Chris Daughtry News

Following a wildly successful debut album, Chris Daughtry admits that the pressure is on for its follow-up.

"I don't want to put out anything that is second rate or be accused of going through a sophomore slump," Daughtry told Entertainment Weekly. "So we're taking our time on it."

What can fans expect from the band's second CD, likely to hit stores in the late spring of 2009?

"It's going to be a big huge rock album. We are working with the same producer — Howard Benson [All American Rejects, My Chemical Romance] — same band and some of the same writers so it feels very comfortable this time around."

We can't wait.

At a pre-Grammy party over the weekend, Chris Daughtry said he's watched a bit of this season's American Idol. And he even has a favorite, referring to one as a "dude that could really do some damage."

We think he's referring to David Cook.

Meanwhile, while Daughtry didn't win American Idol or any Grammy awards Sunday night (he was up for four), the rocker remains one of the best-selling acts of the past year.

"Last year, it was like [being] a freshman in high school who wants to hang out with the seniors," he said while surveying his surroundings at the party, which included a logjam of celebrities including Janet Jackson, Fergie, and Whitney Houston.

"This year, we're still new to the game, but we feel like we're slowly but surely graduating to our senior year."

Chris Daughtry and his band are nominated for a handful of Grammy awards. The ceremony airs this Sunday night, but the rocker found time to talk with TV Guide first...

TV Guide: You're up for four Grammy awards, including Best Rock Song and Best Rock Album. Which one would mean the most to you?
Chris Daughtry: Rock Album. Because that's what we are, and I want people to realize that. Whether it be rock with pop sensibility, we are a rock band.

TV Guide: You covered Bon Jovi's "Wanted Dead or Alive" on Idol — and now you're competing against them for a Grammy. How does that feel?
Daughtry: [Laughs] It's an honor to be in a class of people that you couldn't get away from on the radio growing up. Those guys are still in the game and it's an encouragement to us, in that maybe we can be that act people are listening to 20 years from now.

TV Guide: Your album Daughtry hit No. 1 on the charts in 2007. How do you explain your success?
Daughtry: I can definitely say it had a lot to do with being blasted all over TV every week [on American Idol]. I think there's a huge group of people hoping to see us do well. Some art­ists explode no matter what, and some artists would probably do very well if people paid attention. I think, with us, people paid attention because they already had a vested interest.

Read the full interview now.

Chris Daughtry, one of the leading acts of 2007 despite NOT winning American Idol, says the the show that made him famous "in a state of decline."

The Daughtry frontman recently spoke with Rolling Stone about the series. Considering that three well-known Idol finalist - Taylor Hicks, Ruben Studdard and Katharine McPhee - have all been dropped by their record labels over the last month, it's easy to see where he's coming from.

But Daughtry probably went overboard when he said that if the show doesn't right itself, "it's probably not gonna last too much longer." Ratings still soar for American Idol, Chris.

Overall, though, we agree with his assessment that the show’s woes are largely due to its emphasis on untalented singers.

“People get tired of seeing people that suck,” he says. “It’s funny at first, but come on. They spend three weeks on people that can’t sing, and that’s what they’re banking it on. [They should] find some people that you can really invest in.”

Chris Daughtry certainly proved in 2007 that you needn't win American Idol to be a success.

The finalist's band, Daughtry, sold 3.2 million copies of their self-titled debut, making it the most popular album of the year. Well done, Chris!

American Idol fever was boiling at the 35th Annual American Music Awards last night.

While the striking writers left four-time host Jimmy Kimmel to make up his own jokes, American Idol alum Carrie Underwood, coming off her wins at the Country Music Association Awards earlier this month, picked up three more trophies.

"This is one heck of a night," she gushed, accepting the award for favorite country album. She also won favorite country female artist and an audience text-in award for favorite artist.

Chris Daughtry, the other nominated American Idol, joined his eponymous band, Daughtry, at the podium three times as they won favorite pop-rock album for Daughtry, as well as breakthrough artist and adult contemporary artist.

"Wow. I can't believe we're in the category with Justin Timberlake and Linkin Park. It's pretty awesome," Daughtry said.

We agree. Congrats to both these amazing artists!

A trio of past American Idol favorites are up for American Music Awards. In the ceremony, to be broadcast live from L.A. on November 18, you can tune in to see if any of the following took home trophies.

Chris Daughtry received three nominations. He's up for Favorite Breakthrough Artist and Favorite Artist: Adult Contemporary Music. The self-titled album, “Daughtry,” is up for Favorite Album: Pop or Rock.

Daughtry will also be performing on the show.

Also, American Idol 4 chamption Carrie Underwood is up for Favorite Female Artist: Country, while her album “Some Hearts” is nominated for Favorite Album: Country.

Lastly, American Idol 3 winner Fantasia is up for Favorite Female Artist: Soul/Rhythm & Blues.

We wish them all the best of luck!

Chris Daughtry and his band performed at the University of Alabama Friday night. The school's newspaper, The Crimson White, had a chance to speak with the former American Idol finalist...

"Who am I? I'm just a normal dude that got lucky, I guess," said Daughtry on Friday night, just before he was to perform.

"I've been doing this for eleven years, playing the same bars over and over for the same people, and I finally got my break," Daughtry said, referring to his appearance as a finalist on American Idol.

Throughout the interview, Daughtry continued to emanate that same sort of humble attitude, though he admitted that his musical ability and perseverance played a part in his rise to fame.

"I decided [if] people aren't coming out to see me, you know, from record labels, I might as well go get seen," he said, pointing out that had he not auditioned for American Idol, he would likely still be an unknown playing in bars.

Being from North Carolina, it would be only natural for Daughtry to be included in the football-obsessed masses that make up a significant portion of the population of the region. But somehow, Daughtry said, that never happened.

"It's weird," he said. "My whole family is into sports, football, basketball, baseball, and actually it's something I never really got into. I don't really know why. I just never really got sucked into sports."

Daughtry was quick to say that even though he is not actively interested in sports, he also does not actively dislike them.

"Being at games, I always enjoy them," he said. "It's always a lot more fun being there than, for me, watching it on TV."

Daughtry said when he was growing up, rather than being involved in sports, he would draw.

"I was always drawing," he said. "I was a nerd. I was reading comic books. I thought that's what I was going to do, like be a comic artist."

Click here to read the rest of the article.

Last month, Chris Daughtry made his first concert stop in Canada. A newspaper up north caught up with this American Idol finalist for the following interview...

Q: Your album has been a phenomenal seller. Were you prepared for this?
Daughtry: No, not at all. We hoped it would do well considering the exposure I already had on TV. It's definitely far surpassed anything we hoped it would do.

Q: I understand it was the largest-selling rock debut CD in Soundscan history.
Daughtry: That's what they tell me.

Q: That's pretty impressive.
Daughtry: You can't really prepare for it. It's definitely not something that I ever thought was a possibility.

Q: Your song "Home" has kind of become an anthem. When you perform it, you must have people sing along.
Daughtry: It's crazy. When I wrote that song, I never thought it was anything special. It was one of the songs that came out really fast. I wrote it in like five or 10 minutes. A year and a half or two years later, it's one of the most over-played songs ... in a good way. When we played it live at first, the album was out but the song hadn't really broken big on radio. Now when we play that song, the place just lights up like a Christmas tree. It's amazing. Everybody's singing and you can hear them and it's a pretty good feeling.

Q: The world came to know you through a little show called American Idol. You're from Lasker, N.C., and I'm guessing it's a smaller type of town.
Daughtry: It's a population of like a 100 people.

Q: What was Lasker like while you were on the show?
Daughtry: Oh, my gosh! It's one of those towns where everybody knows everybody and we couldn't keep my grandmother off the radio. That's a big no-no when you're on the show and she kept going to the newspaper and going to the radio station and it was like, if I ever told them anything that was going on, it was in the public the next day. We got called out on that a few times from the show and I'd be like, "Look, if I tell you something, you can't go telling everybody because you're family." She got the whole town kind of in a frenzy.

When I got off the show, it was supposed to be a little private thing for family, and I was going to do a little private acoustic show. But my Grandma goes to the paper and it ends up being a five- state draw and we had to take it down the street at the private school football field and it was probably like three or four thousand people showed up. It was supposed to be about 50.

Q: Your time on American Idol came to a surprising end. Were you impressed and surprised by the outpouring of shock and support that you had at the time?
Daughtry: Oh yeah. Initially, I thought that my style wouldn't be accepted very well on the show. I thought it would at least get me some exposure and I could get some more gigs but it ended up taking a total different direction than I expected.

The American Idol presence on the digital songs chart increased by one this week, as Daughtry's Over You joins the group. That gives him three songs on the chart, more than any other Idol at present...

• Over You makes a pretty low-key debut, entering the chart at No. 121 with about 8,000 downloads, according to Nielsen SoundScan. It's further down than either Home, which drops 47-61 after selling 17,000 downloads, a 13.1% drop from the previous week, for a total of 959,000; or It's Not Over, which falls 93-104, selling 9,000 (-14.2%) for a total of 1.43 million.

• Elliott Yamin's Wait for You remains the top Idol download as measured by this week's sales, although it slips 24-32 on the chart and falls 21% in sales to 27,000. Total is 526,000.

• Carrie's Before He Cheats falls as well, 39-51, selling 20,0000 (-12.3%) for a total of 1.72 million.

• Kelly's still got two tracks on the chart. Never Again drops 69-81, selling 13,000 (-15.2%) and hitting the 800,000 total mark. Because of You, with Reba McEntire, falls 86-109, selling a rounded 9,000 (-25.1%) and hitting 100,000.

• Bucky's A Different World is also down, 127-133, selling 7,000 (-4.4%) to total 146,000. It stays just ahead of Kellie Pickler and I Wonder in total sales; Wonder now has 144,000 after selling 7,000 this past week (-11.3%). It completes a rather downward-oriented chart week for the Idols by dropping from 130 to 148.