The Dryes Get Real About the Hard Times: 'Decided to Lean into the Pain of Everything' (Exclusive)

• Dryes have released their new EP, dear hearton Friday
• The record covers “the chronological story of the last three years of our lives,” the country duo explains
• The musicians (and the married couple!) were Vote highlighted in 2022

When the pieces of The Dryes’ lives began to crumble in 2021, the husband/wife country duo did their best to put the grief aside and keep pushing.

“I’ve actually been through a lot of loss in my life,” Katelyn Drye says in a recent interview with PEOPLE. “I think in many years I would pack it away and allow myself to be sad for just a little while.”

But this time, the sadness remained. A couple of dear family friends died suddenly, and Katelyn was left with the overwhelming feeling that she was on the verge of an emotional breakdown.

“This is the first time I decided to rely on the pain of everything I’ve experienced in my life,” she says. “Honestly, there were days when I would wake up and immediately be in tears. Everything was so sad. I was depressed about the whole thing. It was just brutal. Being a performer, it’s hard to go through things and be in front of people when you’re grieving. But that was the first year I made the decision to pursue it.”

The Dryes.

Sean Hagwell

The Dryes sing about unanswered prayers and unconditional love on new single ‘Mama’s Do’ (Exclusive)

Being forced to “face it” ultimately resulted in the creation of perhaps The Dryes’ strongest body of work. This duo’s EP with six songs dear heart is an ethereal journey of emotions that seem to pass from darkness to light while listening to them.

“It’s a chronological story of the last three years of our lives,” says Katelyn, who enjoyed a successful run in 2022 alongside partner and husband Derek Drye. Vote and have been in high demand for tours ever since. “When you go through such difficult things, you just see things differently and everything changes. You start to develop in a wonderful way.”

The Dryes’ Dear Heart.

Sean Hagwell

Indeed, this pain and these changes also created cracks where some of The Dryes’ most poignant creativity shined through, especially on the breathtaking track “A Little Longer”.

“We wrote them in a lot of rough and tough times, but there’s something beautiful about it,” says Derek Drye of the duo’s current single, released in February and co-written by The Dryes with Mia Fieldes and David Leonard.

Certainly, it was Derek who found himself doing his best to not only be a compassionate partner in the writing room, but also a compassionate partner in their charming home in Whites Creek, Tennessee.

“It’s just hard to know how to let feelings breathe,” says Derek, who lost his mother at a young age. “But when you figure out how to give someone space and just sit in that space with them, I think it takes the pressure off. You learn how to grow together.”

Country duo The Drys Find a song — and a home! — in ‘Whites Creek’: ‘We have roots now’

The Dryes.

Sean Hagwell

This growth can certainly be heard throughout the EP dear heart ending with hopeful and brighter songs like “I Believe” and “Beauty Queen,” the latter premiering exclusively on PEOPLE.

“I think it’s easier to find flaws in yourself when you’re going through hard things or when you’re healing from something,” Katelyn says of the song she wrote during a North Carolina writing retreat with Michael Farren.

“Making songs like ‘Beauty Queen’ felt almost like a reward for facing the pain for the first time. Those songs should have been written then. There’s hope when you’re going through hard things.” She pauses. “Me and Derek choose each other every day despite the hard times. These are the things we live for.”

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Source: HIS Education