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The name Hank Williams comes with loads of connotations, thanks to a short but fiery ascent and an equally speedy burnout that made him a country legend.
He was an inspiring songwriter, an energetic performer, a tragic addict, a frail spina bifida victim and — based on his portrait of his marriage to Audrey Williams — a bit of a drama queen.
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Sunday (Sept. 17) marks 100 years since his birth in Alabama, and the century milestone finds his legacy barreling down two tracks. On one hand, he was a breakthrough songwriter whose ability to turn real-life events into melodic, poetic soap operas has influenced generations of artists and composers. On the other, he remains a mythological figure who died in the back seat of a Cadillac during an overnight journey to a concert, a passage that is as mysterious and misunderstood as the bad fortune he stumbled into — or created — during his 29 years on earth.
Neither his artistic track nor his iconic level of tragedy would matter 10 decades after his introduction if Hank Sr. hadn’t had such impact.
“It’s so deceptively difficult to do what he did, like the ability to have humor and marry that with real, raw, honest emotion,” says Ward Hayden, whose Boston-based band Ward Hayden & the Outliers released A Celebration of Hank Williams Live on Sept. 1. “He definitely found something unique, which is why I think so many people have used his music as inspiration. I mean, he really set the bar.”
It’s often said by traditionalists that Hank Sr. wouldn’t have been able to get a recording deal in modern Nashville, but that doesn’t mean his presence isn’t still felt. In Hailey Whitters’ recent top 20 single “Everything She Ain’t,” the singer pledges to be “the Audrey to your Hank.” And in Walker Hayes’ current “Good With Me,” he lampoons himself: “Buddy thinks everything I sing sucks/ ’Cause it don’t sound like Hank.”
That’s one of the frequent criticisms of modern country: that artists who cite Hank Sr. might not even know, let alone appreciate, his music. Even in cases where that’s true, those performers still owe him a debt for the revolution he brought to the genre.
“Anybody who writes a personal song, in some ways, traces back to Hank because when he started, people were writing more generic songs — you know, the tragedies and the heart songs, family and home and God,” says Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum senior writer Michael McCall. “It wasn’t as personal, but Hank sensed all of those things and made them personal. People felt like he was singing about his life.”
Often he was. “Cold, Cold Heart,” “Your Cheatin’ Heart” and “You Win Again” — an achingly distraught ballad recorded the day after his second divorce from Audrey became final — were all about that central relationship. Even now, Kelsea Ballerini, Megan Moroney, Maren Morris, Jason Aldean and Thomas Rhett are just a smattering of the country artists whose lives or their personal beliefs are incorporated into the material they record.
“We all feel like we know Dolly Parton,” says Williams’ grandson, Mercury Nashville recording artist Sam Williams. “People in my generation, with my music tastes, we know Miley Cyrus — we grew up with Miley Cyrus, we know her different facets. And I think that so many people are able to feel like they know [Hank Sr.] by the honesty that he put in his songs.”
Sam never met his grandfather, but based on the recordings, he believes he inherited some of the same personal traits: a tendency to be misunderstood, a “goofy” sense of humor, a strong work ethic and a posture as a hopeless romantic. He recorded one of Hank Sr.’s songs for the first time in conjunction with the 100th anniversary. Sam delivers “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry” with slight melodic changes, darker chord textures and a robust arrangement that heightens the despair in its text.
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Sam released his version on Friday (Sept. 15), and he will perform it on the Grand Ole Opry on Sept. 16 and again during a Hall of Fame tribute concert on Sept. 21, alongside appearances by sisters Hilary and Holly Williams, Lyle Lovett, Connie Smith and more. It’s likely that many of the performers will change the sound of Hank Sr.’s songs — in part because it’s so easy to do. Ray Charles, Tony Bennett, Al Green, Pirates of the Mississippi, George Thorogood, Charley Pride, Linda Ronstadt and Hayden’s Outliers are among the scads of acts who found new textures in his classics, as did Hank Williams Jr., most famously.
“The songs are versatile,” Hayden says. “It’s not a blank canvas, but it’s a canvas that can be rearranged without completely changing it.”
Some of that comes from Hank Sr.’s song construction: conversational lyrics with basic chord structures and singable melodies. He left a lot of space for reimagination.
“There was just something about the simplicity of the music and the way he’s saying it,” notes Josh Turner.
The simple presentation doesn’t mean that Hank Sr. had a simple, one-dimensional story. As easy as it is to focus on the sorrow in his ballads or the deep well of inspiration he tapped, he was also conscious of his audience and was intentional about developing material that would connect. Particularly in such uptempo songs as “Honky Tonk Blues,” “Move It On Over,” “Honky Tonkin’,” “Jambalaya (On the Bayou),” “Mind Your Own Business” or “Hey, Good Lookin’,” one can sense the core of a great concert experience built to satisfy a crowd.
“He was just one of those engines of charisma in early American popular music that took it to the next level,” Sam says.
Ultimately, Hank Sr.’s legacy is difficult to fully chronicle. For all the identifiable music in his catalog, a mythology arose around his drinking, the drugs, the fights with Audrey and his concert no-shows. His spinal issues created pain and led to experimental treatments, and most certainly influenced some of the erratic behavior. That tragedy, though, exists behind a haze of folklore.
“It’s similar to [Johnny] Cash. Rosanne says you can apply anything to him and it works because he was all those things,” says McCall. “Hank was that way. The mythology became a little different than who he was, and nobody could live up to that kind of mythology, but those myths are strong, and they influence people.”
Hank Sr., as an artist, certainly had an effect. His work inspired the likes of Merle Haggard, George Jones, Bob Dylan, Randy Travis, Kris Kristofferson, Bob McDill, Dean Dillon and Rodney Crowell — anyone who drew from those artists or their stylistic heirs is receiving his hand-me-down spirit. But part of the legacy that accompanies his creations is what Hayden calls “the archetype of the doomed country singer.”
Keith Whitley, who died from overdosing on alcohol in his 30s, seemingly bought into it and paid a price. Turner likewise bought into Hank, but not entirely. The emotional behaviors and the emotional material are both part of the story that surrounds Senior at the century mark.
“It’s definitely a cautionary tale,” Turner warns. “But he was also inspiring because in spite of the pain, he was able to go and do great things.”
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HARDY will be presented with the ACM Artist-Songwriter of the Year award at next week’s Academy of Country Music Honors, and his pal Bailey Zimmerman celebrated the accomplishment with a soulful performance of “Signed, Sober You,” shared exclusively with Billboard. In the snippet from the performance, Zimmerman delivers the track backed by just an acoustic […]
Grammy winner Maren Morris released two new songs — “The Tree” and “Get the Hell Out of Here” — on Friday (Sept. 15). With them, she also shared the nuanced emotions behind her decision to leave country music and her feelings about the socio-political divide that has deepened over the past several years.
“These two songs are incredibly key to my next step because they express a very righteously angry and liberating phase of my life these last couple of years, but also how my navigation is finally pointing towards the future, whatever that may be or sound like,” she said in a statement. “Honoring where I’ve been and what I’ve achieved in country music, but also freely moving forward.”
On “The Tree,” she sings, “The rot at the roots is the root of the problem/ But you want to blame it on me.” She adds on “Get the Hell Out of Here”: “I hung around longer than anyone should/ You’ve broken my heart more than anyone could.”
She went into detail about her decision in an interview with The Los Angeles Times, sharing that the growing sociopolitical divide within country music — and the right-leaning views of some of the genre’s artists and fans — has been an ongoing challenge and barrier.
“After the Trump years, people’s biases were on full display,” Morris told the paper. “It just revealed who people really were and that they were proud to be misogynistic and racist and homophobic and transphobic. All these things were being celebrated, and it was weirdly dovetailing with this hyper-masculine branch of country music. I call it butt rock.”
“I thought I’d like to burn it to the ground and start over,” she added. “But it’s burning itself down without my help.”
Morris — who graced the cover of Billboard’s Pride issue alongside drag stars — has also been one of the fiercest advocates for diversity, inclusion and progress within the country music genre, championing greater inclusion of voices and music from women, members of the LGBTQ+ community and artists of color. When she won a CMA Award for female vocalist of the year in 2020, Morris used her acceptance speech to honor women of color within country music. She performed at the Love Rising concert in Nashville earlier this year, an event that celebrated the LGBTQ+ community and challenged anti-trans legislation in Tennessee. Last year, Morris also had a war of words with Jason Aldean and his wife, Brittany, over gender-affirming care.
Morris’ move away from the genre comes as four country songs, including Aldean’s controversial “Try That in a Small Town,” have topped the all-genre Billboard Hot 100.
“I think it’s a last bastion,” Morris said of the consumption of “Try That in a Small Town.” “People are streaming these songs out of spite. It’s not out of true joy or love of the music. It’s to own the libs. And that’s so not what music is intended for. Music is supposed to be the voice of the oppressed — the actual oppressed. And now it’s being used as this really toxic weapon in culture wars.”
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Morris noted that she did not initially consider herself a political artist — merely an artist writing songs about the happenings in the world around her. “But the further you get into the country music business, that’s when you start to see the cracks,” she pointed out. “And once you see it, you can’t unsee it. So you start doing everything you can with the little power you have to make things better. That doesn’t make you popular.”
She went on to say why she thinks it’s necessary to speak up. “If you truly love this type of music and you start to see problems arise, it needs to be criticized,” Morris told the paper. “Anything this popular should be scrutinized if we want to see progress. But I’ve kind of said everything I can say. I always thought I’d have to do middle fingers in the air jumping out of an airplane, but I’m trying to mature here and realize I can just walk away from the parts of this that no longer make me happy.”
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Morris noted that she is “still unraveling” a lot of her feelings of connection with country music.
“I don’t want to have an adversarial relationship to country music,” she added. “I still find myself weirdly wanting to protect it. But it’s not a family member. That’s the f–ked-up part, is that I’m talking about it as if it’s a person, but it’s not. So it’s a lot of deep deconstructing that I’m still unraveling.
“These songs are obviously the result of that — the aftermath of walking away from something that was really important to you and the betrayal that you felt very righteously. But also knowing there’s a thread of hope as you get to the other side,” Morris continued. “I hope it comes across that way because I truly was in a space of hope when I wrote the two songs, even though ‘Get the Hell Out of Here’ is really heavy. It’s about disarming that trauma and saying, ‘I can’t bail water out of this sinking ship anymore. It’s so futile. I choose happiness.’”
Grammy winner Maren Morris has released a duo of songs, “The Tree” and “Get The Hell Out of Here,” under the collective project title The Bridge, today (Friday, Sept. 15). Explore Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news Though she is still hard at work on her next full-length project, […]
Blake Shelton, Carly Pearce, Dan + Shay, HARDY, Jelly Roll, Kane Brown, Kelsea Ballerini, Little Big Town, Toby Keith and Wynonna Judd are set to perform at the inaugural People’s Choice Country Awards, which will air Thursday, Sept. 28 at 8 p.m. ET/PT on NBC and Peacock.
That’s just four days before voting opens for the 2023 Country Music Association Awards, where several of these performers are nominees. Jelly Roll has five CMA nominations; HARDY has four. Pearce and Ballerini are competing for female vocalist of the year at the CMAs. Dan + Shay is up for vocal duo of the year. Little Big Town is up for vocal group of the year. Brown is vying for musical event of the year, where he is competing with three other PCCA performers – Jelly Roll, HARDY and Pearce. Can a strong performance on one awards show boost your chances of winning on another show? Let’s just say it can’t hurt.
Voting for the CMA Awards extends from Monday Oct. 2 through Friday Oct. 27.
Voting for the People’s Choice Country Awards is now closed. Morgan Wallen is the leading nominee with 11 nods, followed by Luke Combs and HARDY, with nine each.
Little Big Town is hosting the People’s Choice Country Awards, which will be taped at the Grand Ole Opry House in Nashville. Keith will receive the Country Icon Award and Wynonna will take home the Country Champion Award.
A limited number of show tickets and VIP packages are available now at Opry.com.
The People’s Choice Country Awards are produced by Den of Thieves. Jesse Ignjatovic, Evan Prager and Barb Bialkowski will executive produce, along with RAC Clark as executive producer and showrunner.
Backstage Live: People’s Choice Country Awards, a livestream featuring red-carpet arrivals, backstage chats and other behind-the-scenes coverage, will air on Peacock, PCA Twitter, NBC Twitter/Facebook/YouTube, Today All Day/Twitter, E! News Twitter/Facebook/YouTube/E! Online, Access Twitter/YouTube, and Circle social platforms.
These projects are touted as an example of collaboration resulting from NBCUniversal’s equity investment in Opry Entertainment Group alongside Atairos, which was finalized last year.
Ballerini performed “Penthouse” on the MTV Video Music Awards on Tuesday Sept. 12, where she was the only country performer on the bill.
“There’s a freedom to being in full light and not feeling like you have to hide anything,” says the Brothers Osborne’s John Osborne.
With that spirit of renewal and openness, it feels wholly appropriate that the reigning CMA duo of the year is using a tactic normally employed by acts on their debut album by self-titling their fourth album, Brothers Osborne, out Friday (Sept. 15), as means of introducing a truer version of themselves.
Since the Brothers Osborne’s last album, 2000’s Skeletons, TJ Osborne came out as gay and John revealed his mental health struggles with depression and anxiety. When they returned to the studio, they went back in with a fresh perspective, a new producer and a desire to reveal themselves musically and emotionally as they never had.
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“It’s a new start in that we’re trying new things, trying new sounds — but it’s also a late start that between recording our last album, my brother and I have disclosed a lot of personal things,” John says. “I feel like it gave us the courage to lean further into ourselves and not play it safe.”
TJ wholeheartedly agrees. “We’re making this record, even though there’s not anything that speaks about it directly on the record, in a place where we can be completely ourselves, be open with who we are. Just creating any song and not feeling like we’ve got to steer the ship in a certain way was just incredibly freeing. I think the end result is our music ultimately being better. We just thought it’s time for us to embrace our differences.”
That including shifting from Jay Joyce, who had produced the previous three sets, to Mike Elizondo and letting him steer the project. “We said, ‘Hey Mike, here are the keys,’” John shares of working with Elizondo, who is known for producing a wide variety of major artists including Eminem, Fiona Apple, Carrie Underwood and Ed Sheeran. “We didn’t want to go in with too many preconceived notions. We wanted Mike to drive because we trust that he will take us somewhere we can’t predict.”
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While the album undisputedly sounds like Brothers Osborne with their guitar-led country rock, they weren’t afraid to be sonically adventurous, adding strings to one song, recording their first piano ballad and occasionally stripping down to acoustic guitars instead of always relying on John’s striking electric guitar playing skills.
“My brother and I early on decided maybe we should make an album that’s a bit more narrow focused, and we ended doing just the opposite,” John says. For example, “New Bad Habit,” is a guitar-centric rock song, “and we thought, ‘What the hell,’ and threw really bizarre Prince, Slash [guitars] on it and Parliament Funkadelic harmonies in the middle of it because ‘why the hell not?’”
Since the release of their gold-certified EMI Nashville debut, 2016’s Pawn Shop, Brothers Osborne have been critical favorites and beloved by their peers—they have won vocal duo of the year at the CMA Awards five of the past seven years and are once again nominated for the Nov. 8 awards—but have struggled to gain a consistent foothold at radio.
The album’s first single, uplifting, inclusive “Nobody’s Nobody” rose to No. 27 on Billboard’s Country Airplay chart, making it the duo’s highest charting single since 2020’s “All Night,” but dropped to No. 29 last week. The Brothers have scored 10 Top 40 hits, with their cuts usually rising into the 20s or 30s; 2015’s “Stay a Little Longer” reached No. 2, as their only Top 5 hit.
“It’s not that we ever felt like we were trying to be rebellious against the radio format, it’s just that we’ve always done what we did and were ourselves come rain or shine,” John says, “but it feels like it’s starting to feel like all the pieces are finally coming together.”
Another album track, “Sun Ain’t Even Gone Down Yet,” is getting visibility through a Ram Truck commercial, the duo’s second association with the brand which also used them in an ad in 2018. Agreeing to license their music comes down to a few elements, TJ says. “Is it a product that we like and want to be involved with is always first. You want to steer clear of things that maybe you don’t align with, but it also comes down to it’s something we’ve worked really hard on, if you’re going to use this, what do we get out it?” In addition to a lucrative fee, Ram also identified the song and the artist in the commercial, giving the new track valuable exposure.
The sole guest on Brothers Osborne is Miranda Lambert, who provides backing vocals on the atmospheric “We Ain’t Good at Breaking Up,” which she and Jesse Frasure co-wrote with the duo. The title and theme came from a response TJ would jokingly give when friends asked if he and his boyfriend, Abi Ventura, were still together. “There was a time early in our relationship where we felt like it didn’t make a lot of sense, we didn’t live near each other, we were both so busy and other different things, that we tried to call it off, but we would try to break up and we just wouldn’t,” TJ recalls.
He said the line to Frasure, who knew a winner when he heard it. “He said, ‘Oh my God, we’ve got to write that song next week in our [writing session] with Miranda,’” TJ says. Lambert’s vocals on the demo were such an enhancement, they decided to add her on the actual track. “It just really makes the song, sends it into a dreamy, almost Fleetwood Mac kind of thing,” TJ says.
Brothers Osborne will begin rolling the new songs out on the road as they tour throughout the year — but as they have learned to put a premium on self-care, they have found ways to make the road grind manageable. “I spoke with our management (Q Prime South) and was candid about what I needed and wanted, and one of those things was to tour less,” John says. “Taking care of yourself off the road helps you to take care of yourself on the road and part of it is just honestly knowing when I am physically done and I just put my ass to bed. I’ve never struggled with drugs or alcohol, but I have a really bad workaholism.”
Though country music — and its makers — have shown signs of division both politically and culturally lately, John stresses that everyone is welcome to their concerts.
“Our shows are all about inclusion. We don’t care who you are, we don’t care your color, your creed, your sexual orientation, your religion, or anything,” he says. “The only thing you’re not allowed to be in our company is an a–hole. That’s it. That’s how we roll.”
Just a day after announcing that’s she’s adding a new slate of concerts to her REFLECTION: The Las Vegas Residency, Carrie Underwood made an appearance and performed on TODAY. As part of the 2023 Citi Concert Series, the country star performed a song from from her album Denim & Rhinestones titled “She Don’t Know,” as well as her 2006 hit “Before He Cheats.”
During an interview with TODAY, Underwood also gave a glimpse into her days when she isn’t in the studio or on the road — days when she is simply being a mom.
The star described a typical non-working day, noting that her husband, Mike Fisher, takes their two sons to school while she handles duties such as vacuuming and checking to make sure her kids’ rooms are clean. Working out and gardening are also on the list.
“I’m always cooking something or canning something … I kind of live in the kitchen, making bread or something,” she shared on NBC’s long-running morning show. “Then, before you know it, they come home and we make dinner.”
Like many parents, Underwood also fights the struggle against too much screen time for her kids.
“It’s such a battle, right? Even television … I kind of notice when they watch too much TV, they have an attitude shift. I’m like, ‘Why are you moody? What are we doing?’ And then it’s like, ‘Ohhh …” and sometimes, they’ve learned a lot from different televisions programs and movies … but yeah, it’s a struggle.”
She also hopes to keep her kids away from phones and social media “for as long as possible,” Underwood said. “There has been a whole grassroots initiative within their school, a bunch of parents getting together and discussing how we can keep our kids kind of away from technology, especially, like, social media and stuff.”
Additionally, the TODAY hosts revealed that Underwood’s fans who attended her recent 43-city The Denim & Rhinestones Tour helped raise $420,316 for the Tunnel to Towers Foundation, an organization committed to providing mortgage-free homes to Gold Star and fallen first responder families with young children, and building specially adapted smart homes for injured veterans and first responders.
“They do great things for our servicemen and women and their families,” Underwood said. “They sacrifice so much for us, so a dollar from every ticket went to them…the people that run the whole thing, just talking to them, they are normal people who want to do good things for these people…it’s amazing what they do and I’m glad to be part of it.”
Watch Carrie Underwood’s TODAY show interview and clips from her performance below:
For years, Kelsea Ballerini has been advocating for greater diversity in country music — look no further than her headline-making CMTs performance from earlier this year for proof. Now, in a new interview, Ballerini spelled out exactly what she means by that.
In an interview as a 2023 TIME100 Next honoree, Ballerini said that she wanted to see country music become a platform where all kinds of artists could find massive success. “It’s a process, and we’re undoing a way that, specifically, country music has done things forever,” she said. “It’s making sure that we’re giving a voice to new artists; we’re giving a voice to unsigned artists who represent underrepresented groups in Nashville because they’re not getting a chance to be signed.”
Continuing, Ballerini got more specific, pointing out that the communities finding themselves the least represented in country music deserve to be given a fair shot at stardom. “Nobody says people don’t want to jam out to guys on the radio. I do. I also want to hear from women. Just as much, maybe more,” she said. “I also want to hear from people of color, from the LGBTQ+ community. I want to hear all the voices we hear on pop radio on country radio.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Ballerini said that she was not comfortable speaking as the representative for all country artists. “One person cannot speak for everyone. That is true for country music,” she said. “I am in control of standing in what I believe in — and being a kind, good person who works towards making the world a more heard, safe, and inclusive place in whatever capacity I can do.”
Part of that aim to make the world better and more inclusive came during her aforementioned CMTs performance, when Ballerini brought a group of drag queens on stage with her to perform her song “If You Go Down,” and to protest ongoing legislative attacks against drag artists around the country. Speaking about it now, Ballerini said that if she had the opportunity, she would go back and do it again.
“I was not only hosting the CMT Awards, but I had a performance for a song of mine that is all about friendship and standing up for people that you love, and being ride-or-die for your people,” she said. “I realized that that would be a really good, important, loud, big stage to make that statement on, and CMT was all for it.”
Over the past decade, Dan + Shay’s Dan Smyers and Shay Mooney have won multiple Grammys and scored a string of Billboard Country Airplay chart-toppers with their melodic ballads, bolstered by Smyers’ lush production and Mooney’s otherworldly tenor.
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But on July 9, the duo shocked fans by posting a video to social media titled “The Drive,” where they shared they had reached a breaking point in early 2022.
“It was important to us to be honest,” Smyers tells Billboard.
The story of how they salvaged their partnership and returned with a renewed creative vigor and strengthened bond plays out on their fifth studio album Bigger Houses, out Friday, Sept 15, on Warner Music Nashville.
“This album was birthed from literally just us hanging out, and it just started [with us] writing all these songs and there was no pressure — and that’s how we did it on our very first record, and I think there was some magic to that,” Mooney says.
Smyers and Mooney met more than a decade ago at a party in December 2012 — or as Smyers puts it, “A lifetime [ago] in the music business.” Then, they were both single, talented guys, working doggedly toward aspirations of musical stardom.
“Early on, we didn’t have any responsibilities — the only thing we had to worry about was like, ‘Dude, let’s write a couple of songs today,’” Smyers says.
The hustling soon turned to success: publishing deals, a label deal with Warner Music Nashville, followed by their 2013 debut single, “19 You + Me.” Then came the hits (and the megahits): “Tequila,” “Speechless” and “10,000 Hours,” the latter collaboration with Justin Bieber hitting the top five on the Billboard Hot 100. The pair, who are managed by Sandbox Entertainment, earned three consecutive Grammys for best country duo/group performance, and back-to-back CMA Awards for vocal duo of the year.
Life surged forward on all fronts: Smyers wed Abby Law in 2017, while Mooney and Hannah Billingsley wed and welcomed their son Asher, in 2017, followed by Ames in 2020 and Abram in 2023.
As with the rest of the world, 2020 also meant their lives and careers were upended by the COVID-19 pandemic. Dan + Shay had to come off the road just three shows into the start of their first headlining arena tour. The outing resumed in September 2021, and by the time it wrapped on Dec. 7 at TD Garden in Boston, the grueling pace of nearly three dozen shows in three months had taken its toll.
“I remember getting off that stage, just completely in maximum burnout,” Smyers recalls. “I didn’t know if I could do it anymore.”
Over the past decade, while Mooney has forged a reputation for his formidable vocal prowess, Smyers has earned a reputation for geeking out on production and songwriting, spending hours in the studio refining songs to perfection. But as the massive tour wound down in December, Smyers says, “I looked back and I had written four total songs that year, which is nothing for me. I needed a hard reset.”
The rigors of touring and balancing family life had also left little time for true communication between Smyers and Mooney.
“You’re touring 150 days a year, 200 days a year, and you come home and the last thing you want to do is spend time with each other,” Smyers says. “People have asked if there was a specific incident, or, ‘Did something happen?’ There was no incident; we never really fought, and maybe that was part of the problem — we never fought. We never really discussed tough issues and weren’t super open in our communication with each other.”
Mooney and Smyers didn’t speak to each other for nearly four months after getting off tour, but at the same time, they were gearing up for another major tour — this time ascending from arenas to stadiums, as openers on Kenny Chesney’s Here and Now 2022 Tour.
“We were doing that tour either way,” Smyers says. “I didn’t want to go do that tour in vain; if it was our last tour, I wanted to high-five it, blow it out and ride off into the sunset — we got to play football stadiums! But if it ended up not being our last tour, I wanted it to be a fresh start, a new slate.”
That reset began in March 2022, prompted by a text from Smyers to Mooney, asking if they could hang out. When Mooney responded that they could get together in a couple of days, Smyers insisted they meet up that day.
“I think that was the point where he kind of knew I was serious about it,” Smyers says. “He came over to the house, we sat on the back patio, just the two of us — no outside influences. We hadn’t had a ‘Come to Jesus’ moment in a long time. We both apologized for not communicating enough and for not going out of our way to nurture the relationship. Being in a duo is tough. There’s money on the line, notoriety on the line — and that’s why a lot of duos, historically, have fallen apart. But if you don’t go out of your way to work on the relationship, it will fall apart, and you will go separate directions.”
“I’ve learned so much about communication,” Mooney adds. “When you are with each other all the time, you take it for granted that you’re talking and communicating, but there’s a difference between being present and communicating. It’s being able to say the hard stuff.”
“That night was the most pivotal moment in our career, to this point. It changed everything,” Smyers says.
The notion of Dan + Shay’s recorded music outlasting their time together as a proper duo fueled the Bigger Houses album’s origin story, beginning with “Always Gonna Be.”
“We talked about feeling like we owed it to our fans to figure things out, because Dan + Shay is always going to be the first dance music at someone’s wedding, or the tattoo on someone’s arm,” says Smyers, who recalls those sentiments being among the ones he jotted down, which made their way into the lyrics of “Always Gonna Be.” “A few more hours went by, and we talked about what we needed to do to give this a shot again.”
Chief among those renewed priorities was intentionally spending time together, as friends rather than just business partners. Though, as musicians do, they found those leisurely moments inevitably drifting to music. Nowadays, they take time to encourage each other’s personal journeys, whether that’s checking in on workouts or spending time together intentionally before a concert.
“We’ll sit in lawn chairs outside the bus, catch up or watch TV,” Smyers says. “In the past, we were in our own dressing rooms doing that — but now, they’ll always set us up with two dressing rooms and we only ever use one of them.”
Mooney’s renewed focus on health—eating well, cutting out alcohol—also led to a creative and relationship rejuvenation. “I think I’m in better shape than I have been since high school,” Mooney says, noting he lost over 60 pounds. “I shed some of the toxic things that were in my life. It played a big part in being able to get to this place with Dan and us being able to move forward. If this had been two years ago when I was in a low place, I don’t think I would be able to handle the pressure, with an album rolling out. I’d probably be having panic attacks again. But I’m super grateful that I’ve been kind of preparing for this moment; it feels good to be able to handle all the new stuff.”
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While they return to form on Bigger Houses with lush, romantic ballads, such as the surefire wedding favorite “For The Both of Us,” they also take chances. “We Should Get Married” skewers the duo’s reputation for show-stopping balladeering, featuring Mooney’s voice in rapid-fire mode over a quick succession of lyrics and up-tempo percussion.
“We’ve been fortunate enough in our career to have songs used in weddings and first dances — which, if all else goes away, people will always be getting married, so it gives us a bit of job security,” Smyers says with a laugh. “We’ve played weddings — whether it’s a celebrity, non-celebrity — and after you play, there’s a local band or DJ who cranks some ‘Uptown Funk’ or ‘Twist and Shout,’ and everyone’s on the dancefloor. I thought we should have a song everyone can start dancing to.”
Mooney says, “It was great to be able to play around with that fast melody and fast phrasing and do something we haven’t really done in our career. I was still learning the words when we were in the vocal booth [recording]. You could hear how much fun we had making the record. Now we just have to figure out how we’re gonna pull it off live,” he says.
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If “Always Gonna Be” marked the album’s beginning, the project’s title track, “Bigger Houses” is the thru-line, spawning from a conversation Smyers’ wife Abby had with Dan + Shay’s longtime writing collaborator Andy Albert and his wife Emily.
“Andy and Emily had just bought a dream home — big yard, beautiful home — and Abby had visited,” Smyers recalls. “Eventually, they mentioned how people are always looking forward to what is ahead, and sometimes we stop appreciating what we have. We have a roof over our heads, we’re doing something we love and we can afford groceries—those are things we shouldn’t take for granted. Andy and I couldn’t afford a meal when we moved to Nashville. We couldn’t afford heat or AC in the house we lived in, and we’ve all come a really long way.”
Albert wrote down “Bigger Houses” on his phone, and brought it into a writing session.
“He told me, Abby said, ‘The thing about happiness is I’ve found that it don’t live in bigger houses.’ I was like, ‘Well that’s a hook right there.’ It’s a song that is close to our hearts and something we think about every day,” Smyers says.
“If there is one message for people to hear from this album, it’s this song,” Mooney adds.
In 2024, Dan+Shay will return to the road, stronger than ever, for their headlining The Heartbreak on the Map Tour, with openers Hailey Whitters and Ben Rector.
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For the bulk of his career, acclaimed artist, writer and producer David Hodges has found success in the collective work of helping collaborators to shape ideas and messages into songs — as part of the 2000s hitmaking rock outfit Evanescence, as a hitmaking songwriter and with co-writers on more than a dozen of his own solo projects.
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As an early member of Evanescence, David Hodges co-wrote many of the songs on the group’s 2003 debut album Fallen, including the top five Billboard Hot 100 smash “Bring Me to Life.” After leaving the group before Fallen was released, the two-time Grammy winner has spent the better part of the past two decades cementing himself as a key element in the creation of numerous hits, writing on Christina Perri’s “A Thousand Years,” Kelly Clarkson’s “Because of You,” Ed Sheeran’s “2 Step” and “Afterglow,” Carrie Underwood’s “See You Again” and “There’s a Place for Us” and Kelsea Ballerini’s “Miss Me More.” He’s also worked with Celine Dion, the Backstreet Boys, Daughtry, Jason Mraz, Avril Lavigne and more.
But on his upcoming, 23-song, two-part double album, The Unattainable/The Unavoidable (out Friday, Sept. 15), Hodges tenders frank vulnerability as he unveils more than ever of his own recent journey.
With The Unattainable/The Unavoidable, Hodges unflinchingly traces his love-loss-love story, excavating every turn of emotions along the way. On the album’s first half, The Unattainable, songs such as “Waves” and “The Man Who Makes Mistakes” chronicle Hodges’ divorce, while The Unavoidable features songs including “Still Be You” and “You Go First” that focus on the early embers of healing and embracing new love.
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“When I’m working with artists to develop a whole album, I’m always thinking of sister songs on a record,” says Hodges, who is managed by Lucas Keller’s Milk & Honey and published by Kobalt. “They may not have the same instrumentation or be next to each other on a record, but there’s something that links these two songs together in a broader perspective. So as this album was coming together, it kind of naturally fell into these buckets of going into a valley and coming up from a valley.”
The project’s fulcrum and title track, which Hodges wrote with Drew Kennedy, serves as a musical bridge connecting the two sides of the project. Kennedy presented the idea of writing and positioning lyrics that tell one story when read straight through but tell the opposite story when read in reverse. “At the end, we had this finished piece of art, and you look at those lines differently when you see them in the context of how what comes before, what comes after it,” Hodges says.
He wrote “I’m Around” with Donovan Woods, about the willingness to still support an ex-lover, as he sings, “I might have left your life/ But I didn’t leave town.”
“There’s so much detail about a specific moment,” Hodges says. “That’s what I love about this project — it’s not just about a breakup. This song is about six months after the breakup, you’re still healing from the wounds, but there is also still a real love and care for each other that supersedes current feelings.”
“When it comes to you, emotions flow in twos/ Yellows to saddest blue,” he sings in “Emily,” one of Hodges’ seven solo writes on the album, and a track inspired in part by the Pixar movie Inside Out.
“In Inside Out, Joy is yellow and Sadness is blue and one of the lessons in the movie is that as you grow up, your memories are rarely just one emotion. This song is about thinking back on the relationship, and it’s not all blue and not all yellow. I felt like that song captured a sense of feeling like, ‘We can still look back fondly on some of that stuff, but all of it’s gonna have a bit of a blue tint to it.’”
Overall, the process reminded Hodges of his love for full-length projects, even in an era where streaming and social media places the focus on individual songs.
“I miss the focus on album-making, because the single is the driver for so much art. It’s a unique challenge to have such a finite space to work in. Especially in pop music, when you crack the code, it feels great to make something compelling within this small framework. But making this album reminded me again how much I like long attention spans. When Olivia Rodrigo’s “Vampire” first released, a buddy of mine was asking me about it and I was like, ‘I’m going to try my best to wait until the album is out to hear anything beyond “Vampire,” because I want to know what each of these songs mean in the context of the bigger story she’s telling.’ I don’t know Olivia or if she is drawn to that long-form storytelling — but artists like Billie Eilish, Adele, Ed Sheeran, you can tell they are thinking in terms of this longer storytelling. I love to embrace a whole piece of art.”
Though Hodges is one in a lengthy line of hit songwriters to also issue their own albums — including recent offerings from country songcrafters Lori McKenna and Ross Copperman — he notes the new album is also a heartening prospect for his fellow songwriters.
“I love my job of songwriting, of helping artists tell their stories,” Hodges says. “But it’s also personally rewarding for me to have a body of work that I can say is really mine. I’ve been surprised by how many songwriter friends of mine have reached out to me and said, ‘I’ve been sitting on a collection of songs for years and watching you put out your own music reminded me that I should, too.’ I would love for every songwriter to put out their own music as well; it becomes a calling card for you as a writer, too.”