Touring With Rascal Flatts is a ‘Full Circle Moment’ for Dan + Shay

“We're very excited about that. Those guys have obviously been a huge influence on us,” Mooney told Sounds Like Nashville and other media recently.

Written by Lauren Laffer
Touring With Rascal Flatts is a ‘Full Circle Moment’ for Dan + Shay
Dan + Shay; Photo credit: Rob Norris

It’s been more than four years since Dan + Shay first made a splash on the country music scene with their debut single, “19 You + Me.” Since then, the duo has gone on to score three No.1 singles, as well as pen chart-topping songs for other artists.

Now this summer, Dan Smyers and Shay Mooney will enter the next chapter of their career as they prepare to release their third studio album and hit the road with Rascal Flatts as part of the Back to Us Tour. While the two are looking forward to letting fans get their hands on the new tunes, Smyers and Mooney admit that the tour is a full circle moment come true.

“We’re very excited about that. Those guys have obviously been a huge influence on us,” Mooney told Sounds Like Nashville and other media recently. “Just because they’re like grandfathers to us,” added Smyers with a laugh.

“They’re great, they’re like grandfathers to us,” Mooney reiterated with a smile. “We love those guys and obviously we’ve taken a lot of inspiration, you know we grew up listening to their music and I think that’s a perfect fit. I think this is the perfect timing you know for everything to happen, putting out new music and being able to hop on that tour and we’re going to have a lot of good times and a lot of tequila, a lot of good nights, and a lot of nights that we probably won’t remember, but we’re very excited about that, and Carly Pearce, that’s going to be a great tour. And yeah, there’s probably going to be some surprises on that tour. Not only for you guys but for us as well.”

One the surprises the two have tossed around is the possibility of covering the Flatts song “I Like The Sound of That,” which was co-written by Mooney.

“As Shay’s buddy, to see him write a number one song for them, it’s like, that’s such a cool full circle moment. And we cover the song in our live show, so we’ve also toyed with the idea of like, we’re opening for them, we come out, ‘This song is called ‘I Like the Sound of That,’ you may know it by Rascal Flatts.’ And then they’re like, ‘Uh…’ at least the first night. I don’t know if we’d get a second night on the tour,” joked Smyers.

Rascal Flatts’ Back to Us Tour, featuring special guests Dan + Shay and Carly Pearce, will kick-off this summer. The tour is part of Live Nation’s MegaTicket, with tickets on sale now.