Dan + Shay stopped by TODAY with an exciting new announcement for all their fans.
The country music duo, made up of Dan Smyers and Shay Mooney, revealed exclusively on TODAY May 14 that they are releasing a new album titled “Young,” arriving Aug. 21.
“This is our most personal album yet,” Smyers told Carson Daly. “We dug deep. It took us a couple years to work on this. We went left, we went right, we made a bunch of music. And there was some stuff we made, we had cold feet about it. It just didn’t feel like us enough. And as we dug back in — I just feel like it feels authentic.”
“Young” is Dan + Shay’s sixth studio album and centers on family, faith and following their dreams amid this prolific season of their 13-year career, according to their label, Warner Records Nashville.
The album’s title track, “Young,” will be the second single and debuts May 15.
The album’s first single, “Say So,” dropped in April and was what Smyers and Mooney called “the most important release of our career so far.” It’s a powerful track meant to spotlight suicide prevention and dedicated to a late friend and mentor, music executive Ben Vaughn.
Mooney told Carson that the song came about when they went to the writers room and began talking about Vaughn, who died by suicide in January 2025.
“It opened up this can of worms for us, really, to process that grief,” he said. “A lot of times we feel like it comes out of nowhere. We were talking about that — it never really comes out of nowhere. Talking about how we need to be proactive of talking to our friends and making sure they’re OK and making sure we get that out, in therapy or whatever way that is. This song really fell out that day, and it was just a crazy experience to process all these motions.”
Dan + Shay will perform the song May 17 at the ACM Awards, where they are up for duo of the year.
“Young” is the duo’s first album since 2024’s “It’s Officially Christmas: The Double Album” and 2023’s “Bigger Houses,” which included hits like the title track and “Save Me the Trouble.”
Ahead of the release of “Bigger Houses,” Dan + Shay graced Rockefeller Plaza for the Citi Concert Series on TODAY and gave country music lovers the performance of their dreams as they belted out songs like “Tequila” and “Speechless” in the pouring rain.
At the time, Mooney expressed his gratitude for their fans and their support despite the less-than-perfect weather. “Our fans have always been amazing like that,” he said. “I’m blown away every time.”
If you or someone you know is in crisis, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-8255, text HOME to 741741 or visit SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources for additional resources.
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