If you've ever wondered whether country duo Dan + Shay were ARMY, looks like you have your answer. The Grammy-winners sat down with
eTalk's Liz Trinnear ahead of the American Country Music Awards and revealed they not only loved BTS star Jungkook's viral cover of their "10,000 Hours" collab with Justin Bieber, they're huge fans of everything the band does."First of all, [Jungkook] did an amazing job and we're huge fans of those guys—they're so good, the music's amazing, everything is just so on point," Dan Smyers said. "And their fans? Like, the best fans in the entire world—they're so great." He went on to describe the absolute onslaught of attention that followed such a mega-star covering their song and expressed how flattered he and Shay Mooney were that Jungkook had taken the time to record the full thing."He did that cover and it was just incredible. I thought it originally was just a couple lines or something and then I went on SoundCloud and he had recorded the whole song," Dan continued. "That's a tremendous honour. Those guys are so talented and for him to stumble upon our song and to do a whole cover of it—you know it takes a lot of time to do something like that. To go into a studio and put the vocals in and record the whole thing and then upload it—that's super kind of him to do that." The duo even went so far as to suggest it might lead to a possible Dan + Shay + BTS collab."Huge shout out to him for recording it and shout out to the fans! Much love to them, they were so good to us and so sweet about the song. Maybe someday, we'll collaborate with BTS," Dan said. "We're putting that into the world right now," Shay added.
It wouldn't be the first time the duo manifested an awesome partnership. They basically did the same thing with Justin Bieber to create the very song that put them on the BTS ARMY's radar. Shay recalled how they went from wanting to do a collab with JB to releasing a wildly successful song and performing at the Biebs' wedding to Hailey Bieber (née Baldwin)."We're such huge Justin fans and we've known him a little while now... and we've always wanted to do something with him but it always didn't make sense at the time. We wanted to make sure we weren't doing a collaboration just to do a collaboration," Shay shared. "We wanted to make sure the song was right and the timing was right... Dan hit up [both parties' manager] Scooter [Braun] and was like 'Man, we love this song. What do you think about having Justin on this song?' He sent it over to Justin... and I think within 45 minutes we had heard back and they were like, 'He loves the song, he's in.'""I think the time of his life he was in—getting married to Hailey—he was in a similar place to where we were in and it was a really cool thing and I think we all really resonated with the song to begin with and it all kind of starts with that," Shay added, echoing the same ideas about Bieber's maturation that
Director X shared recently when talking about JB's involvement in Drake and DJ Khaled's "Popstar" music video.[video_embed id='2032816']RELATED: Director X dishes on DJ Khaled's 'Popstar' video featuring fellow Canadians Drake and Justin Bieber [/video_embed]Of course, Dan + Shay know all about that wedding to Hailey since they attended and performed at it. The South Carolina ceremony, which happened last fall, boasted all kinds of big names in music, TV and beyond including Kris and Kylie Jenner, Usher, and Jaden Smith. Dan + Shay were happy to be there, but it wasn't lost on them just how elite that party was."We got to sing at their wedding, that was an amazing experience," Shay said. "Everyone there was more famous than us. We were across from like Usher and Kris Jenner and all these people and we were just like, 'Man, what are we even doing here? These people are way cooler than us.'"The duo isn't doing too shabby themselves, considering they were nominated for four ACM Awards heading into Wednesday's ceremony on top of the three wins they already have under their belts. Though the ceremony is a mixture of live and pre-recorded performances with COVID-19 precautions in place (and thus, no audience), Dan + Shay say they hope the TV debut of their latest single, "
I Should Probably Go To Bed," still resonates with fans."We're honestly kind of nervous—it's a very dynamic song and on the track there's like hundreds of layers of vocals and it's crazy, but because it's a pandemic, it's just the two of us on stage," Dan explained. "We did a rehearsal and it was interesting. Everyone is in hazmat suits and face shields and all that... but it's going to be great. We're excited for it and it's fun. We're just happy to be up there making music."[video_embed id='-1']BEFORE YOU GO: Fisherman thought he caught a catfish, he was very wrong [/video_embed]
