Backstage with Chris

Gibson.com

The frontman for the biggest-selling band of '07 talks about American Idol, songwriting, and how he learned to listen
Ellen Mallernee | 01.10.2008

In a small room backstage at Nashville, Tennessee’s historic Ryman Auditorium, Chris Daughtry sits quietly, dashing off his Christmas cards. It’s five days before the holiday, and a couple hours before he’ll bound onto the Ryman’s venerated stage, one which he imagines is still baptized by “Johnny Cash’s spit.” Daughtry sets aside the pile of Christmas cards, and rolls up the sleeve of his T-shirt to admire a fresh, tender-looking tattoo on his right bicep.

“My wife’s so good that I actually had her tattooed on me yesterday,” Daughtry says, showing off a buxom blonde pinup girl with a pair of angel wings. “Those are actually her wings, if you tickle her just right.”

It took Chris Daughtry eight hours to get that tattoo, and it’s taken him years to learn how to be a good husband, he says. In light of the massive success that plucked the American Idol contestant from his Greensboro, North Carolina hometown and sent him around the world, this past year has been particularly challenging, and he discusses it with the same plain-spokenness that informs his songs.

“I used to call [my wife] and just quickly throw in the towel,” Daughtry says. “But I’ve found that the less I say and the more I actually listen to her, and just be there without actually being there, is the best thing I can do. As a man, I always feel like I need to say something. Sometimes I have to stop myself because all I want to do is call and tell her about how much awesome stuff is going on in my life, and, you know, her day is sucking hard. I could write a book on it, I’m serious.”

Daughtry guitarists Josh Steeley and Brian Craddock crowd into the tiny dressing room, and Chris’ heartfelt relationship talk vanishes. “Now this guy,” Daughtry says, nodding at Steeley and adopting an effeminate voice, “When he talks to his wife, he’s all like, ‘Hi babyyy.’”

Though the Ryman gig is but one of 265 shows that Chris Daughtry and his band played in ’07, their chemistry doesn’t seem any worse for the wear. He fondly points out that he’s known Craddock since they were teenagers, when Daughtry worked at a car dealership and Craddock at a local guitar shop. Daughtry came in often, Craddock says, and was “famous for getting on our BOSS pedalboard and making some racket, turning the phaser on, cranking the delay.”

Though the other members of Daughtry were born of an audition staged by Chris’ label, Steeley describes the band’s connection as “instant.” Already they have 17 songs in the can for their sophomore album, which they hope to finish writing in the spring.

“Chris just sits at the back of the bus and will come out with something and say, ‘I just wrote this thing,’” Steeley says. “And it’s amazing. The new stuff isn’t too far from the album that’s out now, but it’s more complex.”

Not the only songwriter in the bunch, Daughtry says most of his bandmates do their writing separately and fit the pieces together later. “Some songs are coming out a little heavier than the last record, and some songs are just way more beautiful,” he says, mentioning that drummer Joey Barnes has written some new material on piano.

Chris does his songwriting on guitar, but says, “For me the guitar is just a writing tool. Let’s talk about diminished scales. I don’t know a damn thing about ’em. I know a blues and E-minor pentatonic scale, and that’s as far as I needed to go.”

But Daughtry obviously hasn’t needed advanced guitar skills to carry him. This past year alone, Daughtry was nominated for four Grammys, and Billboard named them the best-selling act of ’07, among other coups.

“Oddly enough, this year all felt very natural, like it was meant to happen,” Chris says. “The whole Idol thing is what felt weird for me because that was obviously something I wasn’t used to. I wasn’t used to singing everybody else’s songs. I wasn’t used to not having a band behind me. I wasn’t used to having cameras in my face. But, honestly it all prepared me for interviews later. I didn’t realize then that I’d have about 10 of them a day.”

A manager carries in an armload of posters and dumps them onto a sofa, and the Daughtry guys gather around to scribble out their signatures. Outside, the old theater creaks with the weight of thousands of fans taking their seats. But, in this moment, Chris Daughtry is a different man than the one he’ll be on-stage, when he’ll doff a black beanie hat and an avalanche of screams will come spilling over the balcony.

Now, with “Welcome to the Jungle” thumping dully through the dressing room speakers, Daughtry and his band gather together backstage to pose for pictures. Chris examines the screen shots on a digital camera and deems himself “so f---ing fat.” Several photos must be taken before he’s content. In an hour, women will shimmy out of their cropped leather jackets, and fathers will hoist grade-school girls onto their shoulders to catch a glimpse of him. Chris Daughtry will prop a combat boot on a speaker box and wince valiantly into the spotlight, but first he wants to know if you can take just one more picture.