January 2, 2025 • 25 mins
The boys LOVE Christmas and it comes out through the amazing double album they put out leading up to the holiday. They shared the details on how that album came together plus, a moment the CMA cameras missed that would have lived forever!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's Wayne Dan studio with the boys.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
Dan and say, how.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Y'all doing good to see you, brother, what's happening to
see you? I haven't seen y'all since Award season. Things
slowing down, How you're feeling about the rest of the year.
Speaker 3 (00:08):
Chewing out a little bit? I overdressed Nashville is like
the weather's been nuts, Dude. One day it's ten degrees,
the next day it's seventy degrees.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
See, I thought maybe you went like GQ.
Speaker 4 (00:18):
I'm trying. I'm just trying to keep it because.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
To be funny, when I saw y'all at CFAs about
you're like, look, he's making fun of how we're dressing.
Speaker 5 (00:27):
Well, I wasn't gonna make fun of your shirt. I
think your shirt it's cool no matter what Dan thinks
about it, you know what I mean?
Speaker 6 (00:32):
I think that's I think.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
They have that like judgment, so like, oh you wore
that today?
Speaker 4 (00:35):
Are you getting changed for the interview? Now cameras, this
isn't on camera.
Speaker 6 (00:40):
You just say this is audio for you either, this
is great.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
How how do you approach award season? Is how those
things wrap up? Like, cause it's there's a lot of
stress going into it and then once the amaze that's
kind of like the end of the year.
Speaker 6 (00:55):
It feels like right it is, man.
Speaker 5 (00:56):
You know, I feel like at this point in our career,
you know, we've been blessed enough to have you know,
won every award that we can win in our in
our genre for you know, being up for something, and you.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Try to get to that place where it's like, all right, just.
Speaker 5 (01:08):
To be you know, nominated is an honor, and we
really are in that place. I think for every artist
would be lying if you said that going into it,
it isn't just anxiety or ridden and like there's just
so much pressure because you love all the people in
your category. Those are your friends, and so it's really
tough when you kind of go into that moment. And
even if you're just like all right, you know, if
(01:29):
you're you're okay with just being nominated, it stinks because
you go in there and you're like, all right, somebody's
gonna be a winner and someone's gonna be a loser tonight,
and it's just it's tough. Man. I feel like every
artist struggles with it, but we really have gotten to
a place that's what makes it great about being in
a duo.
Speaker 6 (01:43):
We always talk about this.
Speaker 5 (01:44):
You know, the highs are even higher and the lows
aren't as low, and we're really able to kind of
remind each other like, hey, this, it really is amazing
that we get to do this, and you know, we
can kind of remind each other. It's probably a lot
tougher for a lot of the solo acts, who are
just kind of there by themselves with the smiles, like I'm.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
So happy that I didn't win, But no, I feel
like it's.
Speaker 6 (02:02):
You know, I feel like it is very uh, it's stressful, but.
Speaker 5 (02:06):
At the same time, it is one of the only
times in the year that you get to see everybody,
and it really is just kind of a family affair,
and we really have gotten to that place in our
career where it's like, man, we are we really are
lucky to still be doing this and to be able
to still be invited. There was a time when we
we weren't invited, and so to kind of go back
to that place and be like, you know what, this
is pretty amazing that we get to be a part
(02:26):
of such an incredible thing.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
Although I'm surprised it didn't go viral. I did notice
Dan Lean over to you when Brooks and done one
and I'm a great lip reader. Move aside, Grandpa, is
what you said?
Speaker 4 (02:38):
Hey, you gotta get your glasses checked. Me go.
Speaker 3 (02:42):
We have some like potentially viral moments at that award show.
There's a funny moment we're sitting there. Luke Combs is
performing Ain't No Love in Oklahoma, which could just goes
so hard, you know, and Bailey Zimmerman was like walking
you know, you know, he's such like a ball of
energy's so positive, so happy to be there. And he's
walking past our seats and they're like, all right, and
second's ten seconds. You know how they usher everybody and
they get the seed fillers in there. I was like,
(03:03):
you're not gonna make it, dude, You're not gonna make it.
The camera's right there. Peyton Manning, Luke, Bryan Laney Wilson
are like and up next with the song from the
Twisters soundtrack, Luke Combs, and I was like, sit dout,
sit on getting my aisle. He sat on my lap
and we're just going absolutely bananas. When Luke comes doing
a No Love in Oklahoma, the camera was on us
the whole time. I didn't watch the playback, but like
if I'm that switcher guy backstage doing the camera, I'm like,
(03:25):
I'm keeping it on Dan and Billy's and the whole
time it looked ridiculous like father and son vibes, you
know what I'm saying, Like, yeah, I told you this
guy's good.
Speaker 6 (03:33):
You know it was.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
It was crazy because they also like those people.
Speaker 5 (03:36):
Are obviously they have a job to do it, like
when they're in the aisles, they're pretty aggressive with like
shoving people out of the way. And right before that,
like whenever Laney and them were announcing it, they had
this like fan blowing on them to announce it, you know,
like the whole you know play on words.
Speaker 4 (03:50):
Like a spinning fan, not like a fan.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
It was an actual like blowing fan.
Speaker 5 (03:57):
And it's like, you know, they're trying to make it
where it looks like they're in the storm and all
this stuff. And so they they all but shoved Bailey aside,
and he got there was no option but to sit
on Dan's left because the camera was taking up most
of the aisle. And I was like, man, the lady,
I thought she was going to shoot somebody. She was
very angry with who she didn't realize that whoever it was,
she was just like.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
You gotta move, you gotta move.
Speaker 5 (04:19):
We got three seconds and I was like, oh my gosh,
it was it was. It was a wild, uh wild
thirty seconds there.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
You guys, you look at a show like that, and
it evolves over the years, especially with I feel like
over the last two years it's been and obviously social
media has been a large help. The rush of new
artists and new songs is like stronger than ever. What's
that like for you guys who have who have done
what you do at such a high level for so long.
What's it like to see where country was when you
(04:46):
got here to where it is now?
Speaker 4 (04:49):
It's cool, man, Honestly, I think it's evolved a lot.
Speaker 3 (04:51):
There's like it's gone through a crazy roller coaster revolution
of different sounds. It's been more pop leaning, it's been
more country leaning, and now I feel like the door
is why open for stuff that's as you know, country
and his cowboys Cody Johnson or Parker McCollum, who are
good friends of ours, you know. And then you've still
got guys like Bailey Zimmer and pushing the envelope, Sam
Hunt and I feel like when we came onto the scene,
(05:12):
you know, twenty thirteen, twenty fourteen, our sound was pretty progressive,
but I feel like being a part of that movement
that kind of broke some doors down, you know, introduced people.
We had some songs that were grateful for it, crossed
over to different genres.
Speaker 4 (05:25):
How they see Top forty, you know.
Speaker 3 (05:26):
Songs that started at country, Tequila, Speechless, you know those
tunes ten thousand hours with Bieber. I feel like we're
the start of bringing people in from other genres. You know,
Shania Twain's done it in the past, Garth Brooks has
done it in the past, and you know, now Morgan's
doing it. You know, his songs are all over Top
forty radio. And the coolest compliment we could get from
somebody out there on the road is like, yo, man,
I never listened to country before, but I was listening
(05:48):
to you know, whatever station, Kids FM, and I heard
Dan and Shay on there, and I now I got
country program in my car. And that's cool because there's
just so much good country music to be discovered now,
more than ever, especially with streaming, you know, more genre
or more artists coming into the scene every single day.
I can't even keep up with it. It's nuts, even
on our own record label, you know. I asked my wife,
I'm like, can you name ten percent of these artists?
Speaker 5 (06:07):
It's wild.
Speaker 3 (06:08):
But it's a good thing, man, it's a good thing.
People are making great music out there. Touring is bigger
than ever. I feel like there's more country headliners. I
was talking about this with somebody last night.
Speaker 4 (06:17):
I was like, there are so.
Speaker 3 (06:18):
Many arena, amphitheater, and now stadium level country headliners.
Speaker 4 (06:23):
It's it's insane.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
You know.
Speaker 4 (06:25):
The fan base is just huge.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
As you see that the stadium thing coming to play
because arenas, like country lived in arenas and really up
until the last few years like that became garth. Did
you know the big the massive venues. Does that open
up goals that maybe you guys didn't have at some point,
like hey, what if what if you know we put
something together and made a swing at some of those
(06:50):
type of venues at some point.
Speaker 6 (06:51):
Absolutely, I think every artist does.
Speaker 5 (06:53):
I think in the beginning, I think my goals were
so much smaller than they are now. They start out
like our dream was to be able to play like
a thousand caps, Like growing up, mine was like, you know,
George's Majestic Lounge in Fayeville, Arkansas. It was like, man,
whoever's playing there, they're the biggest artists in the world,
you know, And it was like, I think that was
(07:14):
kind of my goal. You know, my favorite bands were
all playing these five hundred caps two fifty caps, and
I feel like, as you, you know, progress in your career,
we were just blown away that we were able to
have anyone come to our shows. And I think that
as you go along in your career and you have,
we've never had this like, oh we've got.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
To get to stadiums or we've been a failure.
Speaker 5 (07:32):
I think though, as you've you reached those goals, there's
a natural I always say to be content but not complacent,
Like I'm very happy and you know with the way
our career has gone and the things we've gotten to do,
but I think you always kind of have to look
ahead and be like, you know what, what can we
set our sights on next?
Speaker 6 (07:49):
In a healthy way.
Speaker 5 (07:50):
In the past, we've we've done that in an unhealthy
way where it's like you set these goals and these
expectations and then if you don't meet them, you know,
your happiness is, you know, you feel like you're not
happy with your I think that we have fully kind
of changed our perspective on that, and you know, give
you know, enjoy what life gives you and the opportunities
that you're given. We definitely have our our sights on
(08:10):
bigger things, you know. I think that you kind of
have to to keep moving forward, and it would be
amazing to one day make it to stadiums, and I
think every.
Speaker 6 (08:18):
Artist would would say that.
Speaker 5 (08:19):
But if we never get to that point, I'm also like,
it's insane that we get to do arenas in these amphitheaters,
Like that's the craziest thing in the world. But yeah,
there's definitely those those ambitions in the back of my mind.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
Content but not complacent is like a way of life,
and I've never heard it said like that before. Yeah,
we talked to you guys as you were putting new
music out, and you were in the best mental place,
you know, individually but collectively that you've maybe ever been.
As you look back on, you know, the last year
now that you've been in this more clear headspace and
(08:53):
been able to appreciate things a little more, what's the
last year been like versus maybe years in the past.
Speaker 4 (08:59):
It's been a maya, man.
Speaker 3 (09:00):
I feel like we've been able to soak in this
year a little bit more than the past. We've gotten
to do all kinds of stuff.
Speaker 5 (09:05):
Man.
Speaker 3 (09:05):
We've gotten to have number ones on country radio thanks
to folks like you. Weve gotten a play Arenas, sold out,
Bridgestone just down the way, gotten to play amphitheaters for
the first time, headlining. We've opened for everybody in those amphitheaters,
Blake Sheldon, Darius Rucker, you know, Rascal Flats, fgl But
to get to go into those amps and headline, see
our name on the top of the marquee, see you know,
ten thousand people up in that lawn going crazy singing
(09:26):
the words.
Speaker 4 (09:27):
How was that kid?
Speaker 2 (09:27):
Man?
Speaker 3 (09:28):
I still feel like that kid, you know, especially this year,
bringing it back to like the basics, the fundamentals, and
just appreciating it all. I feel like we had those
moments on stage where we're like, dude, this they're singing
bigger houses. This is like we're up here with an
acoustic guitar sitting on this little house and they're singing
this freaking song back to us.
Speaker 4 (09:44):
I feel like in the past. You know, we're going,
going and going.
Speaker 3 (09:47):
Tequilu's happening. Speechless has happened, and we didn't take that.
You know, we've talked about this before. We didn't take
that moment to sit back, to soak it in and
be like this is really freaking cool, you know. And
this go around, we had moments where we probably were
a little unprofession on stage where we were just like
we sat there for five minutes and just soaked it in,
like dude, We looked at each other, hugged it out,
set it to the fans like, oh man, I just
(10:08):
I need a sec like this is a dream come true.
Because there was a moment that we weren't sure if
we were ever going to get to do that again.
To stand on that stage and to be back up
there have so much love from the fans from country
radio is just unbelievable.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
How do you make sure because it felt and I
don't want to put the words in your mouth, but
it felt like you guys were at a breaking point
like hey, like you do your thing, I'm gonna do
my thing. Love you not by, but uh, how do
you make sure to not get back there and not
that you had problems with each other. I don't want
to like paint that, but like, how do you make
(10:42):
sure that you don't get back to a place where
you're like, I need to do my thing, dude.
Speaker 5 (10:46):
Well, I think it's communication is the number one thing
in any kind of relationship, whether that's a marriage or
a friendship.
Speaker 6 (10:52):
And we've done a really.
Speaker 5 (10:53):
Good job about that of keeping everything of Like, hey,
at the end of the day, you know, obviously we
have an amazing team and we have things kind of
go out from there, but it starts with us, and
we have to make sure that you know, Dan and
I are on the same page at all points in time.
You know, if I if he knows that you know,
something bothers me, or if I know that something bothers him, Like,
I've got his back one hundred percent, he's got mine.
(11:13):
And I think starting there and then moving out is
the way that leadership kind of has to work because
we're running also a business, you know, and we have
a lot of people that we really care about that
or you know, that are working with us, you know,
to make this whole thing happen, and we want to
make sure that it's working in the healthiest way that
it possibly can. And the best way for that to
happen is that Dan and I got to be on
the same page at all points in time, and I
(11:33):
know that we're at a place in our friendship in
our career that we can be really honest with each other,
just like, hey man, this is I'm not feeling this.
Speaker 6 (11:41):
I really don't want to do this. And when you
can kind.
Speaker 5 (11:44):
Of get to that place, it's a very sustainable model,
I think when you see things that have happened, because
I've looked at this really carefully because it hit home
a lot closer than I ever thought it would. You
look at all these duos that broke up and you
look at like what happened there, and think that as
your career goes along, you're a lot easy, Like you're
(12:04):
much more separated in moments than you used to be.
Speaker 6 (12:07):
You know, when we were in one bus, you know,
and you're there and.
Speaker 5 (12:10):
You're, whether you like it or not, we're talking for
seven hours, you know, on that bus, and I think that,
you know, as your career goes along, you know, you
have those the ability to kind of have a little
bit more space, which is amazing, you know, for your
life and your career. But if you don't have those
moments of communication, that's when things just kind of fall apart.
Because if you just don't talk to somebody for a
while and the only times you see each other is
(12:32):
on stage or in little points when you have to
do something professional, it gets really you know, things, little
things can turn into two big things really quickly. And
we've seen that over the career of not only country duos,
but pop duos and rock duos, and it's just, you know,
we try to learn from that and rather than fall
into those same traps, we just, man, let's let's talk
it out, because you'd be surprised what can change over
(12:55):
a conversation of just something very very small, you know,
and being very human.
Speaker 1 (12:59):
But these moments, the way you worded something and that
answer was awesome, and I want to give you credit
for it, because a lot of people would be like
a lot of people would word that, Oh, I have
a lot of people. We have a lot of people
depending on us. You said, we have a lot of
people making this work with us, right, So it's obviously
you vision yourself in the trenches with them versus like
here's Dan and Shay and they're you know, holding us up.
(13:22):
Have you always thought that way? Have you always are?
Did it take you a second to step back and
be like, hey, we're all rolling this boat.
Speaker 3 (13:28):
I think it's hard sometimes, man, because I've those are
our boys, Like we came up with those guys.
Speaker 4 (13:32):
I've known those guys for twenty years.
Speaker 3 (13:33):
We've been playing music, touring in vans, playing in bars, clubs,
doing the whole thing for so long. And like it's
sometimes weird that our names on the T shirt. I guess,
like that's an imposter syndrome thing that we battle with
sometimes Sometimes we have to be like, all right, we're
taking responsibility.
Speaker 4 (13:48):
We got to go do this, or our names on
the thing or whatever.
Speaker 3 (13:50):
I'm like, no, Like, we're all in this, man, this
is our crew. These are our guys, and we're so
grateful for him. Man.
Speaker 4 (13:56):
We would, honestly, we would have nothing without them.
Speaker 3 (13:58):
You know. It's like they put as much time as
we do. Like I'm away from my wife and dogs,
Chase away from his wife and the kids, Like so
are they, you know, and like they might not get
the glory of getting to accept that trophy on stage
or you know, have their name on the thing.
Speaker 4 (14:11):
So it's like, I don't know.
Speaker 3 (14:12):
I think like keeping that humble attitude has allowed us
to do it at this level for so long.
Speaker 4 (14:18):
I don't know, man.
Speaker 3 (14:18):
And also, again, like Shay said earlier, being in a duo,
keeping each other in check. If somebody starts getting out
of line, it's like, dude, come on, come on, Like
we're still the same guys that were riding around in
old Blue with fourteen guys on the bus, you know
what I mean, Like still literally the same guys and uh, man,
just these things that we get to do, and also
having like our crew and that close knit of a
community out there makes us appreciate it more.
Speaker 6 (14:39):
You know.
Speaker 4 (14:40):
It's the same dudes who were like that.
Speaker 3 (14:41):
We'll send like throwback pictures of the group chat like,
look at these dudes from back, you know, like when
we started touring, playing Joe's on Weed Street or Cannery
Ballroom here I think our first headlining show in Nashville
or soul Shine Pizza, Like everybody listening to soul Shine
that's like a long time ago. We're aging ourselves right now,
but doing riders rounds there, man, and it's, uh, it's
I don't know, We're grateful those guys are stuck with
(15:02):
us that this long over ten years.
Speaker 4 (15:04):
That's that's crazy.
Speaker 1 (15:05):
You were talking about the house that's on stages you
guys perform. I've seen the house and a ton of pictures.
You guys did like a little radio hang with when
the house was there. What that house has become like
a third member of the band. What's gonna happen?
Speaker 3 (15:16):
It's the most expensive member that we got three of
those houses built.
Speaker 4 (15:20):
We couldn't fit in the dang truck.
Speaker 1 (15:22):
What's the plan after after that's run its.
Speaker 4 (15:24):
Course and we gotta to pay for storage? So you
got any space in the backyard needs.
Speaker 1 (15:28):
You know, drive spring Hill, we'll put it.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
My kids keep asking about it. They're like, Daddy, what
are we When do.
Speaker 6 (15:35):
We get in that house?
Speaker 2 (15:36):
Because I've got to like mention them jokingly.
Speaker 5 (15:38):
Like hey, my asher was like, if you guys are
finished with like you do we get to you think
we could get it? And I was like, Oh, I
don't know, buddy, you know, maybe don't ever say maybe
it's a yes in your kids mind. I should have
never said anything everywhere like do you think that they're
like almost done with it? I'm like, dude, we don't
where are we going to put that? First of all,
like we're gonna have to either live in it or
it's gonna have to go in our backyard. And I
(15:58):
was like, I mean, I'll I'll do it. I'll live
in that house with you guys. If you really want
to do that, let's do It's.
Speaker 6 (16:03):
Yeah, we'll see.
Speaker 4 (16:03):
It's still pretty sturdy. Honestly it is.
Speaker 1 (16:05):
Well it's and you guys climb up on it, right,
I mean, you're not like huge individuals. I'm not saying that.
Speaker 3 (16:11):
Well, there's multiple iterations of this house. The first one
was like a little bit flimsy. It was for the
music video. It wasn't meant to be like, you know,
knocked around at a truck. We did like a little
event when the record came out. We had a bunch
of writers and one of our co writers on the song.
I'm not going to say which one, but his name
starts with an A.
Speaker 4 (16:27):
He got on the house.
Speaker 3 (16:28):
And like there's like a little railing on the front,
like a little picket fence around the front. Knock the
whole thing off, like just I mean, it was like
toothpicks and his defense like one little flick of the
thing and it was down. So that was our cue.
It was like, this thing ain't going on the road
with us. We got to get a reinforced one. And
then it was like, okay, cool, we got this stage design,
big lights, big risers were coming out of the floor
and doing all this stuff, and it's like the guy's
(16:49):
bad news. We can't fit the house in the truck.
I'm like, what are you talking about. You can't fit
that house in a truck.
Speaker 4 (16:54):
Come on, pay all this money for it.
Speaker 3 (16:56):
So like the ultimate solution was to cut the house
in half vertically and then like then it fit in
two pieces, you know, you slid it in and then
it wheeled on stage and they were like, what can't
fit through the doors in these arenas. I was like,
how does the zamboni fit through the freaking doors in
the arenas? You know?
Speaker 4 (17:12):
Well, yeah, that's I shut him down with that one.
Speaker 3 (17:14):
As you should cut the house in half and it's
slid in the truck somehow, And then they had to
like in the fifteen seconds between the songs, the crew
guys assembled it on stage. So shout out to the
crew guys for assembling a house in fifteen seconds. That's
about how fast they do in Nashville these days anyways.
Speaker 1 (17:29):
But but I will tell you, you take this beautiful song
bigger houses and there's a house, and then you make
it a song about divorce and split the house.
Speaker 6 (17:35):
And right here, come on, are you a songwriter?
Speaker 1 (17:43):
I do have some ideas.
Speaker 6 (17:45):
I think it out.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
At what point do you go, let's make Christmas music?
Because that's kind of a ballsy choice to make, right
because there's a lot of people that tried in it.
Speaker 5 (17:56):
So yeah, it's a tough thing to do. And I
will say this, this has kind of been ten years
in the making. The very first song we did was
have Yourself in Mary Little Christmas, and that was always
explain eventually the album was was obviously the plan to
put together, you know, a body of work. But it's
really tough because you've got to do it in between.
You can't record it at Christmas time. You know, you've
(18:17):
got you're starting in January, you know, in a new year,
and for us, we've always been rolling and rolling, so
it's really tough to like, in between tours and between
writing an actual you know record that's not a Christmas record,
trying to find the time to do that is really difficult.
So it kind of started, you know, we had put
together some songs. We had written you know, one or
two songs this year, you know, I mean in previous years,
(18:39):
and we put out some original Christmas music and that
really it went over really well with our fans, and
the songs that you know there went platinum, and it
was like, all right, we can go into the Christmas space.
And the dream was to do it, you know, an album.
And when it came time, it was January of this year.
I'm trying to think of what year it is. I
think it was this year. We had a it was
(18:59):
a a snow fall here in Nashville and we just
kind of that kind of started it all. Dan had,
you know, texted me. I was like, hey, we let's
let's come work on this thing. And we just started
writing songs. We had a little bit of a break
and we started writing some songs for the Christmas record.
And about halfway through this kind of process, Dan was like,
I think I can pull it off, which already doing
one album is a lot trying to pull off a
(19:22):
double album in a year when we're touring all summer
and in the spring was like, this is gonna be
a big undertaking and for me, I could do it
really easy because my stuff takes like two days. Dan's
gonna spend the next nine months, you know, trying to
you know, make this record happen. And it was just
awesome that it that it came together, and I you know,
kudos to Dan for somehow pulling this off in between
(19:42):
all the other stuff that we had going on. But
it kind of started there in January and we put
together all these songs and put together our favorite songs
and people were like, how did you how.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
Did you choose and like we kind of didn't have to.
We put them all on there.
Speaker 4 (19:53):
Every single Christmas song that's ever been written and recorded.
Speaker 1 (19:56):
We did it. We did it.
Speaker 5 (19:57):
It was just all all of the songs, not all
the hits, just all this So yeah, man, I you know,
we somehow, I say we very uh loosely, Dan somehow
pulled this off, and I'm just so proud of how
it turned out.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
Man.
Speaker 6 (20:08):
He did a great job on the production.
Speaker 5 (20:09):
And we really wanted this to be a timeless classic,
you know, not only the actual classics that we did, uh,
but the songs that we had that were originals. You know,
we felt like we really had some some special songs
that would be you know, for that next generation. You
know my kids now, you know, growing up listening to
this record. I have just about wore out Officially Christmas
because literally we got a CD player. My kids discovered
(20:32):
CD players and DVD players. They were just enthralled with
the idea that she didn't have to do on the
internet get out of Christmas exactly every single night.
Speaker 2 (20:40):
I have this like fifteen dollars CD player. Every night.
Speaker 5 (20:43):
If you were to like deliver some re eats to
my house, I promise you will hear Officially Christmas playing
on repeat, by the way, which I that's devastating. That's
a feature on those little players. He wants to listen
to Officially Christmas on repeat, and I'm talking about from
seven thirty to until he gets up in the morning.
Speaker 2 (20:59):
I can just hear it's a Phishi Christmas.
Speaker 3 (21:02):
And I'm like, oh, dear God, I said, you could
at least put them on the streaming service.
Speaker 4 (21:07):
You ain't getting points for that on the CD.
Speaker 6 (21:09):
No points.
Speaker 1 (21:09):
My favorite part is you know that I'm paid so
little that I'm doing uber it's on the weekends. Thanks
for cooling.
Speaker 2 (21:14):
I don't want to say specifically you.
Speaker 5 (21:16):
I was talking to all the listeners out there, who
are the amazing breaths drivers.
Speaker 1 (21:21):
May you guys put this Christmas music is just as
fantastic as you are outside of holiday music, is it.
Do you feel like there's a challenge to let that
music live its life because it's holiday based versus a
regular damage record.
Speaker 4 (21:36):
It's tough, man.
Speaker 3 (21:36):
I feel like we found this responsibility of Like record
came out October eighteenth, which is early. I apologize to
everybody who's a purist and say you can't celebrate for Halloween.
It's like, come on, guys, we got a finite window
to promote this record.
Speaker 4 (21:48):
We got to make it.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
Successful when you put the album out for the content alone, Yeah, yeah,
for sure.
Speaker 4 (21:53):
Yeah, I gotta get.
Speaker 3 (21:54):
Time, Lise, you know what I mean. October seventeenth, that
thing's going up. You know, we're living and breathing it.
You gotta find in that window. It's like, you got
to put that out. You got to get it in
the stores, you got to get it service to radio,
all the inside baseball here. But December twenty sixth, it
kind of is like cool, guys, what's next? So we
had to push it really really hard. We tried to
have content for like every day coming up. I've got
(22:15):
a lot of content stashed in my phone, some good content,
some absolutely terrible content. It's tough to come up with
like ninety pieces of consecutive content. You guys are doing
it over here. You do a great job of it.
I need to hire y'all next time because I'm not
good at it. But man, it's it's a different kind
of thing promoting it. Like literally did every TV appearance
we could, like, we're grateful for the opportunities, you know
(22:35):
we I think I was counting it in my head.
Speaker 4 (22:37):
We did eleven.
Speaker 3 (22:38):
Songs on TV in like forty eight hours or something
like that. Flew Nashville and New York, did the Thanksgiving Parade,
back to Nashville for like a day, back to New York,
did fallin Today's show, tree Lighting, flew to La did
the Voice, came back to the SEC Championship in Atlanta.
It's nuts nuts, And now we're doing Christmas at the Opera,
(22:59):
which is awesome. At least you get to sleep in
your own bed.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
For that one last thing I want to ask because
I know we're wrapping it up. Christmas music is iconic.
There's so many songs that people, you know, their go
tos and andy you put them on and it brings
up memories from Grandma's house and parents' house. You guys
now have music like that. Tay and I just did
our top Christmas songs, and on her list was it's
officially Christmas tops.
Speaker 6 (23:21):
Let's go, what does that?
Speaker 1 (23:23):
What does that mean to you guys? To Your music
speaks for itself, but there's something special about a Christmas
music that can Christmas song that can last like that.
Speaker 5 (23:32):
Man, you know, that's exactly what we had in mind
when we were creating this project. And I and I'm
you know, living breathing proof of that. I, you know,
right now in my house, Like I'm kind of passing
along those Christmas songs.
Speaker 6 (23:43):
Selfishly.
Speaker 5 (23:43):
It's mostly our music because that's kind of what we've
been doing for the last year. But I watch my kids, man,
and I'm watching this happen, you know, and now there
he brought some CDs to his school and like that,
now they have their favorite Christmas songs, and like, I'm
so proud of that because I, you know, a Christmas
record is very different than a normal, you know, album,
full album. You obviously you have songs that are going
(24:03):
to live on forever, and you hope that, like you know,
with your super fans, they know every song on the record,
but with this Christmas album, it's something that doesn't just
go away after you know, an album cycle. This is
something that is going to be a part of our
legacy for the next one hundred years, and our hope
would be, you know, in ten years a lot like
has happened with our other music. In ten years, a
you know, a girl that was little, that was five
(24:25):
years old, who is now fifteen tells us this lifetime
of stories.
Speaker 6 (24:29):
You know, pretty good, dude, pretty good.
Speaker 5 (24:31):
You know you're able to kind of hear all those
stories and the memories, and especially with Christmas music, it's
tied so heavily to a moment in time when you think,
I think back to a lot of the classics that
we recorded, I remember those songs when I was a kid,
and I remember the year that I got my Nintendo
sixty four. I remember the year I got my favorite
Power Rangers thing, you know, and I remember all these moments.
There's a song directly tied to that. I remember the
(24:51):
first country song that ever heard when I was a kid,
Like I remember those moments, and I feel like it's
we want to be that for this next generation of people,
just you know, every year having that plate in their
homes and just that that it would bring so much
joy and be as much of a blessing to other
people as it has been to us already this year.
Speaker 2 (25:08):
Like I want that for the next fifty years.
Speaker 5 (25:11):
I hope that when we're eighty five years old, you know,
there's an entire you know, few generations that have listened
to this, this Christmas album and just have gotten so
much joy from that.
Speaker 6 (25:21):
And that's that's what it's all about. Man.
Speaker 5 (25:22):
I hope that we bring a little bit more goodness
into the world than when we found it. And I'm
really really proud of what not just the actual music,
but what this means for the next twenty five fifty,
one hundred years of Dan and Shay.
Speaker 1 (25:34):
That's awesome. I'm down for one hundred more years, by
the way, let's go.
Speaker 4 (25:37):
Let's go the first year though.
Speaker 5 (25:40):
Yeah, it's like Legos Legos or like it says ninety nine,
it's like it's like zero to nine.
Speaker 2 (25:45):
When you hit one hundred, you're done.
Speaker 5 (25:47):
Don't touch legosy Ry Christmas, guys, Harry Christmas.
It's Wayne Dan studio with the boys.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
Dan and say, how.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Y'all doing good to see you, brother, what's happening to
see you? I haven't seen y'all since Award season. Things
slowing down, How you're feeling about the rest of the year.
Speaker 3 (00:08):
Chewing out a little bit? I overdressed Nashville is like
the weather's been nuts, Dude. One day it's ten degrees,
the next day it's seventy degrees.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
See, I thought maybe you went like GQ.
Speaker 4 (00:18):
I'm trying. I'm just trying to keep it because.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
To be funny, when I saw y'all at CFAs about
you're like, look, he's making fun of how we're dressing.
Speaker 5 (00:27):
Well, I wasn't gonna make fun of your shirt. I
think your shirt it's cool no matter what Dan thinks
about it, you know what I mean?
Speaker 6 (00:32):
I think that's I think.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
They have that like judgment, so like, oh you wore
that today?
Speaker 4 (00:35):
Are you getting changed for the interview? Now cameras, this
isn't on camera.
Speaker 6 (00:40):
You just say this is audio for you either, this
is great.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
How how do you approach award season? Is how those
things wrap up? Like, cause it's there's a lot of
stress going into it and then once the amaze that's
kind of like the end of the year.
Speaker 6 (00:55):
It feels like right it is, man.
Speaker 5 (00:56):
You know, I feel like at this point in our career,
you know, we've been blessed enough to have you know,
won every award that we can win in our in
our genre for you know, being up for something, and you.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Try to get to that place where it's like, all right, just.
Speaker 5 (01:08):
To be you know, nominated is an honor, and we
really are in that place. I think for every artist
would be lying if you said that going into it,
it isn't just anxiety or ridden and like there's just
so much pressure because you love all the people in
your category. Those are your friends, and so it's really
tough when you kind of go into that moment. And
even if you're just like all right, you know, if
(01:29):
you're you're okay with just being nominated, it stinks because
you go in there and you're like, all right, somebody's
gonna be a winner and someone's gonna be a loser tonight,
and it's just it's tough. Man. I feel like every
artist struggles with it, but we really have gotten to
a place that's what makes it great about being in
a duo.
Speaker 6 (01:43):
We always talk about this.
Speaker 5 (01:44):
You know, the highs are even higher and the lows
aren't as low, and we're really able to kind of
remind each other like, hey, this, it really is amazing
that we get to do this, and you know, we
can kind of remind each other. It's probably a lot
tougher for a lot of the solo acts, who are
just kind of there by themselves with the smiles, like I'm.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
So happy that I didn't win, But no, I feel
like it's.
Speaker 6 (02:02):
You know, I feel like it is very uh, it's stressful, but.
Speaker 5 (02:06):
At the same time, it is one of the only
times in the year that you get to see everybody,
and it really is just kind of a family affair,
and we really have gotten to that place in our
career where it's like, man, we are we really are
lucky to still be doing this and to be able
to still be invited. There was a time when we
we weren't invited, and so to kind of go back
to that place and be like, you know what, this
is pretty amazing that we get to be a part
(02:26):
of such an incredible thing.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
Although I'm surprised it didn't go viral. I did notice
Dan Lean over to you when Brooks and done one
and I'm a great lip reader. Move aside, Grandpa, is
what you said?
Speaker 4 (02:38):
Hey, you gotta get your glasses checked. Me go.
Speaker 3 (02:42):
We have some like potentially viral moments at that award show.
There's a funny moment we're sitting there. Luke Combs is
performing Ain't No Love in Oklahoma, which could just goes
so hard, you know, and Bailey Zimmerman was like walking
you know, you know, he's such like a ball of
energy's so positive, so happy to be there. And he's
walking past our seats and they're like, all right, and
second's ten seconds. You know how they usher everybody and
they get the seed fillers in there. I was like,
(03:03):
you're not gonna make it, dude, You're not gonna make it.
The camera's right there. Peyton Manning, Luke, Bryan Laney Wilson
are like and up next with the song from the
Twisters soundtrack, Luke Combs, and I was like, sit dout,
sit on getting my aisle. He sat on my lap
and we're just going absolutely bananas. When Luke comes doing
a No Love in Oklahoma, the camera was on us
the whole time. I didn't watch the playback, but like
if I'm that switcher guy backstage doing the camera, I'm like,
(03:25):
I'm keeping it on Dan and Billy's and the whole
time it looked ridiculous like father and son vibes, you
know what I'm saying, Like, yeah, I told you this
guy's good.
Speaker 6 (03:33):
You know it was.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
It was crazy because they also like those people.
Speaker 5 (03:36):
Are obviously they have a job to do it, like
when they're in the aisles, they're pretty aggressive with like
shoving people out of the way. And right before that,
like whenever Laney and them were announcing it, they had
this like fan blowing on them to announce it, you know,
like the whole you know play on words.
Speaker 4 (03:50):
Like a spinning fan, not like a fan.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
It was an actual like blowing fan.
Speaker 5 (03:57):
And it's like, you know, they're trying to make it
where it looks like they're in the storm and all
this stuff. And so they they all but shoved Bailey aside,
and he got there was no option but to sit
on Dan's left because the camera was taking up most
of the aisle. And I was like, man, the lady,
I thought she was going to shoot somebody. She was
very angry with who she didn't realize that whoever it was,
she was just like.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
You gotta move, you gotta move.
Speaker 5 (04:19):
We got three seconds and I was like, oh my gosh,
it was it was. It was a wild, uh wild
thirty seconds there.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
You guys, you look at a show like that, and
it evolves over the years, especially with I feel like
over the last two years it's been and obviously social
media has been a large help. The rush of new
artists and new songs is like stronger than ever. What's
that like for you guys who have who have done
what you do at such a high level for so long.
What's it like to see where country was when you
(04:46):
got here to where it is now?
Speaker 4 (04:49):
It's cool, man, Honestly, I think it's evolved a lot.
Speaker 3 (04:51):
There's like it's gone through a crazy roller coaster revolution
of different sounds. It's been more pop leaning, it's been
more country leaning, and now I feel like the door
is why open for stuff that's as you know, country
and his cowboys Cody Johnson or Parker McCollum, who are
good friends of ours, you know. And then you've still
got guys like Bailey Zimmer and pushing the envelope, Sam
Hunt and I feel like when we came onto the scene,
(05:12):
you know, twenty thirteen, twenty fourteen, our sound was pretty progressive,
but I feel like being a part of that movement
that kind of broke some doors down, you know, introduced people.
We had some songs that were grateful for it, crossed
over to different genres.
Speaker 4 (05:25):
How they see Top forty, you know.
Speaker 3 (05:26):
Songs that started at country, Tequila, Speechless, you know those
tunes ten thousand hours with Bieber. I feel like we're
the start of bringing people in from other genres. You know,
Shania Twain's done it in the past, Garth Brooks has
done it in the past, and you know, now Morgan's
doing it. You know, his songs are all over Top
forty radio. And the coolest compliment we could get from
somebody out there on the road is like, yo, man,
I never listened to country before, but I was listening
(05:48):
to you know, whatever station, Kids FM, and I heard
Dan and Shay on there, and I now I got
country program in my car. And that's cool because there's
just so much good country music to be discovered now,
more than ever, especially with streaming, you know, more genre
or more artists coming into the scene every single day.
I can't even keep up with it. It's nuts, even
on our own record label, you know. I asked my wife,
I'm like, can you name ten percent of these artists?
Speaker 5 (06:07):
It's wild.
Speaker 3 (06:08):
But it's a good thing, man, it's a good thing.
People are making great music out there. Touring is bigger
than ever. I feel like there's more country headliners. I
was talking about this with somebody last night.
Speaker 4 (06:17):
I was like, there are so.
Speaker 3 (06:18):
Many arena, amphitheater, and now stadium level country headliners.
Speaker 4 (06:23):
It's it's insane.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
You know.
Speaker 4 (06:25):
The fan base is just huge.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
As you see that the stadium thing coming to play
because arenas, like country lived in arenas and really up
until the last few years like that became garth. Did
you know the big the massive venues. Does that open
up goals that maybe you guys didn't have at some point,
like hey, what if what if you know we put
something together and made a swing at some of those
(06:50):
type of venues at some point.
Speaker 6 (06:51):
Absolutely, I think every artist does.
Speaker 5 (06:53):
I think in the beginning, I think my goals were
so much smaller than they are now. They start out
like our dream was to be able to play like
a thousand caps, Like growing up, mine was like, you know,
George's Majestic Lounge in Fayeville, Arkansas. It was like, man,
whoever's playing there, they're the biggest artists in the world,
you know, And it was like, I think that was
(07:14):
kind of my goal. You know, my favorite bands were
all playing these five hundred caps two fifty caps, and
I feel like, as you, you know, progress in your career,
we were just blown away that we were able to
have anyone come to our shows. And I think that
as you go along in your career and you have,
we've never had this like, oh we've got.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
To get to stadiums or we've been a failure.
Speaker 5 (07:32):
I think though, as you've you reached those goals, there's
a natural I always say to be content but not complacent,
Like I'm very happy and you know with the way
our career has gone and the things we've gotten to do,
but I think you always kind of have to look
ahead and be like, you know what, what can we
set our sights on next?
Speaker 6 (07:49):
In a healthy way.
Speaker 5 (07:50):
In the past, we've we've done that in an unhealthy
way where it's like you set these goals and these
expectations and then if you don't meet them, you know,
your happiness is, you know, you feel like you're not
happy with your I think that we have fully kind
of changed our perspective on that, and you know, give
you know, enjoy what life gives you and the opportunities
that you're given. We definitely have our our sights on
(08:10):
bigger things, you know. I think that you kind of
have to to keep moving forward, and it would be
amazing to one day make it to stadiums, and I
think every.
Speaker 6 (08:18):
Artist would would say that.
Speaker 5 (08:19):
But if we never get to that point, I'm also like,
it's insane that we get to do arenas in these amphitheaters,
Like that's the craziest thing in the world. But yeah,
there's definitely those those ambitions in the back of my mind.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
Content but not complacent is like a way of life,
and I've never heard it said like that before. Yeah,
we talked to you guys as you were putting new
music out, and you were in the best mental place,
you know, individually but collectively that you've maybe ever been.
As you look back on, you know, the last year
now that you've been in this more clear headspace and
(08:53):
been able to appreciate things a little more, what's the
last year been like versus maybe years in the past.
Speaker 4 (08:59):
It's been a maya, man.
Speaker 3 (09:00):
I feel like we've been able to soak in this
year a little bit more than the past. We've gotten
to do all kinds of stuff.
Speaker 5 (09:05):
Man.
Speaker 3 (09:05):
We've gotten to have number ones on country radio thanks
to folks like you. Weve gotten a play Arenas, sold out,
Bridgestone just down the way, gotten to play amphitheaters for
the first time, headlining. We've opened for everybody in those amphitheaters,
Blake Sheldon, Darius Rucker, you know, Rascal Flats, fgl But
to get to go into those amps and headline, see
our name on the top of the marquee, see you know,
ten thousand people up in that lawn going crazy singing
(09:26):
the words.
Speaker 4 (09:27):
How was that kid?
Speaker 2 (09:27):
Man?
Speaker 3 (09:28):
I still feel like that kid, you know, especially this year,
bringing it back to like the basics, the fundamentals, and
just appreciating it all. I feel like we had those
moments on stage where we're like, dude, this they're singing
bigger houses. This is like we're up here with an
acoustic guitar sitting on this little house and they're singing
this freaking song back to us.
Speaker 4 (09:44):
I feel like in the past. You know, we're going,
going and going.
Speaker 3 (09:47):
Tequilu's happening. Speechless has happened, and we didn't take that.
You know, we've talked about this before. We didn't take
that moment to sit back, to soak it in and
be like this is really freaking cool, you know. And
this go around, we had moments where we probably were
a little unprofession on stage where we were just like
we sat there for five minutes and just soaked it in,
like dude, We looked at each other, hugged it out,
set it to the fans like, oh man, I just
(10:08):
I need a sec like this is a dream come true.
Because there was a moment that we weren't sure if
we were ever going to get to do that again.
To stand on that stage and to be back up
there have so much love from the fans from country
radio is just unbelievable.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
How do you make sure because it felt and I
don't want to put the words in your mouth, but
it felt like you guys were at a breaking point
like hey, like you do your thing, I'm gonna do
my thing. Love you not by, but uh, how do
you make sure to not get back there and not
that you had problems with each other. I don't want
to like paint that, but like, how do you make
(10:42):
sure that you don't get back to a place where
you're like, I need to do my thing, dude.
Speaker 5 (10:46):
Well, I think it's communication is the number one thing
in any kind of relationship, whether that's a marriage or
a friendship.
Speaker 6 (10:52):
And we've done a really.
Speaker 5 (10:53):
Good job about that of keeping everything of Like, hey,
at the end of the day, you know, obviously we
have an amazing team and we have things kind of
go out from there, but it starts with us, and
we have to make sure that you know, Dan and
I are on the same page at all points in time.
You know, if I if he knows that you know,
something bothers me, or if I know that something bothers him, Like,
I've got his back one hundred percent, he's got mine.
(11:13):
And I think starting there and then moving out is
the way that leadership kind of has to work because
we're running also a business, you know, and we have
a lot of people that we really care about that
or you know, that are working with us, you know,
to make this whole thing happen, and we want to
make sure that it's working in the healthiest way that
it possibly can. And the best way for that to
happen is that Dan and I got to be on
the same page at all points in time, and I
(11:33):
know that we're at a place in our friendship in
our career that we can be really honest with each other,
just like, hey man, this is I'm not feeling this.
Speaker 6 (11:41):
I really don't want to do this. And when you
can kind.
Speaker 5 (11:44):
Of get to that place, it's a very sustainable model,
I think when you see things that have happened, because
I've looked at this really carefully because it hit home
a lot closer than I ever thought it would. You
look at all these duos that broke up and you
look at like what happened there, and think that as
your career goes along, you're a lot easy, Like you're
(12:04):
much more separated in moments than you used to be.
Speaker 6 (12:07):
You know, when we were in one bus, you know,
and you're there and.
Speaker 5 (12:10):
You're, whether you like it or not, we're talking for
seven hours, you know, on that bus, and I think that,
you know, as your career goes along, you know, you
have those the ability to kind of have a little
bit more space, which is amazing, you know, for your
life and your career. But if you don't have those
moments of communication, that's when things just kind of fall apart.
Because if you just don't talk to somebody for a
while and the only times you see each other is
(12:32):
on stage or in little points when you have to
do something professional, it gets really you know, things, little
things can turn into two big things really quickly. And
we've seen that over the career of not only country duos,
but pop duos and rock duos, and it's just, you know,
we try to learn from that and rather than fall
into those same traps, we just, man, let's let's talk
it out, because you'd be surprised what can change over
(12:55):
a conversation of just something very very small, you know,
and being very human.
Speaker 1 (12:59):
But these moments, the way you worded something and that
answer was awesome, and I want to give you credit
for it, because a lot of people would be like
a lot of people would word that, Oh, I have
a lot of people. We have a lot of people
depending on us. You said, we have a lot of
people making this work with us, right, So it's obviously
you vision yourself in the trenches with them versus like
here's Dan and Shay and they're you know, holding us up.
(13:22):
Have you always thought that way? Have you always are?
Did it take you a second to step back and
be like, hey, we're all rolling this boat.
Speaker 3 (13:28):
I think it's hard sometimes, man, because I've those are
our boys, Like we came up with those guys.
Speaker 4 (13:32):
I've known those guys for twenty years.
Speaker 3 (13:33):
We've been playing music, touring in vans, playing in bars, clubs,
doing the whole thing for so long. And like it's
sometimes weird that our names on the T shirt. I guess,
like that's an imposter syndrome thing that we battle with
sometimes Sometimes we have to be like, all right, we're
taking responsibility.
Speaker 4 (13:48):
We got to go do this, or our names on
the thing or whatever.
Speaker 3 (13:50):
I'm like, no, Like, we're all in this, man, this
is our crew. These are our guys, and we're so
grateful for him. Man.
Speaker 4 (13:56):
We would, honestly, we would have nothing without them.
Speaker 3 (13:58):
You know. It's like they put as much time as
we do. Like I'm away from my wife and dogs,
Chase away from his wife and the kids, Like so
are they, you know, and like they might not get
the glory of getting to accept that trophy on stage
or you know, have their name on the thing.
Speaker 4 (14:11):
So it's like, I don't know.
Speaker 3 (14:12):
I think like keeping that humble attitude has allowed us
to do it at this level for so long.
Speaker 4 (14:18):
I don't know, man.
Speaker 3 (14:18):
And also, again, like Shay said earlier, being in a duo,
keeping each other in check. If somebody starts getting out
of line, it's like, dude, come on, come on, Like
we're still the same guys that were riding around in
old Blue with fourteen guys on the bus, you know
what I mean, Like still literally the same guys and uh, man,
just these things that we get to do, and also
having like our crew and that close knit of a
community out there makes us appreciate it more.
Speaker 6 (14:39):
You know.
Speaker 4 (14:40):
It's the same dudes who were like that.
Speaker 3 (14:41):
We'll send like throwback pictures of the group chat like,
look at these dudes from back, you know, like when
we started touring, playing Joe's on Weed Street or Cannery
Ballroom here I think our first headlining show in Nashville
or soul Shine Pizza, Like everybody listening to soul Shine
that's like a long time ago. We're aging ourselves right now,
but doing riders rounds there, man, and it's, uh, it's
I don't know, We're grateful those guys are stuck with
(15:02):
us that this long over ten years.
Speaker 4 (15:04):
That's that's crazy.
Speaker 1 (15:05):
You were talking about the house that's on stages you
guys perform. I've seen the house and a ton of pictures.
You guys did like a little radio hang with when
the house was there. What that house has become like
a third member of the band. What's gonna happen?
Speaker 3 (15:16):
It's the most expensive member that we got three of
those houses built.
Speaker 4 (15:20):
We couldn't fit in the dang truck.
Speaker 1 (15:22):
What's the plan after after that's run its.
Speaker 4 (15:24):
Course and we gotta to pay for storage? So you
got any space in the backyard needs.
Speaker 1 (15:28):
You know, drive spring Hill, we'll put it.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
My kids keep asking about it. They're like, Daddy, what
are we When do.
Speaker 6 (15:35):
We get in that house?
Speaker 2 (15:36):
Because I've got to like mention them jokingly.
Speaker 5 (15:38):
Like hey, my asher was like, if you guys are
finished with like you do we get to you think
we could get it? And I was like, Oh, I
don't know, buddy, you know, maybe don't ever say maybe
it's a yes in your kids mind. I should have
never said anything everywhere like do you think that they're
like almost done with it? I'm like, dude, we don't
where are we going to put that? First of all,
like we're gonna have to either live in it or
it's gonna have to go in our backyard. And I
(15:58):
was like, I mean, I'll I'll do it. I'll live
in that house with you guys. If you really want
to do that, let's do It's.
Speaker 6 (16:03):
Yeah, we'll see.
Speaker 4 (16:03):
It's still pretty sturdy. Honestly it is.
Speaker 1 (16:05):
Well it's and you guys climb up on it, right,
I mean, you're not like huge individuals. I'm not saying that.
Speaker 3 (16:11):
Well, there's multiple iterations of this house. The first one
was like a little bit flimsy. It was for the
music video. It wasn't meant to be like, you know,
knocked around at a truck. We did like a little
event when the record came out. We had a bunch
of writers and one of our co writers on the song.
I'm not going to say which one, but his name
starts with an A.
Speaker 4 (16:27):
He got on the house.
Speaker 3 (16:28):
And like there's like a little railing on the front,
like a little picket fence around the front. Knock the
whole thing off, like just I mean, it was like
toothpicks and his defense like one little flick of the
thing and it was down. So that was our cue.
It was like, this thing ain't going on the road
with us. We got to get a reinforced one. And
then it was like, okay, cool, we got this stage design,
big lights, big risers were coming out of the floor
and doing all this stuff, and it's like the guy's
(16:49):
bad news. We can't fit the house in the truck.
I'm like, what are you talking about. You can't fit
that house in a truck.
Speaker 4 (16:54):
Come on, pay all this money for it.
Speaker 3 (16:56):
So like the ultimate solution was to cut the house
in half vertically and then like then it fit in
two pieces, you know, you slid it in and then
it wheeled on stage and they were like, what can't
fit through the doors in these arenas. I was like,
how does the zamboni fit through the freaking doors in
the arenas? You know?
Speaker 4 (17:12):
Well, yeah, that's I shut him down with that one.
Speaker 3 (17:14):
As you should cut the house in half and it's
slid in the truck somehow, And then they had to
like in the fifteen seconds between the songs, the crew
guys assembled it on stage. So shout out to the
crew guys for assembling a house in fifteen seconds. That's
about how fast they do in Nashville these days anyways.
Speaker 1 (17:29):
But but I will tell you, you take this beautiful song
bigger houses and there's a house, and then you make
it a song about divorce and split the house.
Speaker 6 (17:35):
And right here, come on, are you a songwriter?
Speaker 1 (17:43):
I do have some ideas.
Speaker 6 (17:45):
I think it out.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
At what point do you go, let's make Christmas music?
Because that's kind of a ballsy choice to make, right
because there's a lot of people that tried in it.
Speaker 5 (17:56):
So yeah, it's a tough thing to do. And I
will say this, this has kind of been ten years
in the making. The very first song we did was
have Yourself in Mary Little Christmas, and that was always
explain eventually the album was was obviously the plan to
put together, you know, a body of work. But it's
really tough because you've got to do it in between.
You can't record it at Christmas time. You know, you've
(18:17):
got you're starting in January, you know, in a new year,
and for us, we've always been rolling and rolling, so
it's really tough to like, in between tours and between
writing an actual you know record that's not a Christmas record,
trying to find the time to do that is really difficult.
So it kind of started, you know, we had put
together some songs. We had written you know, one or
two songs this year, you know, I mean in previous years,
(18:39):
and we put out some original Christmas music and that
really it went over really well with our fans, and
the songs that you know there went platinum, and it
was like, all right, we can go into the Christmas space.
And the dream was to do it, you know, an album.
And when it came time, it was January of this year.
I'm trying to think of what year it is. I
think it was this year. We had a it was
(18:59):
a a snow fall here in Nashville and we just
kind of that kind of started it all. Dan had,
you know, texted me. I was like, hey, we let's
let's come work on this thing. And we just started
writing songs. We had a little bit of a break
and we started writing some songs for the Christmas record.
And about halfway through this kind of process, Dan was like,
I think I can pull it off, which already doing
one album is a lot trying to pull off a
(19:22):
double album in a year when we're touring all summer
and in the spring was like, this is gonna be
a big undertaking and for me, I could do it
really easy because my stuff takes like two days. Dan's
gonna spend the next nine months, you know, trying to
you know, make this record happen. And it was just
awesome that it that it came together, and I you know,
kudos to Dan for somehow pulling this off in between
(19:42):
all the other stuff that we had going on. But
it kind of started there in January and we put
together all these songs and put together our favorite songs
and people were like, how did you how.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
Did you choose and like we kind of didn't have to.
We put them all on there.
Speaker 4 (19:53):
Every single Christmas song that's ever been written and recorded.
Speaker 1 (19:56):
We did it. We did it.
Speaker 5 (19:57):
It was just all all of the songs, not all
the hits, just all this So yeah, man, I you know,
we somehow, I say we very uh loosely, Dan somehow
pulled this off, and I'm just so proud of how
it turned out.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
Man.
Speaker 6 (20:08):
He did a great job on the production.
Speaker 5 (20:09):
And we really wanted this to be a timeless classic,
you know, not only the actual classics that we did, uh,
but the songs that we had that were originals. You know,
we felt like we really had some some special songs
that would be you know, for that next generation. You
know my kids now, you know, growing up listening to
this record. I have just about wore out Officially Christmas
because literally we got a CD player. My kids discovered
(20:32):
CD players and DVD players. They were just enthralled with
the idea that she didn't have to do on the
internet get out of Christmas exactly every single night.
Speaker 2 (20:40):
I have this like fifteen dollars CD player. Every night.
Speaker 5 (20:43):
If you were to like deliver some re eats to
my house, I promise you will hear Officially Christmas playing
on repeat, by the way, which I that's devastating. That's
a feature on those little players. He wants to listen
to Officially Christmas on repeat, and I'm talking about from
seven thirty to until he gets up in the morning.
Speaker 2 (20:59):
I can just hear it's a Phishi Christmas.
Speaker 3 (21:02):
And I'm like, oh, dear God, I said, you could
at least put them on the streaming service.
Speaker 4 (21:07):
You ain't getting points for that on the CD.
Speaker 6 (21:09):
No points.
Speaker 1 (21:09):
My favorite part is you know that I'm paid so
little that I'm doing uber it's on the weekends. Thanks
for cooling.
Speaker 2 (21:14):
I don't want to say specifically you.
Speaker 5 (21:16):
I was talking to all the listeners out there, who
are the amazing breaths drivers.
Speaker 1 (21:21):
May you guys put this Christmas music is just as
fantastic as you are outside of holiday music, is it.
Do you feel like there's a challenge to let that
music live its life because it's holiday based versus a
regular damage record.
Speaker 4 (21:36):
It's tough, man.
Speaker 3 (21:36):
I feel like we found this responsibility of Like record
came out October eighteenth, which is early. I apologize to
everybody who's a purist and say you can't celebrate for Halloween.
It's like, come on, guys, we got a finite window
to promote this record.
Speaker 4 (21:48):
We got to make it.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
Successful when you put the album out for the content alone, Yeah, yeah,
for sure.
Speaker 4 (21:53):
Yeah, I gotta get.
Speaker 3 (21:54):
Time, Lise, you know what I mean. October seventeenth, that
thing's going up. You know, we're living and breathing it.
You gotta find in that window. It's like, you got
to put that out. You got to get it in
the stores, you got to get it service to radio,
all the inside baseball here. But December twenty sixth, it
kind of is like cool, guys, what's next? So we
had to push it really really hard. We tried to
have content for like every day coming up. I've got
(22:15):
a lot of content stashed in my phone, some good content,
some absolutely terrible content. It's tough to come up with
like ninety pieces of consecutive content. You guys are doing
it over here. You do a great job of it.
I need to hire y'all next time because I'm not
good at it. But man, it's it's a different kind
of thing promoting it. Like literally did every TV appearance
we could, like, we're grateful for the opportunities, you know
(22:35):
we I think I was counting it in my head.
Speaker 4 (22:37):
We did eleven.
Speaker 3 (22:38):
Songs on TV in like forty eight hours or something
like that. Flew Nashville and New York, did the Thanksgiving Parade,
back to Nashville for like a day, back to New York,
did fallin Today's show, tree Lighting, flew to La did
the Voice, came back to the SEC Championship in Atlanta.
It's nuts nuts, And now we're doing Christmas at the Opera,
(22:59):
which is awesome. At least you get to sleep in
your own bed.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
For that one last thing I want to ask because
I know we're wrapping it up. Christmas music is iconic.
There's so many songs that people, you know, their go
tos and andy you put them on and it brings
up memories from Grandma's house and parents' house. You guys
now have music like that. Tay and I just did
our top Christmas songs, and on her list was it's
officially Christmas tops.
Speaker 6 (23:21):
Let's go, what does that?
Speaker 1 (23:23):
What does that mean to you guys? To Your music
speaks for itself, but there's something special about a Christmas
music that can Christmas song that can last like that.
Speaker 5 (23:32):
Man, you know, that's exactly what we had in mind
when we were creating this project. And I and I'm
you know, living breathing proof of that. I, you know,
right now in my house, Like I'm kind of passing
along those Christmas songs.
Speaker 6 (23:43):
Selfishly.
Speaker 5 (23:43):
It's mostly our music because that's kind of what we've
been doing for the last year. But I watch my kids, man,
and I'm watching this happen, you know, and now there
he brought some CDs to his school and like that,
now they have their favorite Christmas songs, and like, I'm
so proud of that because I, you know, a Christmas
record is very different than a normal, you know, album,
full album. You obviously you have songs that are going
(24:03):
to live on forever, and you hope that, like you know,
with your super fans, they know every song on the record,
but with this Christmas album, it's something that doesn't just
go away after you know, an album cycle. This is
something that is going to be a part of our
legacy for the next one hundred years, and our hope
would be, you know, in ten years a lot like
has happened with our other music. In ten years, a
you know, a girl that was little, that was five
(24:25):
years old, who is now fifteen tells us this lifetime
of stories.
Speaker 6 (24:29):
You know, pretty good, dude, pretty good.
Speaker 5 (24:31):
You know you're able to kind of hear all those
stories and the memories, and especially with Christmas music, it's
tied so heavily to a moment in time when you think,
I think back to a lot of the classics that
we recorded, I remember those songs when I was a kid,
and I remember the year that I got my Nintendo
sixty four. I remember the year I got my favorite
Power Rangers thing, you know, and I remember all these moments.
There's a song directly tied to that. I remember the
(24:51):
first country song that ever heard when I was a kid,
Like I remember those moments, and I feel like it's
we want to be that for this next generation of people,
just you know, every year having that plate in their
homes and just that that it would bring so much
joy and be as much of a blessing to other
people as it has been to us already this year.
Speaker 2 (25:08):
Like I want that for the next fifty years.
Speaker 5 (25:11):
I hope that when we're eighty five years old, you know,
there's an entire you know, few generations that have listened
to this, this Christmas album and just have gotten so
much joy from that.
Speaker 6 (25:21):
And that's that's what it's all about. Man.
Speaker 5 (25:22):
I hope that we bring a little bit more goodness
into the world than when we found it. And I'm
really really proud of what not just the actual music,
but what this means for the next twenty five fifty,
one hundred years of Dan and Shay.
Speaker 1 (25:34):
That's awesome. I'm down for one hundred more years, by
the way, let's go.
Speaker 4 (25:37):
Let's go the first year though.
Speaker 5 (25:40):
Yeah, it's like Legos Legos or like it says ninety nine,
it's like it's like zero to nine.
Speaker 2 (25:45):
When you hit one hundred, you're done.
Speaker 5 (25:47):
Don't touch legosy Ry Christmas, guys, Harry Christmas.
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