Daughtry is an American rock band formed and fronted by namesake Chris Daughtry, who was a finalist on the fifth season of American Idol. Their self-titled debut album was released in November 2006 and reached number one on the Billboard 200. The album went on to sell more than six million copies in the United States, and has been certified six times platinum by the RIAA. Daughtry was also named the best selling album of 2007 by Billboard, becoming the fastest-selling debut rock album in Nielsen SoundScan history. The album produced four top 20 hits on the Billboard Hot 100, including top five hits "It's Not Over" and "Home".
The band's second album, Leave This Town, was released in July 2009 and debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 chart, becoming Daughtry's second number one album in the United States. To date, Leave This Town has sold over 1.3 million copies in the United States and has been certified platinum by the RIAA. The album's lead single, "No Surprise", became the band's fifth top 20 hit on the Hot 100. Their third studio album, Break the Spell, was released in November 2011 and debuted within the top 10 on the Billboard 200 chart. The album has been certified Gold by the RIAA. Daughtry's fourth studio album, Baptized, was released in November 2013, and debuted at number six on the Billboard 200 chart, selling approximately 90,000 units. They released their fifth and sixth albums, Cage to Rattle and Dearly Beloved, in July 2018 and September 2021, respectively. To date, Daughtry has sold over 9 million albums and over 25.6 million digital tracks in the U.S.
History 2005–2008: Origins, Daughtry and breakthrough success Chris Daughtry, who finished in fourth place on the fifth season of American Idol in 2006, stated that he would form a new band after turning down Fuel's offer to become their lead singer. On July 10, 2006, Chris Daughtry had signed with RCA Records and 19 Recordings, which held contracts with fellow American Idol contestants such as Kelly Clarkson and Clay Aiken, and among others. Chris Daughtry is a singer-songwriter himself and has collaborated with several other songwriters, such as Live's Ed Kowalczyk, Seether's Shaun Morgan, Goo Goo Dolls's John Rzeznik, Fuel's Carl Bell, 3 Doors Down's Brad Arnold, Matchbox Twenty's Rob Thomas, SR-71's Mitch Allan, Shinedown's Brent Smith, Three Days Grace's Adam Gontier, and the former The Click Five singer Eric Dill, Theory of a Deadman's Tyler Connolly, Lifehouse's Jason Wade and Nickelback's Chad Kroeger.
Daughtry and members of his label held auditions. Ultimately, they chose four members for the band: Jeremy Brady, 21, guitarist (no longer in the band); Josh Steely, 36, lead guitarist; Josh Paul (no longer with the band), 29, bassist who played for Suicidal Tendencies; Joey Barnes, 30, drummer, (no longer with the band). Two of the band members hail from North Carolina – Barnes, whom Chris had known for some time, and Brady, who was introduced to him a month before the audition. Steely and Paul are both from California. The decision was made to name the band "Daughtry" in order to keep name recognition. In an interview, Chris Daughtry said, "We could have come out with a really obscure name, but coming from a TV show and having name recognition, it was easier just to go with my last name."
The band's self-titled debut album was produced by Howard Benson and was released by RCA Records on November 21, 2006. Chris Daughtry wrote and co-wrote all but two songs on the album – "Feels Like Tonight" and "What About Now". Other notable songwriters Dr. Luke and Max Martin contributed to the album, and session drummer Josh Freese played on all tracks. However, at the time the album was recorded, Chris was the only official member of the band, leading some to mistakenly believe that the band Daughtry is his solo career.
Daughtry was an instant success and spawned several hits for the group, starting with its first single "It's Not Over", which debuted on the radio on December 6, 2006, after being delayed from a planned September release and reaching number four on the Billboard Hot 100 and hitting the top 3 in several other charts. Shortly thereafter, Jeremy Brady departed and was replaced with Brian Craddock, 31, from Virginia. In interviews, Chris Daughtry and Craddock have discussed having known each other when Chris Daughtry was still a member of Absent Element.
After the success of "It's Not Over," the second single from the album, "Home" was released and peaked at number five on the Billboard Hot 100, after debuting at number 83, weeks ahead of its official release to radio. The song was also the official "kick-off" song on sixth season of American Idol, played after a contestant was voted off the show, also the case during season five of Australian Idol. The Brazilian version of Idol, called Ídolos Brazil, used this song as well in its second season. The album's third single, "What I Want", was released to rock radio on April 23, 2007, featuring musician Slash on lead guitars. The single has peaked at number 6 on the rock charts and is featured as a playable song on Guitar Hero: On Tour for the Nintendo DS. The band's fourth single "Over You" was released on July 24, 2007. The band performed this single live on Good Morning America on June 1, 2007. "Crashed", the album's fifth single, was released to rock stations on September 10, 2007, where it was also used in a commercial for Lego Bionicle. The song was also performed on the Pre-Race show on ABC for the NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Chevy Rock and Roll 400. The album's sixth single, "Feels Like Tonight", was released on January 8, 2008, just over a year after the album's release. The video debuted in January and the song was used for the 2007 WWE Tribute to the Troops. Their song "There and Back Again" was also the official theme song for WWE Backlash in 2007.
Due to the success of the singles, Daughtry was certified 4× Platinum on April 24, 2008. The group was on page 8 on Myspace.com of the most played artists, with over 29 million plays. In addition, the group has appeared on the famous compilation album series Now That's What I Call Music! five times, with their songs "It's Not Over", "Home", "Over You", "Feels Like Tonight" and "What About Now". The band was also nominated for four Grammy Awards in 2008, for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal, Best Rock Album, Best Rock Song and Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal. According to billboard.com, Daughtry has had twenty number one hits around the world.
A deluxe edition of Daughtry's self-titled album was released on September 9, 2008. Along with the original CD, this expanded CD/DVD package features four bonus tracks, including acoustic versions of "What About Now," "It's Not Over", and "Home", plus a cover of Foreigner's "Feels Like the First Time". The DVD contains all five of Daughtry's music videos, two rarely seen live clips, and exclusive behind-the-scenes tour footage.
A shortened version of their massive hit single "Home" was used at the end of the English League Cup Final in February 2008 when the compilation of Tottenham Hotspur victory over Chelsea was shown at the end of the Sky coverage.
2009–2010: Leave This Town The second album, Leave This Town was released on July 14, 2009, with fourteen songs making the cut from the nineteen recorded songs. Chris said that the record is a very big rock album. He has also stated that the band had written and recorded over thirty new songs. He worked with Chad Kroeger from Nickelback, Ryan Tedder from OneRepublic, Trevor McNevan from Thousand Foot Krutch, Jason Wade from Lifehouse, Richard Marx, Scott Stevens from The Exies, Adam Gontier, vocalist of Three Days Grace and Eric Dill, former vocalist for The Click Five.
The album's first single, "No Surprise", was released on May 5, 2009, through their website. It officially went for radio play on May 26. Daughtry appeared on American Idol on May 6, 2009 (which is the Result Show of season 8's 'Rock Week') performing "No Surprise". "Life After You" was the follow-up single to "No Surprise".
Leave This Town debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 selling 269,000 copies in its first week. The record was also number one on the Digital Albums Chart and the Rock Chart.
After Leave This Town was released, Daughtry became the first American Idol artist to have two consecutive number-one albums. Carrie Underwood later achieved this accolade when her albums Carnival Ride (2007) and Play On (2009) went number one.
Daughtry performed on-stage at the American Music Awards on November 22, 2009, and sang their hit single "Life After You".
On November 10, 2009, USA Today revealed that Daughtry band members Chris Daughtry and Brian Craddock co-wrote "Don't Wanna Be Wrong", an iTunes Deluxe bonus track on Allison Iraheta's debut album, Just Like You.
On March 15, 2010, the band released the extended play Leave This Town: The B-Sides with six songs that were not released with the first album. A seventh song, "Back Again," was only available on physical releases of the EP.
On April 16, 2010, drummer Joey Barnes and the band had parted ways. Robin Diaz was tapped to replace him for the band's ongoing tour.
"September" was the third single from Leave This Town and it peaked at number two on HAC radio charts, number eighteen on Pop radio charts and number 36 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.
2011–2012: Break the Spell
The band's third album, Break the Spell was released on November 21, 2011. They released the song "Drown in You" for the soundtrack to Batman: Arkham City.
Break the Spell debuted at number eight on the Billboard Top 200 on November 28, 2011, with 129,000 copies sold. As of January 2012 the album has sold 407,000 copies in the United States. On January 26, "Crawling Back to You" debuted at number twenty-four on the Japan Hot 100. "Renegade", "Crawling Back to You", and "Outta My Head" are the three singles released from the album. The fourth single "Start of Something Good" was released on September 4, 2012.
Daughtry commemorated Memorial Day with a performance of "Home" on the West Lawn of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. at PBS' National Memorial Day Concert on May 27, 2012.
On May 29, Chris announced that the band was in the studio working on "really cool stuff". They were recording an acoustic version of "Rescue Me" for DC Comics' "We Can Be Heroes" initiative in the Horn of Africa. The reimagined version of the song was released exclusively to iTunes on July 11, 2012.
On September 24, 2012, the band released a statement on its website that Josh Paul had decided to leave the band. Paul said, "The time has come for me to bow out and let the band continue on without me. This has been a very difficult decision, as these are not only my band mates, but my brothers."
2013–2016: Baptized and It's Not Over...The Hits So Far During Daughtry's two days of writing for the album, they worked with Matt Thiessen, wrote with Blair Daly, and Espionage.
On March 27, 2013, Daughtry tweeted that they had been working with Martin Johnson of Boys Like Girls and Rock Mafia. Over the course of several days in May, he revealed other artists with whom he was collaborating, including Scott Stevens, Ali Tamposi, The Monsters and the Strangerz, Martin Johnson, and Sam Hollander. Daughtry tweeted that he was cutting vocals for the album on May 15. A few days later, Chris Daughtry tweeted that Josh Paul had rejoined the band. On May 22, 2013, Chris Daughtry played a new song, "Broken Arrows", that he wrote for the new album. Chris said that they hope to have the first single out by the end of the year and the entire record out by February 2014.