If it weren't for a very convincing boss, Kix Brooks says that Brooks & Dunn may have broken up a decade prior to their split in 2010.

Brooks spent 20 years making music with Ronnie Dunn, and their second decade produced three platinum-certified No. 1 albums and 20 Top 20 singles -- but Brooks says that those successes almost didn't happen.

“We had a record called Tight Rope [in 1999] that hadn’t done really well, and we were just getting kind of threadbare,” Brooks says (quote via Country Weekly). “We weren’t really writing together anymore, and we were just kind of done.”

In the end, it was Joe Galante, the head of their record label, that convinced the duo to keep trying.

“Joe sat down with us and just convinced us we still had some music to make,” Brooks continues. “He said, ‘If I’m wrong, then you can shut it down. But I don’t think I am.’ We had so much respect for him and his legend. Neither one of us knew him, but we said, ‘OK. This guy is for real, and he’s a big-time guy.’”

Galante is also the man responsible for one of the band's biggest hits, "Ain't Nothing 'Bout You," which was the debut single off their next album, 2001's Steers & Stripes.

“[Joe] said, ‘I just want you to record one song for me. I really think it’s a hit,’” Brooks says. “We started winning awards again. I was like, ‘What the heck? I guess we’re back on the bus again.’ It was another 10 years before we said, ‘We really are done this time.’"

Brooks & Dunn are set to reunite this year for a Las Vegas residency with their friend Reba McEntire, with dates beginning on June 17.

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