Heavy/Getty "Dancing With The Stars" judge Derek Hough
Ahead of his wedding to fellow dancer Hayley Erbert, “Dancing With The Stars” judge Derek Hough has shared a bit of his heart with the world by releasing a love song he wrote and sang himself, titled “Hold Back Time.”
Hough, 38, shared a snippet of the nearly three-minute song via social media on August 23, 2023, along with an animated video of a bride and groom joyfully jumping off a dock into a lake, still wearing their wedding attire. The cover art for the song is a photo of Hough and Erbert dressed in white and lovingly looking at each other underwater, likely taken during a photo shoot Hough shared in June.
“It’s been a while since I’ve written a song,” Hough wrote in his caption on Instagram, alluding to his past as a singer and songwriter, which included being in a band with former “DWTS” pro and longtime best friend Mark Ballas.
Hough likely released the new song as a pre-wedding tribute to Erbert, 27. Though the couple hasn’t announced their specific wedding date, he revealed earlier this year to Extra that the big day was planned for August. Here’s what you need to know:
Derek Hough Writes & Records Love Song ‘Hold Back Time’
In his new song, now available to stream on all major platforms, Hough sings, “Don’t be nervous about the future / We’ve got love and we won’t let it go.”
He continues, “You make the whole world disappear / When you are standing here / I’m caught in forever with you / It’s a feeling I don’t want to lose.”
When a fan asked on Instagram whether it was really him singing, Hough answered, “it is :))”
Before Hough grew famous for his dancing — winning six “Dancing With The Stars” seasons, per Variety — he spent years trying to find success in music groups with Ballas and others.
During an appearance on “The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon” in 2018, Hough said he started out at eight years old as a drummer in a Beach Boys tribute band, playing county fairs in Utah.
Then as a teen, he and Ballas formed the pop group 2B1G with Hough’s sister Julianne, who would later become a “DWTS” pro, too, and will soon re-join the show as co-host of Season 32 alongside Alfonso Ribeiro, per Variety.
Laughing, Hough explained to Fallon that “2B1G” stood for “two boys, one girl.” Hough also said he and Ballas were in a metal band that went by multiple names including Lame Excuse, Atticus, and Almost Amy. Eventually, they transformed into a pop group called the Ballas Hough Band, according to Bustle, and even performed on “DWTS” in 2009.
Though dancing is what made him famous, Hough has continued to dabble in making music, periodically releasing his own songs, as well as recording for special projects like his duet with Kate Reinders for “High School Musical: The Musical – The Series” in 2021.
Derek Hough Says There Will Be Plenty of Music & Dancing at Upcoming Wedding
GettyHayley Erbert and Derek Hough in June 2023
Hough has not said whether he plans to sing at his wedding to Erbert, whom he met when they were both working on “Dancing With The Stars” in 2015, according to People, but they didn’t go public with their relationship until 2017.
They got engaged in the summer of 2022, and have been actively planning ever since, according to their May interview with Brides. Hough told the magazine the three things in which he’s been intimately involved with planning “was the lighting, fireworks … and mapping out the minute details of musical moments.”
That said, the couple doesn’t plan to wow their guests during their first dance.
“We perform for a living, so we just want this dance to be for us,” Erbert told Brides. “We don’t want to perform for anyone else.”
Hough agreed, adding, “We want to feel good and comfortable, but we don’t need to be perfect… That’s a lot less important to me than just looking into her eyes as we’re rocking back and forth. I want to feel truly present in that moment.”
After their wedding, Hough and Erbert will kick off his third Derek Hough Symphony of Dance tour on September 28, performing in 59 cities. Meanwhile, Season 32 of “Dancing With The Stars” will also launch sometime this fall, per Insider, with the full cast set to be announced on “Good Morning America” on September 13.