Dan + Shay on success, grief and saving their partnership

Dan Smyers and Shay Mooney begin with a running joke about how they pronounce Domino’s. Before the duo formed, they were both short of money, and pizza tastings and other research groups were among the ways one of them earned a little extra cash.

They met at a Nashville house party. The house had no heat, air conditioning or working locks; Mooney remembers reaching through a broken pane to open the door and finding Smyers behind sheets hung to keep the room warm.

Williamson asks whether success makes it harder to remain driven. The duo says their circumstances have changed: early struggles offered material to draw on, while settled family life presents different writing challenges.

They say the music business remains unpredictable. Their momentum was interrupted by the pandemic, and they remember how quickly a sold-out touring schedule could disappear. Being in a duo helps them keep each other moving.

They return to a question of why they work. The answer, they say, is that they love writing and performing. They try to replace the feeling that they have to take another trip or play another show with gratitude that an audience wants them there.

Williamson tells them “Tequila” helped convince him to move to America. On a 2019 trip to Nashville, he saw a packed bar wait for a musical change in the song before celebrating together; the experience stayed with him.

The duo performs “Tequila” live in the studio. Afterward they joke about the long final note and the nerves of playing in a quiet room, then talk about the song’s association with the drink and the free tequila they received.

Asked whether the first hit or its follow-up is harder, the musicians say the follow-up can feel harder. Once a song sets a benchmark, they can start treating that success as the minimum every new song must reach.

They have tried to focus on the writing process rather than a result they cannot control. Even a song they believe is as good as an earlier hit may not find the same audience, so enjoying the work matters alongside competitiveness.

Williamson recognizes the tension from podcasting: an achievement can quickly become a new standard rather than a reason to celebrate. He asks how to stay ambitious without measuring every moment by what is still missing.

The duo says winning is exciting, but standards keep moving and someone else will eventually exceed a record. They describe trying to be content without becoming complacent, and thinking of demanding periods as seasons that change.

One of them connects that idea to raising children: an exhausting period with a baby and a toddler can feel impossible to sustain, but it changes. The same perspective helps them think about work and competition.

Award shows are a particular test. They joke about cameras capturing a nominee’s reaction to losing, but say the competition can be difficult even when they admire the winner.

They recall an awards ceremony where they were nominated repeatedly and went home without a win. Looking back, they say it was easy to put too much weight on one result and too little on other things worth celebrating.

The opposite happened with their three Grammys: they were already chasing what came next and did not always pause to appreciate them. Imagining what their younger selves would have thought helps put the achievement in perspective.

Williamson says a difficult season can become a valued memory, yet it is easy to miss it while wishing for the next stage. The musicians remember early radio tours: little sleep and constant travel felt punishing, although a record label was taking them to stations to play their song.

They say sharing those experiences now helps them appreciate them. The hardship was real, but so were the stories and friendships they made, and they feel more able to enjoy similar work today.

One recalls a first UK tour in winter, struggling with the time change and barely seeing daylight while watching the same television show on the bus. What felt miserable then has since become one of the memories they laugh about most.

Asked about the national anthem at the World Cup, the pair describe feeling the scale of the moment even after years of major performances. Watching later clips of people singing along in bars and homes made it feel like a shared national moment rather than just a performance by the duo.

They say they had previously turned down anthem invitations because a mistake can receive far more attention than a successful performance. When their managers called with the World Cup invitation, their first response was anxiety and a series of practical questions.

The proposed arrangement initially felt too fast and elaborate to them. They asked to sing it in a more traditional, stripped-back way so people could join in, and were surprised when the organizers agreed.

On the field, they felt the magnitude of the event. One remembers being distracted when the stadium screen showed David Beckham and Tom Cruise; afterward, they were surprised by how many people approached them at the airport.

For their recent album, the pair had already finished roughly an album’s worth of songs. After management changes and a period of questioning what they wanted to say, they decided those songs did not quite capture the moment they were living through.

They also wondered what human artists could contribute as AI tools became more capable. Writing something closely connected to their present lives gave them an answer for themselves, and the first new song led to about two months of further writing.

They asked why each song needed to exist now. The new material explored time, family and loss in ways they say they might not previously have brought into the writing room.

“Say So” emerged as they and longtime collaborators talked about Ben Vaughn, a friend and early supporter who died by suicide. He had believed in them as writers, helped connect them to opportunities and mattered to them personally.

They say the song arose from that conversation rather than from a planned title or commercial brief. Its subject felt unusually heavy and exposing for a duo known for wedding songs, and they initially wondered whether another artist should record it.

After the session, one played the demo for his wife, who told him that the day would have been Vaughn’s 50th birthday. They say they had not known that while writing, and the coincidence strengthened their conviction that they should release it themselves.

The pair still hope the song succeeds commercially, but say its purpose is larger than a chart position. Messages from listeners who connected with its subject changed how they thought about what the song could do.

They describe meeting a listener who told them the song had helped her through a crisis. The conversation gave them a direct sense of why their work mattered to her, and put hostile online comments into a different perspective.

They say social media can make it easy to mistake a stream of criticism for the whole audience. Face-to-face conversations and gatherings feel different to them, especially after the isolation of the pandemic.

The duo sees useful applications for AI but hopes human-made art remains important to human listeners. They value the connection between a person’s lived experience and the work, even as generated imitations become more convincing.

Williamson asks how writing from actual grief differs from imagining a story. They respect artists who interpret songs written by others, but wanted this album to contain experiences they could sing about with personal conviction.

They describe a different kind of heartbreak from the romantic stories of their twenties: aging, parents getting older, the possibility of losing a spouse and the responsibilities of family. The title track “Young” explores their own experience of getting older.

Asked why sad songs can connect so deeply, they suggest that hearing pain expressed can make a listener feel understood. Williamson adds that recognizing a private feeling in someone else’s words may lessen the sense of being alone.

They contrast the communal happiness of a crowd singing an upbeat song with the empathy they feel when someone hears another person’s sadness.

The pair decides to play “Young” acoustically, saying they have not performed it that way before. They work out the arrangement in the room and then perform the song.

Afterward, one recalls playing the song for his father and becoming emotional. It makes him think of his younger self arriving in Nashville and of his own child looking to him for certainty, even as he feels he is still figuring life out.

The conversation turns to aging. Williamson says physical recovery began to feel different to him in his mid-thirties; the musicians recognize the strange experience of seeing successful artists and athletes younger than themselves.

Their lives are more settled now, they say, and that can make inspiration harder to find. For this record they deliberately wrote autobiographical snapshots of family and everyday life instead of relying only on old romantic upheavals.

They believe listeners value sincerity and respond to details that feel true. Williamson observes that revealing something personal can feel uncomfortable, and suggests that this discomfort may accompany work that connects with others.

The duo says their partnership went through a difficult period around 2021. They had grown older, formed families and spent less time together away from work; rather than one dramatic betrayal, they describe a gradual failure to nurture the friendship.

They were unhappy and sometimes spoke through people around them instead of directly. Seeing other duos struggle made them want, whatever happened professionally, to preserve respect for the memories and accomplishments they shared.

Smyers invited Mooney over before a major tour. Mooney thought the invitation might mean the end of the partnership. Instead, they sat on the porch and spoke openly into the early hours.

Smyers says he began by apologizing for pressures he had put on Mooney, including his own tendency toward pessimism, perfectionism and work. Both describe the conversation as a turning point: they could separate or choose to continue with a different attitude.

Mooney says they did not need to agree on everything. Respecting each other’s different lives and allowing each other to grow mattered more than freezing the other person in the role he had played at the beginning of their career.

They apologized and reassured each other that their friendship mattered regardless of the band’s future. Mooney says their shared goal and renewed respect now give him confidence that they can work through disagreements.

Williamson compares the problem to co-founders who want the same business to succeed but begin to feel like competitors. The pair says they have long tried to put the quality of a song ahead of who contributed a particular line.

Asked what to look for in a partner, they suggest someone who challenges you and draws out your strengths. Smyers describes pushing Mooney for additional vocal takes even when a performance already sounds excellent.

Their temperaments also differ. Smyers says his pessimism sometimes made it hard to enjoy good moments, while Mooney sees part of his own role as bringing optimism. They believe each has made the other better.

They value honest people around them who can distinguish useful feedback from noise. Even after success, a negative online comment can still hurt; one says he recently found himself dwelling on a stranger’s dismissal of the duo.

They argue that online comments give a distorted view of an audience. Playing a show or meeting a listener in person provides a different kind of feedback from reading a hostile message on a screen.

Williamson notes that many podcasters rarely receive immediate audience reactions: they record, publish later and mainly see comments. He has found that asking how excited he feels before a conversation and how it felt afterward can be a more useful measure of his own work.

The duo says a song can attract both praise and harsh criticism at once. They have noticed that a polarizing artist may command attention, although living with that attention and hostility can be painful.

Williamson says nobody hands a creator a manual for dealing with attention, criticism or impostor feelings. The musicians agree that wanting to make music is not the same as knowing how to manage every aspect of public life.

They discuss how music discovery has changed from a more institutionally curated route through radio and appearances to an environment where something can go viral suddenly. They wonder how artists will turn a burst of attention into a lasting career.

The conversation ends with the growing influence of long-form podcasts and the duo’s plans for their album and tour. They thank Williamson for the conversation and the opportunity to play in the room.