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Dan + Shay: Despite Pop Success, Their Hearts Are With Country Music

Even though Dan + Shay have enjoyed top 40 success with their song “Tequilla” and their collaboration with Justin Bieber, “10,000 Hours,” their hearts are with country music. Dan Smyers…

Dan + Shay Are 'Living In A Dream'
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Even though Dan + Shay have enjoyed top 40 success with their song "Tequilla" and their collaboration with Justin Bieber, "10,000 Hours," their hearts are with country music.

Dan Smyers told us, "We've chased this dream our entire lives. We grew up listening to country music. We moved to this town because we wanted to write country music because we wanted to someday be a part of this community, which is like so incredible. I can't believe we've been accepted into this community."

He continued, "I feel like we could be living in a dream right now and we worked our tails off. We wrote songs. We wrote two, three songs a day. And we're still doing the same thing. We moved here because we were fans of this format. We moved here because we were fans of country music."

Nancy Brooks has been working in the country music industry for almost 30 years. She has interviewed pretty much any country star you can think of. In the late 1990s, she started working with Dolly Parton. And yes, Nancy reports that Parton is as sweet as you would think. She loves her life in country music and has been backstage at every CMA Awards show since the late 1990s. Many of her stories are from her one-on-one interviews. She was there at the beginning of the incredible careers of many music superstars today, including Taylor Swift, Shania Twain, and Blake Shelton, and has interviewed them multiple times throughout the years.