Q&A: Daughtry

You worked with a whole bunch of collaborators on this new album, some fairly notable talents. There are folks from Nickelback, OneRepublic …
I don’t know where the OneRepublic thing keeps coming in.

Oh really?
Yeah, we wrote together last summer but nothing ever came of it. We never recorded anything, so maybe they’re putting that in the press release to up my stock, I don’t know. But no, Ryan [Tedder] is a good friend of mine; we just never could finish a song -- our schedules just didn’t allow it. But Chad Kroeger, from Nickelback, is a dear friend of mine, and we toured together. We’d always wanted to do some writing, just never got around to it. So we finally made it happen, and we wrote the song called "No Surprise" and "Life After You," and we also collaborated on the song together -- myself, Chad, and Richard Marx. And I’m reluctant to talk about all these because I’m not sure at the end of the day which ones make the record and which ones didn't. But yeah, it was a very well-rounded bunch of guys that I got to write with. I mean, I wrote with a lot of the same people I wrote with on the first record: Mitch Allan, David Hodges, Ben Moody.

Richard Marx has written a ton of iconic tunes; Chad Kroeger definitely. What is it like to be in the room working on a tune with those two guys?
It's kind of like a fan that just won free tickets to the private concert. I mean, I’m just sitting in there, and I forget that I have to work because I’m just blown away by these two guys' talent. Richard, I mean, I’ve been a fan of Richard Marx since I was a kid. I know that probably pisses him off because it shows his age, but I work with these people and I’m like a sponge. I pick up their tricks and I use them for myself and it just makes me a better writer all around, and inevitably we always end up becoming friends. It’s just fun to meet people that you respect as artists, and then find out “Hey, I like this guy.”

Yeah, that’s a great feeling I’m sure because to have someone that you looked up to live up to those expectations …
I’ve yet to write with a douchebag.

That’s good. Well, I wish I could say I’ve yet to interview one.
[Laughs] I can’t imagine.

So you're about to release this big record, but looking way back to when you were playing as a young man in your first bands, if you could go back and give yourself advice, what would it be?
Write better songs, and I would have been discovered by then. It’s all about the songs. I mean, a lot of bands get together and they want to show off their chops and they just want to … I don’t know. It’s weird; it’s hard to get young bands to really work on their songwriting and write songs that people can instantly latch onto the melody because it’s hooky, and the lyrics mean something to everybody. It was cool back in the '90s to write lyrics that nobody understood. You’d read a Soundgarden lyric and you’d be like, “I don’t know what it means, but I love it!” These days it’s not as easy. You have to write about something that people latch onto and that people can relate to and go, “Oh, that’s me, I’ve been there.” So back in my earlier bands, my songwriting meant nothing. I’d go back and listen to the songs and I’m like, “Well no frickin’ wonder nobody discovered me.” It’s all about the songs, it really is. You can be as artistic and creative as you want to be. As long as you have good songs to back it you’re solid gold.

People get caught up in the Idol thing a lot, in terms of the hype, but I think one of the things I’m always surprised at when I watch that show is how you hear these songs in a different context and you’re like, "Damn, that’s a good song. That Burt Bacharach song that my dad used to play for me that I used to think was kind of corny actually …" When you hear it in a different way you can see it as a different song.
Yeah, absolutely. All your best '80s metal rock ballads were all pop songs if you really break it down. Very catchy melodies, beautiful lyrics -- they’ve just got really big guitars on it and you never think of it as a pop song, but in essence if you break it down that’s what it is. Once I got this band, I was determined to be the best songwriter I could be, and working with people like Brian Howes and Chad, and just seeing the whole science of it all and how they work and how it’s all about telling the story and not losing a piece of that. So that’s what we’re all about: writing songs. Hopefully people can find something in those songs that they can relate to, and we’re about writing the soundtracks of peoples’ lives.

Speaking of songs, what's your favorite song right now? What’s a tune that’s getting stuck in your head? It could be a song from the new record that you’re working on, it could be an old tune. What are a few songs that you’re just into right now?
Wow, let me think about that one. I’ve actually been listening to a lot of stuff that is not, in any way, like us at all. I’ve been listening to a lot of Tori Amos, actually, [specifically] "Cornflake Girl." I know it’s old school, but that melody just gets stuck in my head. I actually was listening to Lady Gaga, "Poker Face." I like the whole album but if that’s her writing, she’s an incredible songwriter, and she’s actually -- all the bells and whistles aside -- an incredible singer. So I dig her. See, none of this stuff is stuff that people would associate with us. "Heartless," from Kanye.

That's one that gets trapped in my head as well.
I’ve always wanted to cover that, and then Chris Allen did it the other night on Idol, and I’m like, "Well I can’t do it now, because that’s just ripping him off." I wanted to do a big rock version.

Do you still tune into the show and follow it pretty closely?
Yeah, I’ve been watching it. I missed it last week so I always try to find it on YouTube or something.

There were two gigs I thought of recently. One being your return to Idol. I thought it would be interesting seeing that through your eyes after the past few years.
I felt like the cool guy in high school.

And the other gig that I saw you perform recently that I’d love to hear about a bit was at the inauguration.
At the National Space and Science Museum, that one?

Yeah.
Well it wasn’t for the inauguration, we weren’t really close to it -- turns out it was right outside of D.C. But it was this group of teenage honor students from around the country, and this was their inaugural ball. Apparently we were the chosen entertainment, which was an honor, because we didn’t realize how much of a young following we had. It was amazing to walk out there and see nothing but young kids. You always wonder if they’re too cool for school, for bands like us. We’re not Fall Out Boy, we’re not Kings of Leon -- it’s a little different. So I was like, "Wow, okay, maybe we are cool enough for the young kids." So it was a lot of fun. They were all decked out in their prom gowns and suits, and it was an acoustic set so it was a lot of fun, but our acoustic sets are pretty loud and rocking so we had a blast.

I read a little bit about you talking about the brotherhood aspects of being in a band. Tell me about the dynamic of the band now and what you learned from that stint on the road.
We’re very close, and like brothers, there are times when we can push each other's buttons. But also like brothers, we do it on purpose. Because we know what irks each other and we try to capitalize on that. We know when each other needs space; we have a bunk we can hide in. A lot of times you throw on a movie and everything's gravy, but there’s been no domestic violence in this. We love what we do; we respect each other greatly as musicians, and out of being together more than we are with our families you become like family. It baffles me when I hear about bands that people tell me, "No, those guys can't even be in the same room together. They all have to have separate dressing rooms, separate buses." When it gets to that point, why bother? It's not worth it for me.

Well, it doesn’t sound like much fun, either.
No, it doesn't sound like fun anymore. At this point, it never feels like a job. Somebody told me if you have a job you love, you’ll never have to work a day of your life. And that's what it feels like.