it better for us exactly because what we're getting is the best of the best of the best. It's really good. Yeah, I mean, there's some really good songs on country radio and they're all

fighting for that same spot. It is hard to get a song up the chart and in the charges stupid, don't even me start about the charts. There's so many songs and they're all great because they're not all great. There's big turns at or if you look on YouTube, you look up so and so's cover of certain songs, like so many of these kids should all have record deals. They're all great because are you know most of them are great because I don't know, there's other people that

are doing it. There's just like a lot I don't know. The access is there's so much access, and yeah, it's a little oversaturated when you're an artist and you're like, crap, he's really good too. But for the consumer, you're right. There is so much good stuff and it's it's the access for it. You can listen anywhere Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon, I mean I didn't even mention Amazon, like that's a

huge infrastructure. Well, uh, tequila is out. While we're looking at time frame for a full record, I'm working on it tonight. I was working on them today. So we're in the process right now. We've recorded maybe like a quarter sometime this year the area. Yeah, we'll probably sprinkle out a few songs and in the meantime, but pumps when we when we hang up here, I'll play you a few things. Are we on the phone right now? I don't listen. I don't listen to songs. You just

don't like songs. No, no, no, I don't listen to songs. Early I've come from my friends. The only people listen to you. And Keith Urban sent you a song once. Yeah, he brought you how to listen to I just what Keith sends you? This song come on literally blew up and it said Keith on it, And I was like, Keith who and you're like, you try to play it off, and it was Keith Urban sent a new song or a demo for some reason. He does, and mean every time he sends me new songs, like two or three weeks.

He's the coolest guy. He is. When he was on your show and he was playing the mashup of all his hits, I was like, he just wins. He he is. I don't want to gush about him too much, but he is. He's awesome and as a person even better as an artist, insane, just like elevates the game every single time, and anybody that works with goes, oh yeah, I used to think somebody was good and took Keith gut in. It's kind of like humiliating sometimes, you know.

So I don't listen to music because here's why I hate having to do the oh yeah, oh I'm yeah. And if I do listen to music, I do it and it's so rade. I wouldn't even listen to Stapleton's record he sent it to me early said, Chris, I'm not gonna listen to it because I want to experience it with my people. I like that. So, yeah, I probably listen to the kids if it was a single over a text. But you and I, as I'm thinking about listening to music. We had an early bond over

Walker Hayes too. Yes, because when I first heard I was like oh, and you were like, oh you text me like, oh yeah, it's off the wall this' and Halloween. Yeah. We took him on tour and yeah, yeah, he's prolific. To have your words smith Man, you've written a song with the movie. Yes, we wrote Noma Stay Together Sick. Yeah, he's brilliant. He's another guy is like one step ahead of everybody in the room. You just can't catch up, so you just go along for the ride. When he

starts using words. He's a poet. It's insane. And his flow, his jawline go on and gone on, shoulders, shoulders of a line. He is pretty. He's insane and he's got He had all his kids. We were Amy's. It might do three more minutes and I'll be done. I'm here all night. We could literally do this three hours and just talk about music. But um we went over to

uh when Amy's kids came in from Haiti. So some friends came over to Amy's and it was all just people in our circle because it was a very personal thing for her and to But in our circle there are some artists and it was Walker, it was Eric Passley, Steve Mockler. I grew up with Steve. Really my guy. Yeah, the best, I mean him a grade so it sound nice, the nicest people. So another brilliant songwriter in words Smith.

Walker had his kids and all uh six of them were there and it was the first time I've ever seen them all together at one point and it was really he's a story, but they're all like they're also well behaved. He's so fertile, so fertile. This is so buff and fertile. He was out. We were out on tour, Thomas Rhett and Walker was on the tour as well, and he brought them all out and they were like, they would all sit down, they would It was like

they were so well be Yeah. He showed up and we um if we played a show where we didn't fly, because he opened for me doing stand up, which he was the perfect opener because he had so much energy even by himself with the pedal. Yes. So he shows up and I said, oh, you got a new bus, like a small like sprinter van. Yeah, it's like, hey gotta He was, no, no, no, that's just our family car. He said, I just drove it. I mean, have six kids, you have to have a big They rented like a

church fan or something. When we were out and he had to drive the kids. His wife Liane. He's awesome to him. He's a guy that I really root for. Man. He obviously loved the music when I heard it online. First, that's hit you about it, and we talked about Halloween, but getting no him out on the road, like hearing his story. And when I heard that, Craig's honestly crowd. When I did so, I texted him immediately because I wouldn't listen to it earlier. We were crying thinking about it.

Right now, we're working on my stuff and Walker was producing it because we wrote that song together. And then I said, Walk, are you produce? He's I never produced anything. I was like, it doesn't matter if you have that instinct. You have that instinct. So we go on. He's producing it because I want you to hear Craig, did you do it at the shack? I said, we wrote it

at the shack. Oh, yeah, we produced at a different place, but we did write in the shack, and so then I said, I'm not gonna listen to any song with you. But then I had it when it came out, and I bought the record and I listen to Craig and I cried and I don't cry, and I text him, I said, dude, I just cried during the song. I was so in. We were in Europe and I was like on the treadmill and I literally heard him start and I had to get off the treadmill and like

listen to the words, and I broke. It was insane. I played it on the show and I played it twice and I think I went to number seven. I wasn't in the top two. That's how. That's how not a mean thing. That's my listeners. It cut through to them so hard, so quick. You listen. They're smart and they've they've picked songs like I mean, that's kind of what we're trying to do with this next record, is pick songs that make people feel something, make people react.

Don't just pick it because it's up tempo and sounds like, you know, quote unquote what a hit would sound like if somebody, if we had a song like Craig and played it for people and they reacted like that. I don't know. I hope a guy like Walker Hayes will take chances and put songs like that out as his singles because like he can change the game with that. Yeah he can. Well, we're gonna wrap. This has been one of the longer ones in the history because time

had no measurement as we were talking. That's right. It was like one of those first dates we'll know each other while one of those first dates where time just goes by and you all of the sudden you look up at six am and the suns coming out. It's send me to hear the Colby Key story. Yeah, yeah, next time. We got it. Next time, Okay, Dan smiles. From Dan and Shay, we learned which I wanted to know a lot of pre Dan and Shay. You can find all the Danna Shay stuff online just google it.

I didn't know a lot. I didn't know you played running back in high school. I don't know you played college football. I didn't do a lot of stuff I didn't know. I know you're stealing from the man. Apologize for that. Get back all right, thank you very much. What episodes this with Dan Smyers. Thank you very much for listening to the Bobycast. And uh Daniel Bradbery should be in a couple of days, right, two days. Yeah, yeah, we had to postpone that one because of the ice.

Uh so that would be the next one up. Thank you very much. We'll see next time. By