Devin Dawson II People Magazine

What's Making Devin Dawson Smile? For Starters, Blake Shelton Performing His Song

For a guy who’s known for not smiling much, Devin Dawson has noticed his face is acting pretty strange these days. “I’m smiling as much as I ever have in my life,” he tells PEOPLE. But then he has a lot to smile about.

Last month he proposed to his girlfriend of two years, Leah Sykes, and they’re now planning their late October wedding. This month he’ll be center stage for his first full-scale charity effort, a six-stop concert tour in California that will benefit his native state’s firefighters and communities affected by fire. He’s also now sifting through, by his count, 500 (500!) songs he’s co-written for the follow-up to his critically acclaimed debut album,Dark Horse. And he’s still reveling in the afterglow of watching a song he wrote, ““God’s Country,”  performed by Blake Shelton at the recent ACM Awards.

“It was pretty crazy,” the 30-year-old artist says, recalling the ACM moment. “I was standing right behind [Shelton’s girlfriend] Gwen Stefani, and we were all singing out every single word to it. And she came up afterward and gave me a hug and told me, ‘That is one of my favorite songs he’s ever recorded.’ And he came up afterward and said, ‘Thank you.’ I’m like, ‘I’m the one that should be thanking you! Why are you thanking me?’”

Shelton’s new single is the result of a Dawson co-write with singer-songwriter Hardy and songwriter Jordan Schmidt. Hardy is the one who conceived the title, and Dawson says he knows the farm-centric lyrics are a little outside his California groove — but, he adds, he enjoyed leaving his comfort zone.

“It’s cool that Blake did it, and it sounds incredible on him,” he says. “But it’s also cool to be really proud of the song. It’s just one of those songs that landed, and I’m very grateful.”