In the summer of 2019, Daughtry broke away from RCA Records and signed to their very own record label.
In a move which surprised many, the rockers announced that all future releases would be published by Dogtree Records – the label co-founded by frontman Chris Daughtry – starting with sixth album Dearly Beloved.
So why did this happen?
After all, surely it’s a bad idea to end a longstanding relationship with an established record company and take on a stack of additional promotional work for yourself?
As explained by singer-songwriter Chris Daughtry, the move was made in order to regain creative control.
“We took a chance in leaving RCA, but we felt we needed to in order to create the kind of music we want to play. I believe we’ve put in enough time and worked our asses off to earn our right to do things our own way.”
– Chris Daughtry
Do we sense bad blood between Daughtry and RCA?
“Well, let’s call it “creative differences”.
The deal which I signed coming out of American Idol in 2006, and then renegotiated in ’07 so that we could be a proper band rather than just me, gave away a lot of power and influence regarding musical decisions.
Each time we went into the studio to do a record we seemed to have a new A&R guy, with a new vision, and then they’d leave and we’d get another who had their own ideas for for how the next record should sound.
It’s not like they were just giving us feedback either, they were in control.”
– Chris Daughtry
Daughtry claims that the band were instructed to record several tracks which they didn’t want to, and that this behaviour started on very first album.
“Our first five records all had at least one song that I wasn’t fully on board with.
Some albums more than others.
RCA would bring a bunch of tracks which they wanted us to do, and when I tried explaining that I didn’t want to do those songs because I didn’t get a feel for them, they would coax us into doing them by making us feel like we couldn’t turn them down. It started on the very first record with a song called Feels Like Tonight.”
– Chris Daughtry
The track he’s referring to is no longer played live, and it was the topic of much controversy back in the day.
“I was just coming out of American Idol and the label wanted this song to be the song I used if I had won the show. You know, confetti coming down, highlights of my first audition, (grits teeth) “Feeeeeeels liiiiike…”. I felt no connection to this song, so I figured I wouldn’t need to do it after I didn’t win (laughs), but they were adamant about it. I think there’s still audio recordings out there somewhere of me in the booth yelling “Fuck this song! I hate this fucking song!” (laughs) because I just couldn’t get a feel for it. Oh, and then the lawsuit happened…”
– Chris Daughtry
Ah yes, the lawsuit.
In 2008, Randy Mazick (lead singer of The Asphalt) filed a lawsuit against Daughtry claiming that they had ripped off his song Tonight. The track featured on the 2010 album Learning To Forget, but had been performed live by The Asphalt dating back to 2005. Mazick believed that the songwriters which RCA had hired (Dr. Luke, Max Martin, and Shep Solomon) had directly ripped the chorus from his song.
When you listen to them side by side, it’s difficult to argue with Mazick.
“That whole situation was created by the label. It made me wary of them. We had so many arguments about not wanting to do the song and they pushed it so hard, but the whole time they knew it had been ripped off from somewhere else. When I saw the lawsuit I used it as an opportunity for us to stop playing it live.”
– Chris Daughtry
Despite the controvery surrounding Feels Like Tonight, though, their debut LP sold an impressive six million copies. It still ranks as the fastest-selling debut album in rock history (!), and it launched Daughtry to a level of stardom which few bands ever experience.
They followed it up with Leave This Town (2009).
“I made a crucial mistake when recording Leave This Town, in that I started to question myself, because our second record couldn’t match the insane sales of the first.”
– Chris Daughtry
1.5 million copies is still respectable though, no?
“Oh, absolutely!
And, looking back, I can acknowledge that it was silly of me.
We released Leave This Town just as streaming services were becoming a thing, and people weren’t buying albums in the “old way” anymore.
But I’ll be honest, it really bummed me out.
Having worked so hard to get into this dream position, where I can play music for a living and take care of my family, I was absolutely terrified it was going to come to an end, you know? So I saw the lower numbers and immediately started correlating that with myself not being good enough. I beat myself up a lot. But the only thing my naivity really did was open the door for RCA to take more control away from us on future records.”
– Chris Daughtry
By the time they rolled into 2011, Daughtry had become a well-oiled machine.
They had safely established themselves as one of the top rock acts in the USA thanks to long tours with the likes of Bon Jovi, and looked to capitalize on their momentum by putting all of their chips on what many consider their finest piece of work to date, the superb Break The Spell.
“The record company wanted us to make a pop album this time around, but I had already written all of these songs on the road, so we dug our heels in and did it our way. I fucking love this record, by the way, I’m very proud of it. But the payback for us not doing what they wanted came later, when it got barely any promotion. That was the first time we felt like the label weren’t really on our side anymore.”
– Chris Daughtry
Unfortunately, things were about to get a whole lot worse for Daughtry.
RCA’s decision not to promote Break The Spell meant that the album failed despite all the positive feedback it received from fans and critics. In doing so, the band’s hands were now effectively tied behind their backs, and they created a scenario which handed them full power in deciding the musical direction of the next record.
Eighteen months later they wielded that power to devaststing by hiring a raft of super-producers and outside contributors to create the pop album they craved.
“Fucking Baptized…
Honestly, I understand why fans gave us such a hard time about it.
This is where our relationship with the label really began to deteriorate, because we felt likt we’d totally lost control of our music.
They would bring in outsiders who’d say stuff like, “Hey, nobody’s playing guitars on the radio anymore so you gotta do this now!” and that was that.
It felt like we were a million miles away from the music that I wanted us to be making, but I was so low, and they wee so insistent, that I just did what they wanted me to do so I could go back home.
The A&R guy seemed happy with what came out of those sessions. When he heard an early version of Waiting For Superman he got more excited than I’ve ever seen an A&R guy get over a song which I’ve written. He was hyped.”
– Chris Daughtry
However, tensions were now beginning to show.
“Yeah, I reached a boiling point. Even though I felt like the main reason Break The Spell struggled was because the label sabotaged us for not making a pop album, I basically gave myself over to them as an artist and said “Okay, I’ll do what you want me to do” because I was worn down and terrified of losing what we’d built.”
– Chris Daughtry
The polarizing album finally arrived in November 2013.
Peaking at #6 on the Billboard Hot 100 and then dropping out of the chart just one week later, it became Daughtry’s least commercially successful record to date.
The negative feedback and underwhelming numbers sent shockwaves through the ranks at RCA and caused irrepairable cracks in their relationship with a band who, by this point, felt like they’d been steered down the wrong path.
“That album changed a lot for us.
The whole process annoyed me, and there were many days where I would look in the mirror and ask “Why am I doing something that I don’t fully believe in?!”
When we finally released the record it wasn’t promoted in the way which RCA had promised, and it never achieved the kind of results which they wanted, so it’s like, “Why did I let you talk us into doing this?!?!” We just wanted to make rock music, but somehow we’d gotten to a point where that felt impossible. The whole was such a fucking mess.”
– Chris Daughtry
Growing tensions between Daughtry and their label, coupled with a hostile reception for the new album from their fanbase, led to the band taking a five year hiatus.
They returned in mid-2018, but were disappointed to find more of the same.
“For Cage To Rattle, the A&R guy from RCA pitched it to us like, “Guys, we want you to make a fuckin’ rock album!” so I was like “YESSS!” and I immediately went out on radio to tell our fans that we’re bringing heavy guitars back.
That’s not how it worked out, though.
The original A&R guy was replaced pretty early in the process and the new guy had completely different ideas. It felt like the souls were being ripped from our songs in the editing room. It sucked. I stood there arguing and arguing and arguing about how we wanted this album to sound, until I eventually conceded that they just weren’t listening.
When we wrapped I told my bandmates, “That’s it, I think we need to part ways with the label.”
It was a really scary decision, but one we all still stand by.”
– Chris Daughtry
When their RCA deal finally expired in 2019, Daughtry found themselves at an important crossroads in their career.
They fielded several offers from competitors of RCA but, perhaps fearing a repeat of their previous experience, instead chose to build their own label and self-publish all future releases.
The creation of DogTree Records meant that they would miss out on potentially lucrative signing on bonuses in exchange for gaining total creative control of their music, which was a deal they were happy to make.
The first LP to be released in this manner would be Dearly Beloved (2021).
Our review praised the album as “a blistering return to form”. Displaying a fresh spring in their step and playing with a level of creative freedom not heard since Break The Spell a decade earlier, it’s an unapologetic hard rock record by a band who are clearly enjoying being unshackled from the chains which have held them back in recent years.
“I stand behind every album we’ve made so far, so I’m not saying they don’t matter to me anymore, but this album right here is the one I’m most proud of throughout my career. It’s genuinely the first time we’ve been able to make something where 100% of it is ours – and the ironic thing is, now that we’re no longer being told to write for the charts or for sales, we’ve had more success than we’ve had in fucking years!”
– Chris Daughtry
The lack of interference from above produced a wildly different creative process for this LP.
“Yes, because we’ve been able to make the new songs how they were originally intended to be heard.
One of the new songs, Lioness, was written before we made the switch to our own label.
It has an unusual structure, not the typical verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-chorus-out that you’d expect. I remember telling the people at RCA that this is how I want it to sound because this is how it came out of me, but they weren’t keen, and every few weeks they’d come back with a different mix where it sounded nothing like what I’d written.
That kind of thing is frustrating as an artist.
It makes me happy that we released it how we wanted to and it’s become a bit of a fan favourite.”
– Chris Daughtry
And what’s the story behind the title track?
“We wrote it during the recording sessions for Cage To Rattle back in 2018.
I thought we were making a rock record so the lyrics were my way of thanking our fans for sticking with us, like, “Hey! Here’s the record you’ve been wanting us to make!”. It was by far my favourite song from those sessions but it had its wings clipped in the editing room and eventually got cut from the record.
Thankfully we’ve been able to make it properly now.”
– Chris Daughtry
So is there an element of wanting to “stick it to the man” here?
“Probably, yes!
This process really re-lit the fire inside of me, you know?
I’ve made no secret of the fact that I feel like we’ve moved too far away from the kind of music I want to make in recent years, so now that we have the freedom to do what we wanna do without any interference once of the first things I did was to go back and listen to the records which got me excited about making music during my youth.
Stuff like Soundgarden, Live, Alice In Chains, GN’R.
It really helped, and for the first time in forever I was like “Oh my goodness, I’m so excited to make music again!”
The lyrics to one of our new songs, called Break Into My Heart, tell the story of me going back and trying to re-experience the raw emotions, the hurt, and the heartbreak which I drew from those albums in my youth, and how it helped me to connect with music again on an emotional level for the first time in years. Rediscovering that feeling was the key to bringing us back.”
– Chris Daughtry
Dearly Beloved was met with approval from fans, who welcomed Daughtry’s decision to return to their rock roots, and critics who applauded their gumption for going their own way.
So will we see more bands follow this route in future?
It’s possible, but unlikely, as there’s a large element of risk in leaving the security blanket of an established record label.
One thing which we can all agree on, though, is that Chris Daughtry and his band of merry men deserve huge plaudits for having the bravery to go against the system, and even more impressively, they’ve actually managed to succeed.
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