Dan + Shay on Joining ‘The Voice’ and ‘Strategizing’ to Beat Reba

When The Voice got here calling, it was the right time for Dan + Shay to affix because the expertise present’s first ever “double chair” coaches.

Dan Smyers and Shay Mooney had celebrated their tenth anniversary as a multi-platinum, Grammy-winning nation duo, however had additionally hit a tough patch. “The final couple of years had been a little bit of a curler coaster,” Smyers says. “We have been going by way of our personal private battles, rebuilding our relationship –and also you throw in COVID, and it was simply type of a wild time for us.” 

However because the pair labored by way of their points and got here again from the brink of breaking apart, they have been full of a brand new gratitude. “We’ve modified our perspective from ‘Now we have to do that’ to ‘We get to do that,’ and that it’s wonderful that there’s someone who’s prepared to pay their hard-earned cash to return see our present or purchase an album or a T-shirt,” Smyers continues. “The Voice got here to us at such an ideal time the place that gratitude is at an all-time excessive.”

The nation duo, who served as mentors in season 20, will make their teaching debut on the present on Monday, Feb. 26, because the twenty fifth season of NBC’s singing competitors begins. They’re joined by returning coaches Reba McEntire, John Legend and Likelihood the Rapper. 

This marks the primary time that two of the chairs might be occupied by nation acts, main the best way for some heavy competitors for nation contestants between Dan + Shay and McEntire.  

Former coach Blake Shelton by no means overlapped with McEntire and “didn’t must compete with the queen of nation music. He had it very easy,” jokes Mooney. “I really feel like we have now actually been having to strategize and use our blocks to our benefit. Who doesn’t love Reba McEntire and didn’t hearken to her music and watch her present rising up? That’s stiff competitors. She’s very aggressive.”

Simply as The Voice uncovered Shelton to a a lot larger, mainstream viewers, Dan + Shay are nicely conscious that the present may broaden their attraction. “It is a huge alternative for us,” Mooney says. “We’ve had some crossover success, however this opens you as much as a wholly completely different viewers. Being on tv each week positively expands the individuals who hearken to your music. We don’t actually know what to anticipate.”

As the primary set of double coaches, Dan + Shay must share one button as they choose their 14-member workforce within the blind competitors, which has already been filmed. “Once we have been flying out [to L.A.] for the primary time, we seemed over at one another’s like, ‘Ought to we provide you with some type of technique, like two faucets on the knee is a sure?’ We didn’t understand once they began taping that there’s cameras on you from each angle always, you’re miked up. You possibly can’t actually speak to one another that a lot. If considered one of us is absolutely feeling it, we’ve given one another permission to go forward and smash that button and switch that chair round. However the two chairs, one button [thing] is an attention-grabbing dynamic.”

Seeing contestants so desperate to launch their careers has been a strong reminder of how fortunate the 2 are to have seen their musical desires come true. “Seeing these people who find themselves pouring their hearts and souls out onto that microphone, actually, I can’t think about being of their footwear,” Smyers says. “A number of these individuals are coming from small cities and are singing into the again of someone’s chairs. It’s a fairly high-pressure, nerve-wracking scenario. It truly is a cool perspective shift to see someone who desires it so badly. I really feel such as you type of lose perspective the place we and a variety of our buddies have a seat on the desk. These individuals are working to earn their place on the desk.”

Like the opposite judges, Dan + Shay must juggle the each day calls for of their careers with teaching, and now have to commute from Nashville to Los Angeles weekly.  They proceed to advertise their fifth Warner Music Nashville album, Greater Homes, which got here out in September and debuted at No. 9 on High Nation Albums chart. First single “Save Me the Bother” reached No. 2 on the Nation Airplay chart. Their Heartbreak on the Map enviornment tour, which takes its title from a track on the album, kicks off Feb. 29 in Greenville, S.C.

Spending extra time in Los Angeles has one massive benefit. “I get extra sleep out right here, which is fairly cool,” says Mooney, who has three small boys. Extra critically, he provides, “It’s positively a problem being away from our households. It’s very troublesome. However they’re excited for us.” Legend, who’s Los Angeles-based, brings his youngsters to the studio, and Mooney is hoping his kids can be part of him on some journeys.

Despite the fact that they aren’t even by way of their first season, Smyers says they’d like to return again for extra seasons. “It’s only a actually thrilling, heart-pounding expertise for us as coaches when the lights go down, not understanding what’s about to enter your ears,” he says. “Hopefully they invite us again, as a result of I’m having a little bit an excessive amount of enjoyable to provide it up now.”

Mooney even has a suggestion for future seasons: “We’re conspiring with Reba — now that it’s three [country] coaches vs. two [non-country] coaches — to maneuver the present to Nashville,” he says with amusing.