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\n\tAs one of the most popular duos in country music (or country-pop crossover), Dan + Shay<\/a> are known as serious romantics, to the point where they acknowledge and joke about how many marches down the aisle or first dances they\u2019ve provided the soundtrack for. But with their new single, \u201cSay So,\u201d they\u2019re making a temporary switch from wedding songs to a trying-to-prevent-a-funeral song.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cSay So,\u201d which comes out Friday as the first single from the duo\u2019s forthcoming album, makes it clear in the first verse just what kind of devastating event it was written in response to: \u201cI got a call from a friend who don\u2019t call very often \/ Broke it to me and I couldn\u2019t believe that we lost him \/ Really felt like it came out of nowhere \/ But it never really comes out of nowhere \/ It\u2019s crazy the pain that we carry when nobody\u2019s watchin\u2018<\/em>.\u201d (Scroll down to read the full lyrics.) From there, it becomes inspirational, urging those with dark thoughts to not be afraid to burden their friends with them, and \u2014 proactively, on the other side \u2014 suggesting regular \u201cHow are you really <\/em>doing?\u201d check-ins with friends, even those who may have little or no reason to suspect loved ones are in distress.<\/p>\n \n\tDan Smyers, Shay Mooney and their co-writers had one very prominent and recent prompt in mind when they penned it, someone who was a friend not just to them but seemingly the buddy of everyone in Nashville and in the music publishing world at large: Ben Vaughn<\/a>, the head of Warner Chappell<\/a> Music Publishing. His popularity and the warmth with which he was seemingly received in every possible circle was no shield against him dying by suicide in January 2025, a passing that is still deeply felt and mourned across many professional music circles. <\/p>\n \n\tIn a talk with Variety just ahead of the song hitting DSPs late Thursday night, Mooney and Smyers talked about their own experiences with learning to share their most troubled thoughts with each other and in therapy, and how they hope \u201cSay So\u201d could be the most impactful song of their career, however big or modest a presence it winds up having on the charts.<\/p>\n \n\tIt\u2019s easy to tell from the first verse that this song has some personal background in it for you. Can you talk about what spurred the song?<\/strong><\/p>\n \n\tDan Smyers:<\/strong> We hit this little stretch of inspiration a few months ago and so we sat down to write one day with our good buddies Jimmy Robbins and David Hodges. We were talking about what we wanted to write that day, and we got to talking about our \u00a0mutual friend, Ben Vaughn, who was the head of Warner Chappell Publishing \u00a0and was big part of our career and a close personal friend. He took his own life, sadly, unexpectedly. This happened a week or two after we had been hanging out at a little party at my house, celebrating \u201cBigger Houses\u201d going No. 1 and \u201c10,000 Hours\u201d hitting a billion streams on Spotify. It was one of those things where no one saw it coming. At least we didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n \n\tBen had just been there since the beginning of our career. He was the guy who heard us sing and made us the first offer for a publishing deal, and we\u2019re still at Warner Chappell to this day. He was the guy who said, \u201cYou guys are more than just a songwriting duo. You guys should go meet with John Esposito [then-head of Warner Nashville].\u201d At the time, Warner Records and Warner Chappellwere in the same building. He said, \u201cWould you guys be willing to walk upstairs and sing for him and Scott Hendricks [their future producer?\u201d We were like, \u201cAbsolutely. Is there beer there?\u201d So we went upstairs and sang for those guys, and the rest is history. He was such a big part of our career, as a friend and a believer and a champion.<\/p>\n \n\tWe were talking about him with David and Jimmy that day, and we were just like, \u201cMan, we\u2019ve got a lot of love songs\u2026\u201d Obviously that\u2019s kind of our bread and butter, our wheelhouse, writing songs about our wives and writing songs about life and family. But this is just a topic where \u2014 and Shay can speak to this too \u2014 I\u2019ve personally dealt with mental health stuff over the last few years, more so than ever. We battle a lot of stuff inside and outside of ourselves. And as we were talking about Ben, we were just like, \u201cMan, I wish we would\u2019ve known. I wish we could have reminded him that there\u2019s always somebody on the other line.\u201d At the time we wrote it, we were like, \u201cI don\u2019t know, man. It\u2019s different than what we usually do. It\u2019s not a love song.\u201d But it kind of is, I guess.<\/p>\n \n\tShay Mooney:<\/strong> Dan hit the nail on the head. We were going back and forth asking, \u201cMan, is this song too heavy for Dan + Shay?\u201d But I think people can look at us just as they see some of their friends and think, \u201cThere\u2019s no way that they\u2019re going through something. They look like they\u2019re doing great.\u201d That\u2019s just a sad reality of mental health, that no matter what it looks like on the outside, you never know what somebody\u2019s battling with on the inside. And as Dan mentioned, both he and I have struggled with that. No matter how well you\u2019re doing, some of those lowest points were at our highest mountain top. A lot of people don\u2019t expect people that are having success in any way to be dealing with something like this, emotionally, on the inside. Obviously we write a lot of songs about our wives, and those songs are very important and people resonate with them and we\u2019ll continue to do that. But we felt like with this (forthcoming album) project in particular, we needed to come with this song first. We live in a crazy world right now. Obviously in the first verse it touches on Ben\u2019s story, and it is very heavy, but I think that the rest of this song really offers hope to people.<\/p>\n \n\tHow much about the timing in relation to Ben\u2019s death figured into either your writing it or your decision to put it out?<\/strong><\/p>\n \n\tSmyers:<\/strong> After writing that, I came home and played the demo for my wife. I get a little emotional in telling the story, especially because it\u2019s so new. But I played her the demo and she was like, \u201cWow, what an amazing song and beautiful message.\u201d She was moved by it, and she said, \u201cDid you guys write that about Ben?\u201d It was pretty obvious. And then she was like, \u201cThat\u2019s really cool that you guys did that on his birthday.\u201d We had no idea that it would\u2019ve been his 50th birthday that day. I pulled up Facebook to confirm it, and it was like, \u201cWould you like to wish Ben Vaughn a happy birthday?\u201d So that to me is a song that was supposed to happen that day. And Ben was in the room with us.<\/p>\n \n\tWe think this song sounds like a hit and is commercial, but if it\u2019s not, if it flops, God forbid, it helps one person, if it saves one person\u2019s life, it was worth it. We\u2019ve got other stuff we\u2019re really excited about, too, that sounds like quote-unquote \u201chits\u201d or radio singles. we just felt like this one was meant to be written that day and is meant to be released into the world. \u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tThe inevitable tendency when someone goes like that \u2014 and many of us have had this happen in their lives \u2014 is to fixate on what was going through the person\u2019s life. If they were really popular and extremely well-loved in their community, as Ben was, you think they could not have done it because they were unaware of that love. So then you wonder what type of reaching out you would have had to have done to become aware an emotional state was that dire.<\/strong><\/p>\n \n\tMooney:<\/strong> I don\u2019t want to dig too deep into Ben\u2019s personal life or situation or try to have some kind of revisionist history on it. But I think it has made me reflect on myself and my relationship with other people. I\u2019m not placing blame on myself or anything, but I think all of us sit there when something like that happens and we just question why. And it has made me more proactive about checking in on my friends and people I care about, even if I\u2019m thinking, \u201cDude, that guy\u2019s killing it. I bet they\u2019re doing great.\u201d It\u2019s just like Robin Williams: Sometimes it\u2019s the guy that\u2019s there for everybody else, who\u2019s making everybody else laugh and make everybody else happy, that\u2019s the saddest or in the darkest place inside. I\u2019ve felt it from a couple other buddies who are like the top dogs in the industry. Sometimes those are the ones carrying the most weight. But yeah, I\u2019ve searched for answers on Ben and these other guys, and I still think about it. It\u2019s like, is there anything that I saw? Everybody from the outside seemed all smiles. It shouldn\u2019t stop you from asking somebody, \u201cHey, how you doing?\u201d \u2014 just checking in.<\/p>\n \n\tSmyers:<\/strong> I\u2019m trying to take something positive away from it and be more proactive about that. I think this song is a step in that direction, and a step for us too, too break that barrier. Maybe it\u2019s selfish, but even to break the personal barrier with our fans in talking about the anxiety that I\u2019ve dealt with\u2026 I openly go to therapy. Porter\u2019s Call in Nashville is an incredible organization for industry folks. As Shay was touching on, no matter if you\u2019re the person standing on stage in front of thousands of people, or if you\u2019re working a desk job or you\u2019re in school, it\u2019s a real thing, mental health, and no one is immune to (issues with it), whether you deal with it or somebody in your family or close personal circle does. <\/p>\n \n\tAnd we have always talked about maybe having a moment on stage where we break that fourth wall and say, \u201cHey, just so you guys know, I have anxiety. I deal with this,\u201d to break that wall down and open myself to the fans and open the fans to us. And this song an opportunity for us to talk about it. You know, if we were promoting a love song, we\u2019re probably not gonna be like, \u201cHey, by the way, I have had a panic attack before!\u201d It would come out of left field. But when we\u2019re out there talking about this song \u2026 This has been a learning lesson for us, and what I\u2019ve taken away from it, man, just check on your buddies, because sometimes people you think are doing great aren\u2019t doing so great, and we\u2019ve gotta all look out for each other. That\u2019s our purpose as humans, you know?<\/p>\n \n\tWas there a barrier there for you, in your own willingness to deal openly with mental health?<\/strong><\/p>\n \n\tMooney:<\/strong> Obviously in talking about your feelings, for women too but maybe especially for men, there\u2019s a stigma and a little bit of a scary thing. We always think, \u201cWell, somebody else has worse than me. I\u2019m not allowed to feel this way. My life is good, I shouldn\u2019t burden someone else with telling them about my stuff.\u201d And I think that\u2019s what we really wanna change the stigma on, is being able to know that you do need to say something. Growing up, I never saw myself as somebody who goes and speaks with somebody to get out my stuff. Now Dan and I talk about our stuff with each other, and with Chad, our therapist over there at Porter\u2019s Call, and it\u2019s helped so much. One of the things that I would hope for this song is that, before somebody even gets to that point, that they do feel okay that we create kind of a culture of talking about your stuff with a friend or with a family member or a therapist, whoever it is. Talking about these things can oftentimes prevent somebody from getting to that point where they do feel hopeless. It isn\u2019t just for people who are alrady at their wit\u2019s end. This is for people who are dealing with what they see as small anxieties in their life. It might be not be to the point of having suicidal thoughts or being in this really dark place, but it could be helping people that are at those early stages of having anxiety or letting the pressures of life and family or whatever it might be get to you.<\/p>\n \n\tDid you record the song fairly recently?<\/strong><\/p>\n \n\tSmyers:<\/strong> \u00a0Yeah, it was a fairly quick turnaround. Shay came over and we always do our vocals, just the two of us, at my house. I filmed him singing it into the microphone just because there was magic in him singing it. Even now as I hear Shay talk about it, I hear his passion in his voice. This is something that matters to both of us, and I knew it mattered to him that day when he sang that vocal on the microphone. There\u2019s an intimacy to it in the verses, and then there\u2019s a big dynamic jump, an octave jump between the verse and the chorus, which just explodes into this hopeful, optimistic thing.<\/p>\n \n\tI\u2019m very proud of the way it sounds. I beat myself up pretty good trying to get the mix right. It\u2019s not one of those ones where you can just slap it in there and be like, all right, , it\u2019s done. Maybe it\u2019s just my opinion because I\u2019m a psycho about EQing every individual high-hat and snare and I drive a lot of people crazy. I just care about it, and the song was important and deserved all the TLC. I tried to lean on more real instruments instead of programming, like real drums right out of the gate. That\u2019s just kind of a head space I\u2019m in right now. I feel like if you can do it with real instruments, if you can create a back beat and make a groove with real drums, that\u2019s gonna age well. In 30 years, you\u2019ll hear that and be like that, \u201cThat sounds like drums,\u201d instead of\u2026 I\u2019m not knocking stuff we\u2019ve done in the past. But this is fairly organic, and I think it needed to be \u2026 it needed to feel real.<\/p>\n