How Haley & Michaels’ Expanding Platform Brought Them Back to Their Hometown

Before releasing their latest new single, "Taking Off," husband-and-wife duo Haley & Michaels signed a new deal with Sony/ATV Music Publishing's imprint Hickory Records, forging a partnership with Reviver Records. The duo has been releasing music for years, always independently, but with the backing of a label and a six-month radio tour behind them, they're ready to push their music to the next level.

"It's been an evolution," the duo's Ryan Michaels explains. "We were doing it all on our own, and we were able to. We wrote our wedding song, and it ended up being on the Today Show, and wound up being kind of our first single. But we really put it out independently."

Now, Michaels continues, he and wife Shannon Haley are excited to see their platform grow. "We're really excited to have the incredible folks at Reviver," he continues. "We're just excited to have that, because we hope, of course -- you know, we wanna do music for a living. It's what we love to do. But you hope that you have a voice ... and so it's exciting to see the potential to have a bigger voice."

Michaels and Haley both grew up in northern California, only about three miles apart from each other, though they never met until moving to Nashville to pursue music. Still, they bonded over life in their home state.

We both got made fun of for listening to country music," Michaels recalls with a laugh. Interjects Haley, "In California. Which, now it's like the most popular genre out there! But in the '90s ..."

In a full-circle twist, the duo's expanding platform is leading them right back to their roots: "We both grew up listening to a station called 95.3 KRTY, [in] San Jose," Michaels shares. "Which was actually, [later on], the first station ever to play our record. And they've already added our new single. So that's really gratifying."

Meet The Boot's 2019 Artists to Watch