Dan + Shay Speak out About New Music: ‘We’re Fired Up’

Superstar act Dan + Shay just released “10,000 Hours,” their collaboration with Justin Bieber, but that’s not all that they are excited about. The duo, made up of Dan Smyers and Shay Mooney, is hard at work on a new album, which will include the Bieber collaboration, and they can’t wait to share it with their fans.

“We’re fired up,” Mooney told Zane Lowe from Beats 1/Apple Music. “It’s been a crazy year. It’s like insane to think that we put out ‘Tequila’ just about two years ago. It feels like yesterday. I think for the fans it’s a little different. You know, eight hours after we put out ‘Tequila,’ they’re like, ‘We need new music!’ It’s fun though. I feel like that puts a little bit of pressure on artists.

“For us we try not to get too caught up in it with the, we have to do this, we have to do this, but try to make it organic,” he continued. “But we definitely do have that pressure and responsibility really to our fans and to radio to put out the best material you can. Dan and I try not to put anything out unless we can truly put our stamp on it and say, all right, this is right.”

With several of Dan + Shay’s singles successfully crossing over into pop, including “Tequila” and “Speechless,” among others, it made sense to them to join forces with one of pop music’s biggest stars, if they found the right song.

“We’ve crossed paths with Justin a few times in the past, and we’ve always kind of toyed with the idea of collaborating on something,” Smyers explained. “We wrote this song in Nashville and we were like, ‘This is a crazy idea.; We had the same manager, Scooter Braun. So I sent it to Scooter and was like, ‘Yo, hear me out on this. This might be wild. This might be like absolutely insane, but picture Justin singing on this.’”

Thankfully, Braun agreed that it might work, and sent it to Bieber who quickly replied.

“Right away Justin hit back and [said], ‘Let’s do this song together,’” Smyers recalled. “He wrote a few lines on it, did his thing, put his spin on it. And man, it just really worked out.”

Dan + Shay performed the song at Bieber’s wedding to model Hailey Baldwin. Download the song on iTunes.

Photo Credit: Getty / Jeff Kravitz