Daughtry!

Dave sits down with Daughtry for an in depth interview! Everything from a rare Aerosmith story to American Idol! You don't want to miss it!

Episode Transcript

(00:01):
And now I heard media for sincethe Dave Rigarts podcast. How are you
doing, man? I'm great,man, how are you doing? It's
good. Thanks for joining me hereon the show to absolutely thanks for having
me. Did you just did youjust now get out of the gym?

(00:22):
Look at this guy? Holy no, no, I actually I didn't get
a chance to work out today.This is what the guy who didn't get
a chance to work out? Yeah, I mean, are you on something?
Are you on our new programmers?It's always you, I guess I've
never seen you almost shirtless before.It's it's been a few years in the

(00:42):
making. When I turned forty,I was like, you know what,
but this I'm I'm I'm gonna takethis. I've always been fascinated with fitness
and bodybuilding, never since I wasa kid. And uh and uh,
you know, all the action moviesgrowing up into you know, Jean Claude

(01:03):
van Dam and comic books like itkind of I guess sparked an interest in
the in the physique and human anatomyand what you know we're able to do
with it. And I got intoit when I was a kid. And
then life happened and I became anadult and responsibilities, and I just kind

(01:25):
of started developing really terrible eating habitsand drinking habits, and the road got
on the road, and it kindof got away from me. So when
I turned forty, I was like, you know what I'm taking I'm taking
this ship seriously, and I justchanged a lot of things about my life.
And here we are. So haveyou sent like these kind of pictures

(01:49):
to your agent? Because I knowyou do TV stuff, and this is
this has got to be the kindof thing that people are going, Hey,
look at Daughtry here. Not onlywe know we can act, We've
seen you on that. That iscertainly the goal. Let me tell you
I'm gonna I'm not going to beshy about that. That is I'm hoping
the life of James Gunn and KevinFeigy and still One and all those guys

(02:12):
hopefully see something and go like,maybe we can use him in one of
these movies. I don't know,we'll see. That was always that was
always the childhood dream, way beforemusic. You mentioned being on the road
and the unhealthy eating, the unhealthydrinking and stuff, and I get that
hotel living and everything, but someguys in your position like Tim McGraw have
made a hardcore change in direction tomake this this whole thing like way up

(02:39):
high on the priority list. Isthat going on with you and your band?
Oh for sure? I mean Idon't. I don't push it on
anyone. So we don't have likea band get together and we all go
work out. But I always makeit a point. And our keyboard player

(03:00):
lbo is Uh is kind of inon it as well, so he'll join
me in the gym. But yeah, you know, I feel like I
try to be more of a lighthousethan a than a tough boat, you
know what I mean? Yeah,I do. So anybody who's watching this
wants to know, now, whatdo you bench? I never even pay
attention to the number. I don'tmax. I don't. I really don't

(03:23):
do a lot of heavy weight.I do a lot of concentrated mind,
body connection, a lot of sets, a lot of reps. And I
found that when I was when Iwas trying to go too hard and and
you know, focusing on all Igot to see what I can max,
and I would hurt myself. Youknow, you're getting your forties, you

(03:46):
start tearing shit easy, you know, So I numbers are bad so well.
I mean I don't really pay attentionto like that in that sort of
way. I mean I do.It is interesting. I keep my watch
on on stage because I'm always intolike, let's see how many calories I
burned on stage? How many isit? How many are you wearing the

(04:08):
Apple Watch? Yes? How many? Okay? First of all, what's
the setting? Because I don't haverock Star on my Apple Watch, I've
got what setting do you play?And how many? Put it? So
I put it on. I couldn'treally find anything that that that that fit
other than like mixed cardio. Iassumed that that would kind of be like

(04:29):
a mixed bag of whatever that's gettingyour heart rate up, and that's kind
of what being on stage is like. So I put it on mixed cardio
at the start of the show andon a solid, you know, high
energy night, it's around nine hundredtwo thousand. You gotta get a hold
guy over at Apple and tell themyou need a new, a new what
they call a complication for your appfor rock Star for you like hardcore the

(04:57):
Chris Daughtry setting. Yeah, Ican't even imagin And what pink is burn
him gutt? I mean she's doingall the acrobatics and stuff. But I
do feel like the fitness has mademy page show and performance not only more
entertaining to watch, probably, butsometimes I'm like, am I even working
that hard? I'm I'm not sweatingup here. But yeah, I think
it's it's it's changed my life ina dramatic way. So it kind of

(05:21):
keeps me from wanting to indulge inthe you know, and in the things
that I used to. And youknow, I'll give myself the occasional you
know, go off the rails nightwhere I'll have pizza, pizza or or
or burgers, or I'll have adrink, but I never I never go

(05:44):
to excess. You know. It'sone of those things where I'm like,
all right, I'm good. Ican't remember the last time I was drunk,
if that makes any any sense.So all growing up stuff, isn't
it. I mean that's the kindof things, like you said, it's
all yeah, it's all big boy, big boy stuff, you know,
I was. I didn't know aboutthis song until the arrangements for you and

(06:06):
I to talk. This cover thatyou did of Journey Separate Ways. Yeah,
I love that song. Thank youand you do this with Lizzie Hale.
I used to think that you werea hard rocker until I saw Lizzie
Hale, and I'm not sure.Yeah she is, she is. She
goes so hard. I guess you'rethe kind of guy who likes to do

(06:29):
covers if it's if it's a coolone, and you like collaborations a lot.
I know I've seen that in yourcareer. Oh yeah, Well,
we had on the last tour ofLast Fall, I think it was Last
Fall, Me and the guys werein the dressing room and we were kind
of talking like we we we feltlike we need a definitive cover, like
that that cover that people just associatewith us, kind of like when when

(06:54):
Disturbed did you know the sound ofsilence? It became like their song,
you know, and and I wantedthat same kind of impact, And we
were kind of kicking around ideas inthe dressing room. We're like, what
maybe be cool to do something fromthe eighties, you know, like something
really sent heavy, but then wecan bring in the big guitars and make
it really really modern and cool.And our first idea was like, oh,

(07:17):
maybe we should do like final Countdownand the more I thought. I
was like, oh, that couldbe a really cool idea, you know,
such an iconic riff, and andthe more I thought about it,
the more I was like, man, it's gonna be hard to kind of
scrape the cheese off of that one. It's uh And and they put it
on that insurance commercial, so thatkind of yeah. But at the same

(07:39):
time, all I could think ofwas us doing like a Karate montage.
You know, for some reason,that song just reminds me of a Karate
Montague. And so yeah, sowe we bailed on that idea. You
said that rock bands have like thatdefinitive cover, and Van Halen had that
with you Really Got Me? Rememberthat? Yeah? Yeah, And now

(08:03):
here was the problem with that.They ended up opening for the Kinks.
So Van Halen would go out infront of this crowd that did not know
the Kinks because they were a littlebit younger, they were just one generation
younger, and they would play youReally Got Me and I guess all and
then the Kinks would come on andthey would play you Really Got Me,
and the audience had it flipped.They thought the Kings, they thought they

(08:24):
thought the Kings were covering the Stones. I mean, yeah, it's well
with Ray Davies. He didn't likethat. Yeah, I can imagine that
would be really awkward any band.I hate for you to get into a
fix fight with Steve Perry over thisthing. No, no, no,
And I would I would walk away. I don't I've heard things about Steve

(08:46):
Perry. I don't want to challengehim to a duel. And then Scott,
my producer, Scott Stevens, He'slike, what do you think about
doing this as a duet? AndI was like, it's got to be
Lizzie. And I text Lizzie.I was like, I think I got
the one. I think I gotit. What do you think of jumping
on separate ways with us? Andshe goes, hell, yeah, that's
my go to karaoke song. Ohyeah. And we both lived in Nashville,

(09:09):
so it was It worked out great. It was like the first time
I've done a collaboration in a longtime. We were both in the same
room and got to, you know, witness each other doing our thing in
the vocal booth, and it wasit was And we knew in that moment,
like when we recorded the vocals,we knew we were doing something special.
We just had no idea if everyoneelse was going to feel that way,

(09:31):
because I guess anytime you touch somethingas iconic as Journey or or anyone
of that caliber, you're subjecting yourselfto all kinds of hate and getting raked
over the coals, you know.So the fact that it was so well
received was not only a huge relieffor us, but it was it was
kind of validation that going back tothat day when we were cutting it,

(09:54):
that we were onto something. Youknow, that song it has an iconic
yell and it's the very last thingat the end of the sun. Is
it just a yell or is itno? Or what is the word that
has yelled out there? I don'tknow if it's or just it could be
anywhere. You could throw any vowelon there at work. Who Got to

(10:15):
do? I mean, that's thatis like the iconic, like the who,
the big scream, the fun yellat the end of that song,
Who got to do it? Doyou guys do it together? What's crazy
is we made that the middle ofthe song and did some ad libs there.
We took all the ad libs stuffand put it in the middle and
then change the ending to this reallyaggressive you know chant that I kind of

(10:39):
came up with on the fly,but we both got to do that.
We both got the tag team thatpart. So I was going and she
was going the high aggressive like.But with her, there's very few singers
out there, or there's a fewsingers out there, but in the modern
rock world that I am super jealousof what they're capable of doing with their

(11:01):
voice. And she's absolutely at thetop of the list. She is an
incredible talent but also just the mostincredible human being. Has there been talk
about hail Storm and Daughtry going outtogether and oh yeah, we talked about
it all the time, but ourschedules have been so flip flopped lately.
They'll be in Europe, we're inthe States. We're in We're in Europe.

(11:24):
They're in the States. We're cuttinga record, they're you know,
working on one as well. Sohopefully, hopefully the stars will align and
maybe something next year could could happen. We would love that. We've we've
talked about it at nauseum. Whatabout that? What if the stars did
align and nothing matters, no schedules, no problems, nothing, And I

(11:45):
mean, like the Skies the limit. What would be your ultimate poor whether
it's you, oh God or yousupporting whatever? I mean, the ultimate
like a really full tour you probablysaw last year was that Leppard Motley Crew
Yeah yeah, Joe Jesture, whatwould be I mean, do you have
like a bucket list collaboration that youwould want to do on tour? Was

(12:09):
someone like The Stone? I meanif there was now yeah, no limit.
I mean, if we're talking classicyou you two, The Stones.
But you know, it's so weirdwhen you think, when I think about
bands of that caliber, nobody givesa shit about who's opening, you know

(12:31):
what I mean. They're here tosee you two, They're here to see
The Stone, They're here to seeaarrison that they don't care about who's opening.
But I feel like if we're ifI'm thinking of what would make sense
and what would at least in mybrain, I would love to do a
tour with Shine Down and Hailstorm.I think if we could figure out a

(12:52):
way to do a triple threat,you know, lineup like that would be
really awesome. That tour that Itold you about, the Motley and def
Leopard and Poison. Uh So,Joan Jett started that show and it was
these outdoor Yeah, but they're they'reall like giants, you know, they

(13:13):
are. Joan Jett. You gottacut her a little slack because they start
the show so early in the dayand it goes to almost minute. Yeah.
By the time Poison came out,Petco Stadium, Petco Park was full.
Everyone was there to see all theshows. That's that. That's fantastic.
Is the franchise way that music isgoing these days. I think it's

(13:35):
great. I think anyway that youcan fill a stadium is a good thing.
You know, if it takes fivebands, if it takes four or
five six bands that of that caliberto go out and bring the people in.
Not all of us are Taylor Swift, all right, we can't.
We can't sell out stadiums on ourown three nights in a row. God
bless her Jesus, She's she's killingit. That's insane. Anybody I saw

(13:58):
it. I witnessed it for standin Nashville, and I was like,
I think I'm probably witnessing the biggesttour of all time right now in front
of my face. It eclipses everything. Some of the things that we talked
about. I took my daughter,and it was the third night in a
row in Nashville, and it justdumped buckets for hours. So the show

(14:26):
kept getting postponed. The show keptgetting postponed. She did not go on
until ten thirty at night and playedtill two in the morning. We left
it like midnight because I was like, I gotta get my daughter home.
But he did not change her set. She played for four hours, and
I was like, who's doing that? Like, who's doing that right now?

(14:48):
At that level? It was insaneAnd nobody left the whole stadium eighty
thousand people. They all had toevacuate because of the rain, and and
nobody left. They all stayed incorridors just like it was like it was
like Lord of the Flies in there, like it was. It was nuts.
I literally walked out and I waslike, I get it, I

(15:09):
get it. Do you get anythingfrom it? I mean, you must
be watching not only as a fan, but you got to be watching as
a professional as well. You mustdraw inspiration ideas something like that. When
you go see a show like that. Absolutely, if you're if you're any
kind of fan of music, it'sit's hard not to or any kind of

(15:30):
performer. It's it's hard not tolook at something of that caliber and go,
what can I take from this?You know what I mean? Like,
what what can I take? Whatis she doing that's so compelling that
that I can kind of extrapolate andapply to my own performance? And really

(15:52):
what I took from it was justher disarming demeanor and how she just doesn't
It's like you're seeing the biggest show, but at the same time, it
feels like you're seeing someone you know, which is very hard to do in
a stadium atmosphere, and it feltlike you were she was talking to you

(16:18):
or she was addressing you. Yeah, yeah, yeah's that She's mastered.
Now, how old is your daughterthat you took to see this show?
She'll be thirteen in November, andshe is obsessed with Taylor Swift and she
is quite the singer as well,and so she was I felt like I
took her to a potentially life changingevent for her. So when you take

(16:40):
your thirteen year old daughter to seeTaylor Swift, obviously people are going to
know you. And what's the storywith your daughter? Is she like,
yeah, my dad's doctor A bigdeal. Whatever? Taylor Swift? Oh
my God, is it that kindof thing? I mean, does she
Does she have any kind of understandingabout that you two are a rock star?

(17:02):
Yeah? She actually really she kindof gives it up to me.
Yeah, which is which is agift as as her dad like to to
feel like she respects what I doand and thinks what I do is cool.
Now is it as cool as TaylorSwift? Absolutely not and it never

(17:22):
will be. But but she definitelydoes not give me the whatever vibes and
she kind of hits me up foryou know, like my opinion on songs
that she's kind of writing and she'salready kind of gotten the bugs. It's
pretty cool to feel like I'm nothere with Taylor Swift that I'm like right

(17:45):
under it. I'm a hard second. Cool. That's great. You know
that your fans would love to seeher come out and sing with you on
stage? Is the door open?So it's gonna it's gonna happen one day,
Absolutely, when she's ready. Whenshe's ready, she's she's kind of
expressed interest in doing that since shewas like three years old, So one

(18:06):
day it's gonna it's gonna happen.Has she ever watched her father move along
the stages on American Idol, watchedlike the very first episode on Down the
Line and seeing what that progress is. I'd never do it because I can't
stand to watch it myself. Ican't stand to go back and look at
old videos and me so and Ithink Grandma would pull up and go,

(18:29):
you know, this is what yourdaddy did. And so they were always
kind of aware of it, butI don't think they got to see the
struggle. You know, they nevergot to witness you know, me not
having a big crowd, you knowwhat I mean in their mind, I've
always been like a rock start ofthem, right, Yeah, there's no
struggle for Chris Daughtry. You startedout on network television, you to the

(18:56):
final four on American Idol, andthe next thing, you know, boom,
You're off and running. So youwere just like you were a star
from the get go. Is theimagination that people have that's a byproduct,
I guess of that TV show.Yeah, yeah, that's the whole Like,
you know, overnight success takes liketen years or something like that.
You know, I'm curious about thehard rock metamorphosis of you and your band,

(19:25):
Daughtry, tell me if I'm tellme if I'm off track on this,
but it seems to me like therewas I mean, you show up
on American Idol, there's no questionyou're a rock and roll guy. In
fact, I think somewhere in themiddle of the show you shaved your head,
didn't you, and you went youknow, the whole kind of hard
rock. No had I had ashaved head when I went onto it.
Okay, you had the look,you got the talent, you had that

(19:45):
that hard rock sound. And thenwhen Idol finished, it seemed kind of
like maybe, and again this isjust me guessing, tell me if I'm
all wrong, it seemed like maybethe bosses pushed you in a little bit
more of an adult contemporary or amore hiddie kind of guy and a wavy
roll and stuff like that. Andit seems like in the last year or

(20:07):
so, the return to rock androll has has happened. For sure.
Yeah, I mean, I thinkthere's some there's some truth in that.
I think there was also a bitof, uh, you know, you
could go back and listen to all, you know, our first three albums,
and there's always one or two songsthat that are heavy hitters. But
the label would be like, yeah, we'll we'll play Kate here, We'll

(20:30):
we'll put these on the record,but we know we're not going to do
anything with them. And those werethe ones that we were always wanting to
do something with. You know,I kind of bought into the hight I
kind of bought into the you know, the highers up and at the labels,
and we kept having a turnover.It was one one A and R
person after another, and we wouldget their idea of who doctory was and

(20:52):
it was never really in line withwhat I originally wanted to do with my
music. But you get so caughtin the weeds and the and the talks
of radio singles. We gotta havethis, we gotta do this to stay
relevant, we gotta do what thisband is doing because nobody's playing guitars on
the radio anymore, and you startbelieving all that bullshit and then you and

(21:17):
I remember stepping back one day andjust going, if I was watching me
on stage right now, would Ibe stoked about what I'm doing? Would
I be getting that same feeling thatI've got when I saw live for the
first time in nineteen ninety seven,And I was like that's what I want
to do with my life. Andthe answer was no. I was like,

(21:40):
I actually don't believe in a goodportion of what we're performing up there,
because we're we're We've got a setlist full of hits, and I
wrote a lot of them, andthere's a few album that I didn't and
those are the ones that I havezero emotional connection to. And we were

(22:02):
coming up to the end of ourcontract with our SA and we did that
last record with him, and itwas kind of like the final straw for
me because I had set out todo a rock record a couple of songs
that got pushed on us that Ididn't believe in, but they told to
me, as like, you dothese, and we've got a hit record.

(22:25):
You do these, we got ahit record, And once again I
kind of bought into the height.And at the end of that, I
was like, nothing happened with thosetwo songs that you guys promised or swore
to they were going to be hit, and here I am stuck with a
record that I don't believe in.It kind of tainted that record for me.
As much as I love Cage toRattle and a lot of the songs
that were written for it. Ijust was kind of in this place where

(22:48):
I'm like, I was able toget away from all the other voices.
I was able to shut everybody up, and I started listening to stuff that
made me excited about music, thestuff that I grew up listening to that
made me want to do this inthe beginning, Alison Chain's tool. You
know, the old old live records, Throwing Copper Secret, Somebody, those

(23:10):
are all hard rock. Yeah,those were the records that were my my
schooling, so to speak. WhenI when I decided that I want to
get in front of a microphone andscream my lungs out and write songs,
and I was like starting to feelfired up about it again, and I
was like, Wow, the fuckaren't you doing a record like this?

(23:33):
And I was able to kind ofhear my own voice for the first time
in years and go, Okay,it all makes sense now. It's not
about radio hits. It's not aboutplacating to this person or this record exactly.
And I, you know, goingindependent was kind of allowed me the
opportunity to really be in full creativecontrol, not only would the music,

(23:59):
but with the videos, with thewardrobe with like nobody was telling me what
I couldn't do, And it wasthe most liberating feeling and the most excited
I've been about music and my career. And every single song on Dearly Beloved
was something that I could back andsomething that I could stand behind, and
I could sit there and if I'mwatching me perform it, I'm like,

(24:21):
I believe in that. You probablyhad to go through all that shit though,
to appreciate where you are now,right, wouldn't you say, oh,
one one thousand percent, I don'tregret any of it. You can't
expect everyone else to get your visionif you don't have a clear one yourself.
And and I needed to go throughthat to realize, Oh, the

(24:42):
reason I'm not doing exactly what Iwant to do is because I didn't know
exactly what I wanted to do.All right, Well, cool, that's
an awesome moment done. It's kindof like before you were just doing a
job, paying the bills, butnow you get to do really what you
were put here to do. Youwere year to hard rock, right absolutely,
I was here to hard rock.Brother, Let's look at Idol for

(25:04):
just a second here, Do youmind talking about idol. I mean,
that's I don't mind at all.Let's do it great, It's great.
Here's here's how season five wrapped up. Chris Daughtry fourth place, ends up
with the best selling album of twothousand and seven. That's not bad for
fourth place. Third place. ElliottYeaman, yeaman. I'm not sure never

(25:25):
heard of you before? Yeah?Yeah, I mean okay, Catherine McFee
sold a couple of records, marriedan old rich guy, and then Taylor
Hicks wins and was never heard fromagain except for people who buy Soul Patrol
t shirts at the swap meet.I mean, does I think he's got
a cooking show? Though? Ohwell, that's all right. This sounds
to me a lot like some ofthese I don't know consultants, record label

(25:48):
people that that that the people whoare like, hey, we got an
idea for the next great hit record. I wonder if a hard rock guy
could ever win in such a corporatemachine of American idol. It's a hard
format to push through the first place. I think that would be a very
difficult thing, simply because you wouldhave to dig your heels on every single

(26:11):
thing that they try to Because Imean, when we think about all the
different themes you have to do.Like for instance, one of the hardest
for me was was doing you know, the standards night where we had to
and I love Rod Stewart, butwe got to meet Rod Stewart and we
worked on he was doing this AmericanStandard songbook record. So the song I

(26:37):
picked was the only one that Ireally knew was a wonderful world. And
the restraint that it took for meto just stand there see's guys, you
know it was I can be achamellion in seeing any genre if I wanted
to, but it didn't feel likenatural or real to me. And if
you stuck to your guns on everysingle thing and you made everything your you

(27:00):
know brand, if I did that, I would have probably gotten voted off
way before I did. It's aweird kind of a circus show. I
get what they're doing there, Yeah, but it's it's fantasy, it's not
reality. But the move when yougot bounced in fourth place, it was
such a disastrous move. President BillClinton and President George Bush were asked to

(27:22):
use their combined super presidential powers toright the wrong and fix our national nightmare.
When they were assembled by Ellen DeGeneresand even they could not undo the
will of American Idol. That's amazing. Well, I'm glad they didn't.
I'm glad they didn't have the powerto do that because if I was really

(27:44):
being honest with myself, looking backto when I first auditioned, I would
have never thought I would have gottenthat far. You know. My whole
goal was maybe I can make ita couple of weeks and get more gigs
when I get home, you knowwhat I mean. Like that was my
That was as forward thinking as yeah, like I just want to play Giggs.

(28:06):
I just want to be able togo, hey, I want to
play at your club, and everybodygo, yeah, let's do this,
as opposed to well, I don'tknow who you are. Here's another example
how the great big Head got itwrong. CBS had a show called rock
Star in Excess. They're looking fora new lead singer for in Excess and
Chris Daughtry says, all right,let's go show them what I can do
and didn't even make the cut.Well, let me tell you it's a

(28:30):
fun story about that one. Everythingwas looking good, everything was like I
did like the interviews, and theyget your you know, sit there and
tell them all about you, andand then months go by and I hear
nothing, and I call her upand was like, hey, I haven't
really heard anything one way or theother. I just want to know if

(28:52):
I didn't get it, if I'mgetting in whatever, we think we would
be doing you a disturb us inthis show. We think you're we think
you're better than that, you're tookain for us, and saying that I
don't think you're a good fit foran excess. But furthermore, I think
this show would hurt you more thanit would help you. In hindsight,

(29:14):
it was a gift. You know. I'm very glad because it had I
had gotten on the show. Evenif I didn't make it, I would
have been in contract to where Icouldn't have even auditioned for American Idol because
it was the same year. Doesanyone ever call up and say, you
know what? We got it wrong? Does Simon Kylell ever call up and

(29:34):
say, hey, you know whatI should you know that first time Daughtry
was on and I said no,but Paula and Randy said yes, I
was wrong, I had it wrong. Congratulations. Does that ever happen?
He was always very kind to meoff camera in a way that I took
as this dude really believed in me, and he is just not gonna take

(30:00):
it that easy on me because hewants to challenge me. And when I
go back and I see that firstaudition, I see exactly what he was
talking about. I see I seea dude that was scared shitless and was
stiff as a board, and vocally, I feel like I killed it.
Personality wise and performance wise. Ifelt like I was the most boring thing

(30:22):
to watch. And he saw thatand saw the fear in me, and
he and he just played on that. And I saw him at the end
of the day of that audition dayin Denver, Colorado. He was leaving
the event center where the auditions weretaking place, getting ready to get in
his limo, and I walk upto him and I said, I'm going

(30:48):
to prove you wrong when I getto Hollywood, and he goes, you
do that and smile, gave methe wink, and he was cool to
me. Ever since. You getlike one or two of those kind of
teachers in your life, and they'rehard but are great. They're great people.
You know, people always say,oh, pup side of it.
He did. I was like,you guys got it wrong. Man,
he was. He was just notletting me off the hook so easy.

(31:12):
People that hear yes all the timehave no reason to get better. There's
no there's no reason why everybody thinksI'm great. Why would I even want
to work any harder. There's alwayssome truth in the in the criticism.
It's just how you frame it,and it's just how you you choose to

(31:32):
see it. And if you chooseto see it from your ego, of
course you're gonna be like, well, book good, I've been doing this
for years. I don't need youtelling me what to do. What do
you know? But I didn't dothat. I was like, okay,
what is he really saying here?And I worked harder, And you know,
there were people who believed in youall along, obviously, namely Fuel.
Here's a rock band. Here's areal rock band with a real label

(31:55):
and real videos, and they're onMTV and they're saying, Dawntry, come
be our lead singer from the getgo, before American all this stuff,
and you had this vision of whatyou wanted to do. Even though you
love Fuel, you consider them oneof your inspirations. Had you had to
say you had to make a difficultchoice and say, ah, I can't

(32:16):
be the lead singer of your band. Yeah, you know that was a
tough one, just because there's thisthere's this unsettling feeling when the singer is
still around, you know what Imean, Like he's not in the band
anymore or at the time, buthe's not dead. Like that feels weird

(32:37):
to me, Like I'm not Idon't want to replace someone else, and
I don't want to be beholden totheir catalog either. Then a similar situation
happened. I get this random callfrom Joe Perry. Joe Perry and Stephen
were apparently at odds with each other. I think there was it was all

(32:59):
in the new This isn't like privateinformation that they were they were they were.
I think I think this was rightwhen Steven Tyler was going on American
Idol and they were, they weren'ttouring together. I think it was like
a public breakup sort of thing.Joe Perry calls me. I'm like,
first of all, I don't knowJoe Perry had my number. How this

(33:21):
is incredible. I thought it wasa joke at first, but he didn't
even take time to like, like, how you doing? Like what?
He just went into his reason forcalling me, And I don't know what
Steven's doing, but we want towork. How would you feel about hitting
the road with us? You gotsome cool songs we could play too,
And I was like, uh,like I was speech to less. First

(33:45):
of all, I don't consider myselfany caliber of singer that Steven Tyler is.
As far as I would not beable to tackle those songs the way
Steven Tyler tackles him, he isirreplaceable in my in my mind. Furthermore,
Steven Tyler's a lot, you knowwhat I mean, Like, like

(34:08):
my idea of this, this wholelike fear of of pissing off one of
my heroes was just looming, andI was like, there's no way I
can do this, Joe. Didyou think yourself, Chris, when you
go out on stage? What arethe Aerosmith fans going to feel when it's
Aerosmith with christ Daughtry singing? Itwas a terrifying concept the moment it left,

(34:35):
the words left his mouth. That'sthe coolest thing in the world,
isn't it? Though? Yeah,I mean, it really is. It
is a story that I will holdnear and dear for the rest of my
life for sure. Honestly, Idon't know what's cooler. Is it cooler
to to become the next lead singerof Aerosmith or is it cooler just to
get the invite from Joe Perry.That's incredibly think that. I think the

(34:58):
invite was was much schooler. That'sa career high for you that I don't
know how that could be eclipsed unlessyeah, Ring called up and said,
Paul's not working out anymore. Dbe like, do you all know who
you're asking here? Can you?Can you sing dream on on a Good

(35:19):
Dame where I'm not beat up?I can nail that high part at the
end. But that is a thatis like one out of every five times,
and then there's other times where Iwould just bail. That is funny.
Yeah, I'll tell you what.You know, we were talking about
TV shows that maybe weren't as hoton Christoltry as we wish they were.
There was a TV show that lovedyou, and that was The Masked Singer,

(35:43):
And you went on that show dressedup as what was it, the
Rottweiler you were the rock Yeah,yeah, yeah, And you went all
almost all the way to the veryend of that show, didn't you.
Yeah, I was. It wasbetween me and Wayne Brady, and Wayne
Brady is a hell of an entertainer, and that dude is so talented.

(36:06):
He's funny, he can sing,he can dance, he had, he
had what it took to win themass singer. Nobody knows who you are,
you can sing, you can doanything under this veil of anonymity,
and that was so attractive to methat I as soon as my publicists mentioned
I was like, yes, Iam all in, Let's do this.
That's funny. So yeah. Thefirst time I saw that show, I

(36:29):
thought, this is the stupidest,hokiest, corniest thing I've ever seen in
my life. And I was hookedafter the first performance. I had to
know always under that mask, itwas so much fun because it wasn't about
like it wasn't about like I needthis for my career. It was more
like, this is just going tobe a fun experience. And I remember

(36:50):
sitting backstage it was one of theonly times that we were even in the
same proximity as the other other formersand all you can do is gesture.
You can't speak. And I'm lookingaround me because they're getting ready to do
this bumper shop of everybody, andI'm looking around, going, this must
be what like what it's like totake acid. This is crazy, like

(37:15):
all these like animals are and Ihave no idea who's under there. I
didn't know Seal was there and whichyou know, I'm a huge Seal fan.
You should go back and do themass singer on acid so you could
have set the full experience. Yeah, TV show that you did it blew

(37:36):
me away. I was surprised bythis and I get it, though.
Was the passion to do this show? The passion And I'm wondering the producers
of the Story of Christ they callyou up and they say, Doctry,
we want you to be on ourshow and we want you to play and
you're like, Jesus, I'll beJesus and they're like no, oh,

(37:57):
no, I would never said yesto that. Judas was the perfect,
the perfect like the anti hero.That's That's where I'm at, Like,
give me, give me the villain, give me the anti hero. Like
look, the ultimate anti hero ofmine a bus boy at the last supper
then, but you man, Ithought, there, I did, I

(38:17):
did. I had a blast doingthat. It felt like shooting a music
video. But at least when I'mshooting a music video, I'm kind of
I know that the track is goingto replace what I'm doing, so flaws
and all get thrown out the window, and it's all about the performance.
This I had to like really focuson sounding good and giving the performance,

(38:39):
you know, and I was veryhappy with how it turned out. Uh,
let's talk about some of your greatsuccesses here for as second, and
I wonder, I'm curious how youmeasure them because there are so many music
charts that are available to us,and I wonder if there's one that matters
to you. Is it still theBillboard Hot one hundred? Is that the

(39:00):
ultimate goal? No, I don'tthink so. It would be nice to,
you know, we have been nominatedfor three Grammys. It would be
nice to actually have one, justto say I want a Grammy. But
at the same time, I don'tthink any of that matters at the end
of the day. I think forme now is putting out music that I

(39:23):
believe in and feeling like it's connectingwith people and making them think and making
them feel something on an emotional levelthat they can relate to. What's your
think? Home? Is that song? I mean, what song touches your
audience? Do you think more thananything else that that song is? That's
an iconic doctory song. Yeah.I wrote that song before I even went

(39:46):
on American Idol, so that thathas a special place in my heart,
just because it was kind of like, let me see what it's like to
write a like a pop song,you know what I mean? And with
the what's your message? What isyour message in the words? And home?
Because I might be confused on it? Tell me what your intent is
on that song. At the timewhen I wrote it, Yeah, I

(40:08):
knew I was going. I knewI was going on American Idol. I
had already gotten through the first thing, but I was I was, I
was at home, and so Ikind of knew that maybe things could could
change soon, you know, maybeyou know, I've never toured, I've
never you know, been on theroad away from my family. I don't

(40:30):
know what that's going to be like. So it was kind of just me
tapping into what that might be likeas if it was already happening. It
was kind of a foreshadowing, soto speak. I don't know why I
feel like I can misinterpret lyrics allthe time. I'll give you an example,
What I Want, which is myfavorite doctory song. I used to
play the shit out of that songon KGB and San Diego. I know

(40:53):
there's a lot of doctory hits,but I was what I Want. I
played that song appreciated in the morningand until recently, because you sing that
so hard and you rock that sohard, it didn't dawn on me for
the longest time that that's a thankyou song you're saying to someone. Am
I wrong on that? No?No, it's that was one of those

(41:15):
songs that I wasn't really thinking aboutthe lyric as much as I was thinking
about the feeling of it. Iremember when when I wrote this song with
Brian House and he had this riff. I remember us just saying it has
such a like old school guns andRoses vibe to it, which is where

(41:37):
we got the idea to get Slashinvolved. But I wasn't really thinking about
the lyrics, and it's actually oneof the songs that I kind of go
back and go I love hearing thatthat you love it so much, but
I would go back and go thatwas a terrible songwriter back then, because
I don't feel like these lyrics reallysay a whole lot. But I guess

(41:58):
if I had to really break itout, it was me kind of saying
that it's easy to think you wantsomething else as opposed to what you already
have and lose sight of that andlose sight of the appreciation of what's already
in front of you. That's it. See. I identify that song as
an eye opening moment. What Iwant and what I need I now realize

(42:22):
is what you have been offering meall along. I mean, I appreciate
it. It might be something thatwe need to bring back out and sell
us. We haven't played that onein such a long time. Don't go
by my taste, because just acouple of weeks ago, I had your
friend Chad Krueger on here and Itold him, I said, listen,
Chad, you need to know thatthe best Nickelback song ever is never Again,

(42:46):
and he goes, really, that'sinteresting because we don't sing that anymore.
And I was like, what theheck? It goes everybody. And
I had that similar conversation with Chad. I thought follow You Home as just
and he was like, yeah,it just doesn't work live. I was
like, oh, so you've neverplayed it. He goes, Nah,
just doesn't work. But the homesong, for me, I always took

(43:09):
that as I'm going home, I'mgonna I'm gonna be with my family,
I'm gonna be in my spot,I'm gonna enjoy myself, I'm going to
my nest, my safe place.And yes, that's essentially what it is,
okay, and that's a nice message, But what was They kept playing
it at the end of Idol whenpeople were getting kicked out, and it

(43:30):
just I don't know that that wasa huge blessing because that song was apparently
not going to be a single forus. Yeah, well until they made
it, until until Idol called andwas like, hey, I think you
have a song that we'd like touse to make people feel better about their

(43:52):
life when we kick them off,so to speak, and which I thought
was a nice change from the hada Bad Day, you know, the
song that they were playing the seasonbefore that, and it just took off.
It kind of took on its ownlife at radio, and and that

(44:15):
was a that was a wine Ididn't expect that is a business move for
you, isn't it. I Mean, that's that's like a that's catching that's
money coming in for you. Thatwas a that was a solid move.
If a company wants a song,a Daughtry song because it fits perfectly with
the message that their anti diarrhea pillsthat they want to sell work, are

(44:37):
you going to get the green lightto that kind of stuff? Are you
just like yeah? Whatever? Youknow, I would have a hard time
singing something so earnestly about about diarrheapills, some of them. You like,
the ozempic commercial is using the oldsong oh Oh It's Magic, and
yeah, probably wouldn't have even knownthat band or known that song unless you're

(44:57):
as old as I am. Sofor these people who hear the ozempic oozempic,
they just think that's an original songfor that drug. I want.
I wonder how much they're having topay for that when they're using Because there
was another commercial I can't remember,but it was it was different lyrics,
but it was rocket Man. Firstof all, we could never get an

(45:20):
Elton John song cleared when we wereon Idol, so something had to change
for him, though, Okay,you're a regular guy. And I shouldn't
say you're a regular guy, butI have seen you and your family and
your stories about what's going on inyour life, and People Magazine on a
regular basis. They just eat youup. You like being in People?
Do you like sitting down with thoseguys? I think the days of us

(45:45):
going out and doing you know,personal pieces like that, or we've put
on the back, we kind ofpumped the brakes on. It's a double
edged sword, you know. Ifeel like in some ways you're getting out
with you want to say, andin other ways it's being taken in a
completely different way. And there's alwaysgoing to be some side piece that gets

(46:08):
written about that piece. And thenthat's that's what starts to get weird,
is when it when other outlets startto take pieces from it and hold in
on that and make that their headline. That's when it gets weird. And
and by the way, you neverget to see it before it comes out,
like they're not that, they're notthat kind to go what do you

(46:29):
think? Well, if I was, if you really want to know,
I would take that out, thatout that out. Well, it's too
late, it's already gone to print. Well, thanks a lot for Sharon.
I have a topic that I knowyou have a very strong opinion on,
and it's very it's a very hottopic these days, and it's artificial
intelligence AI. Then let's dig in. It's my favorite thing I've ever done,

(46:52):
and I'm so excited for everyone tohear it. Way do you see
this video? Holy shit, it'sgonna be nuts. Okay, I saw
this record. I saw the albumart of this. I think it's like
a hot chick robot thing. Andthe song is artificial And here's Chris Daughtry.
You're saying, welcome to your worstnightmare. And I'm like, what
is this all about? And it'sartificial intelligence? And I'm wondering is this

(47:15):
hitting you? Because I know thatthere are actors and writers and all these
people in entertainment who are worried thatcomputers are going to take away everyone's job.
Look, when we wrote the song, you were just talking in the
studio about like you know, chat, GPT and all this AI R and
all. And Scott, our producer, was like, dude, we were

(47:38):
I was just talking to some friendsof ours, him and his wife that
are AI coders and you will notbelieve some of the stuff that's coming.
And we just started getting in thisconversation about just in the wrong hands,
this could be a nightmare. Youknow. You go back and think about
those movies like Terminator, and everything is destroyed by technology going bad.

(48:02):
But what you can't replace is,you know, the heart and soul of
humanity, and that's the thing thatcreates art. That's where real art comes
from. Because I don't think there'sanything cool about hearing fucking Johnny Cash seeing
Barbie Girl. My big concern iswhat's real anymore? Because they can use

(48:24):
AI to create scenarios both with visualsof people saying words in a mood that
they did not do at all,but it looks realistic, and so what's
real and not? To me thatis just horrifyingly frightening. Well, I
think the difference between AI and humanthe AI can't come up with an original

(48:46):
idea. You can either do greatthings with it or you can you know,
you can ruin someone's life. Yeah, you're gonna be a good guy
or a bad guy. And thatis the message in your new soul artificial
right. Yeah, I think thesong is slightly tongue in cheek. It's
like basically saying, you know,it's here. It's not going anywhere.

(49:09):
No it's not. It's out ofthe box, and it's out of the
box. And this is the deathof who we are or were. It's
here. My last question for you, and I'm not sure if the supplies
for you because of your specific history, but I always like to ask singers,

(49:30):
rock stars, whatever format there,and I always like to ask him,
do you remember the first time youheard you singing on the radio?
And I wonder if that applies toyou because you started out like on network
television. I do remember, andit was in nineteen ninety nine or two

(49:53):
thousand ninety nine. It was thiscollege radio station in charles Ville, Virginia,
and it was with my band Cadenceat the time, and we were
kind of making some noise in thelocal theme. We had won a Battle
of the Bands and recorded some songsand I remember us going in there thinking

(50:15):
we were just hot shit. Ninetyone point nine or nine eight point nine
Virginia college station and I can't rememberthe name of the show, but it
was where they would showcase local talentand we brought them a CD of a
couple of songs and I remember hearingthat. It was around midnight, so

(50:37):
not everybody heard it but it butto us we were like rock stars.
We had just arrived and I rememberhearing that and it was just like the
most surreal, like celebratory moment.There was something special about being, you
know, a nineteen year old kidthat nobody knows anything about you and the
station's playing you on their on theiron the air. That was a really

(51:00):
cool moment for us. I thinkthat's cool that you've got that. That's
awesome. You were great, honestly, thank you. You're so generous with
your time. Oh, thank you, Thank you, Dave. I appreciate
you man, seriously, that wasa great conversation. You asked great questions
and that's always fun. Thank youso much, Dave. I appreciate you
in your time. Man. Thankyou. That's for you, pal,
take care of right, be well. You've been listening to the Dave Riggards

(51:22):
podcast. Stay tuned for more episodesto come. To reach Dave for comments
or suggestions for future podcast topics,email him at Dave Rigards at iHeartMedia dot
com. That's d A B ER I c K A R d s
at iHeartMedia dot com, Dave RiggartsPodcast