Country Music Duo Reveals They Almost Broke up After Their 2021 Tour Led to Drinking and Burnout

By Ashley Turner

Dan Smyers and Shay Mooney have opened up about some rough patches in their partnership. The country duo Dan + Shay revealed in a new interview with Taste of Country that they almost split at the end of 2021. "I was in, like, the lowest low of my entire life. Came off the road, and I was like, 'Man, I f— hate music. I'm ready to quit,'" Smyers recalled. "I could feel the separation, and I think there was little things between you and I that we never talked about," Mooney added. "It was affecting everything. Not just our band. Like, my marriage, everything. I was in a really dark place." As soon as the duo had wrapped up their tour in 2021, they did not need to speak to each other for another four months. Eventually, they were able to meet to discuss the future of the band and discussed the possibility of calling it quits.

"Whether we break up and we hug it out and say, 'Man, this has been the best 10 years of my life,' or we say, 'Man, this is a launching-off point, this is a new beginning, this is a chance for a whole new outlook on life,'" Smyers said of the conversation they were facing. "I completely burnt myself out. Entirely burnt myself out." Due to the heavy burden on the band members during their tour that year, Mooney would often leave shows "mad about something stupid" due to the pressure they were under at the time. "Especially at that point, I was drinking a lot," he said. "So those highs became really high, and the lows became really, really low."

Fortunately, that one conversation in March 2022 "changed it all," and they regained their friendship and bandmateship. "The thing that filled my cup the most was being in a room with you, making music together. One of the most important things that's ever happened in my life was Dan + Shay," Smyers said. "… If we're gonna keep going forever, let's get ourselves right. Let's have a gut check." He added, "I can feel the closeness of our relationship and our friendship when I listen back to the music. We are, by far, a million times, the closest we've ever been. For so many reasons. But because we worked at it. That makes what we're doing now infinitely sustainable. I could do this the rest of my life with you."

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