Jay-Z from 94 Rocks caught up with Chris Daughtry backstage at Lakes Jam 2025, just before his set, for a candid conversation on success, reinvention, and what’s coming next. It’s been a year since their last chat during Breaking Benjamin’s tour, and much has changed—including multiple No. 1 rock songs.
“”Artificial” went number one. “Pieces” was out at the time, and “Pieces” became your second number one active rock song,” Jay-Z noted.
“It meant the world,” Daughtry responded. “The fact that it connected with people the way it did… you hope that people can find their own meaning in the song, and it seems that was the case. We’ve heard so many incredible stories from people that say how it’s helped them through their own personal trials and hard times. So, yeah, it means the world that it was received the way it was.”
Reflecting on his journey from pop stardom to rock authenticity, he added: “Oh hell yeah, absolutely. I mean, there’s no question. This was always the goal from the time I was a 16-year-old kid wanting to get in front of a mic and be a rock star. It took me till my early 40s to get there—it’s better late than never, right?”
He went on to relate his experience to other artists, including Leigh Kakaty of Pop Evil: “Seems like the more documentaries I watch, the more I realize every artist goes through this… you’re kind of listening to all these people around you that quote-unquote are looking out for your best interest, and then it takes a while for you to step away from that and go, ‘But what do I want?’ What feels real to me?”
Daughtry likened it to relationships. “Sometimes you’re in a relationship and you lose yourself, and sometimes you gotta step away to find yourself again. Same thing in the rock side of things.”
Jay-Z then turned the conversation to Daughtry’s EP Shock to the System. “That’s part one,” Jay-Z confirmed, asking when part two will drop.
“It’s done. Part two is complete, mastered, and ready to go. We will be dropping a new track—we’ve already dropped “The Day I Die”—we’re going to be dropping a new track very, very soon. That’s all I can say right now. Just in time for us to go out with Creed and play a new song. That’ll be when we announce the release date of part two. So yeah, we’re excited about it.”
Joining Creed on the Summer of ’99 tour has been a dream come true for Daughtry. “We didn’t come out in ’99, so I had to haggle with our booking agent. I was like, ‘But dude, we didn’t come out in ’99—I just got out of high school like a year before that.’ And then they hit us with Summer of ’99 and Beyond. So we’re the ‘and beyond’—there’s a reason for that title. It’s very cool.”
He continued, “We’re super stoked. We got to do a few shows with them last year and just see how big it is now. I saw them back in the day at the height of their career—it’s even bigger now, which is crazy to see and super encouraging for rock.”
Daughtry also announced a co-headlining tour with Staind this fall. “We’ve been sitting on that one for a minute. We’re really excited about that.”
Recalling his last time with Staind’s Aaron Lewis and the late Stone Temple Pilots frontman, he said, “We did a show with them in Hershey Park back in… I want to say like 2010. I haven’t seen him since. It’ll be really cool to reconnect. Maybe we can get together and do a cool cover or something.”
Jay-Z pointed out Daughtry’s feature on Nothing More’s “Freefall”, which is climbing the rock charts. “It was awesome. I’ve been a big fan of those guys for a long time. I met Johnny in the studio—they were working on “Spirits” and we were working on “Dearly Beloved”. We just kind of connected… mutual fans of each other. We’ve kept in touch over the years.”
On how the collab came together, Daughtry said, “Johnny sent me a few tracks and was like, ‘Hey man, I’d love to get you on a track if your schedule permits.’ We all kind of settled on this one. I did the vocals at my house and sent them to him. We did it a few times live on the Disturbed tour together.”
Asked about remote collaboration, Daughtry reflected: “Back in the day, you had to be all together in one room. Now you don’t even have to be in the same country. That convenience is fun, but… it would’ve been really cool to have been in the studio together. That rarely happens anymore.”
Jay-Z shifted gears to artificial intelligence in music, asking Daughtry if he’d considered using it.
“I haven’t. I don’t believe I’m smart enough to even pull that off right now,” he joked. “It’s such a weird feeling when I hear other people use AI to create this artist singing that song in the style of someone else. It’s weird to me. I look at it as a novelty. I don’t necessarily look at it as a tool to create what we’re doing.”
He added, “I love the human aspect of creating art and music. That’s something I don’t think AI can really duplicate—the human element. I don’t really think about it.”
