Haley and Michaels met over coffee to collaborate on music, ended up falling in love and now they’re in the best place musically that they’ve ever been. Nashville Noise sat down and got to know the country music duo you need on your Spotify playlists.
Haley and Michaels are a married duo that go by Shannon Haley and Ryan Michaels when they’re not on stage. They’re both from California and grew up three miles from each other but fate wouldn’t bring them together until Nashville. They met over coffee and it was love at first sight — at least for Michaels.
“Yeah, she wasn’t entirely aware of it,” he laughed. “I think we had chemistry but we immediately had the musical connection… Our relationship actually started with music.”
That relationship led to the first song they wrote together, “The Price I Pay.” They didn’t release the track until recently, though, because of how precious it was. They needed to perfect it.
“It’s a really special song to us and we really believed in it,” Haley explained. “We had tried recording it a few times and it didn’t just get captured in the way that we had heard it. It wasn’t until we worked with Reid Shippen and got it recorded this last time that we felt like it was in its right musical state to release.”
The wait was worth it. The track has already had over a million streams on Spotify and it’s connecting with fans in a really special way. People have reached out to let Haley and Michaels know what the song has meant to them but one story in particular stands out. It’s pretty, um, interesting.
“Two different people heard this song and ended up getting divorced and ended up getting together,” Haley said baffled before Michaels chimed in, “What we heard through messages they sent us was, ‘When we heard this song we knew that we were with the wrong people and we had to be with the right people.'”
Now the California natives don’t want people getting divorced because of their music but they are glad fans are connecting. Now more than ever, people are connecting with their words because of where they are musically.
“We’ve really opened ourselves up to a lot of different subject matter. When we first started songwriting we had a really narrow way of thinking, especially because we were writing duets. We’re still writing duets but we’re really open,” Haley said.
Ryan added, “We really feel like we know what we’re doing. It’s all very intentional. We’re not hoping to stumble upon something that turns out cool. Everything we do there’s kind of a really intentional process.”
That musical progression is obvious with the new tunes they’re putting out and you can preview their most recent, “The Price I Pay,” below. Like it? Head to iTunes and download your copy. You can also follow the talented duo on Twitter for all the newest tour dates and music news.
