Dan + Shay’s ‘Tequila’ Isolated Vocal Track Is Pitch-Perfect [LISTEN]
Dan + Shay's harmonies are among the best in modern country music, and the duo is truly letting them shine with a new project. Early Thursday morning (Aug. 9), Dan Smyers and Shay Mooney released the isolated vocal tracks for their entire third studio album, Dan + Shay.
Readers can press play above to listen to the vocals for "Tequila," the album's first single and a recent No. 1 hit. The isolated track highlights Smyers and Mooney's pitch-perfect voices, as well as the chorus of background singers who make the finished track so beautiful. Smyers wrote "Tequila" with Jordan Reynolds and Nicolle Galyon.
"Instead of writing a feel-good, uptempo kind of thing, we were like, 'Let's go to the Dan + Shay wheelhouse: nostalgia zone!'" Smyers says of the song. "We used the idea of tequila as a trigger to go back to a relationship and get really specific with the details, really tell a story."
On Twitter, Smyers explains that fans have the Beach Boys' iconic album Pet Sounds to thank for these newly released vocal tracks: He "spent months listening to and studying the BRILLIANT harmony structure [on that album] and finding inspiration that I applied to our vocal production" while he and Mooney were making Dan + Shay. A cappella versions of the songs on that record are available to hear though a 30th anniversary release of the disc, and they made Smyers want to do the same.
"The fact that their a cappella tracks are available for listening made me want to release ours to the fans who like to dig deeper," he adds. "Hopefully, if you like the fully produced studio versions of our songs, you’ll enjoy the raw and exposed vocal tracks. And I hope, that maybe someday, they might inspire a young singer or producer, like myself, to create something special."
Dan + Shay (The Vocals) is available for download and streaming on various platforms. Dan + Shay recently released "Speechless" as the next single from their newest album.