Chris Daughtry

At the 50th Grammy Awards, the band was nominated for Best Rock Song for the single "It's Not Over".

Since the band's first album, Chris Daughtry has collaborated with several artists, including Slash, Sevendust, Theory of a Deadman, Chad Kroeger, Brad Arnold, Vince Gill, and Carlos Santana.

He is known for his powerful vocal belting technique and wide vocal range.

Christopher Adam Daughtry (born December 26, 1979) is an American singer, musician, and actor.

He is the lead vocalist and a guitarist for the rock band Daughtry, which he formed after placing fourth on the fifth season of American Idol.

Chris Daughtry was born in Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina on December 26, 1979, and raised in Lasker, North Carolina, until he was 14.

His parents, Sandra and James "Pete" Daughtry, reside in Palmyra, Virginia, where Daughtry grew up before he relocated to McLeansville, outside of Greensboro.

Daughtry attended Fluvanna County High School in Palmyra, graduating in 1998.

At age 16, Daughtry started taking singing seriously as a musician.

He took guitar lessons from blues rock guitarist Matt Jagger at Stacy's Music store in Charlottesville and Mark Ebert from Laurinburg, North Carolina.

He sought advice from Andy Waldeck (frontman for Earth to Andy) who is credited first on his debut album.

He performed with rock bands during his time in high school at local venues, opening for his future bandmate Brian Craddock's band My Dog Lucy and Matt Jagger.

During high school, he appeared in two stage productions: The Wiz and Peter Pan.

Daughtry's high school band went by the name of Cadence.

He sang lead vocals and played rhythm guitar.

They produced one album, All Eyes on You (1999), a rarity that can sometimes be found on eBay.

The band Absent Element consisted of Daughtry on lead vocals and guitar, Mark Perry on lead guitar, Scott Crawford on drums and Ryan Andrews on bass.

Daughtry's March 21 performance caused controversy when he sang a minor-key rendition of Johnny Cash's "I Walk the Line", based on a cover of the song by the band Live originally recorded for the 2001 tribute album Good Rockin' Tonight: The Legacy of Sun Records.

Neither Daughtry nor the judges (who uniformly praised the performance) noted the Live version, making it appear to some viewers and critics that Daughtry was trying to pass off the arrangement as his own.

In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Daughtry defended himself, saying "It wasn't my doing. You say a lot of things in the [pretaped] interview, and when editing gets involved, things get cut out for time constraints. I did mention in my interview that I'm doing a different version from a band I totally respect. The lead singer of Live, Ed Kowalczyk, called me to say, 'Man, don't listen to that.'...It was really cool to get that kind of respect."

Absent Element released Uprooted in 2005.

This release contains the songs "Conviction" and "Breakdown", which Daughtry later combined and re-recorded as the song "Breakdown" for the album Daughtry.

In 2005, Chris Daughtry auditioned for the CBS singing contest Rock Star: INXS.

He did not make the cut for the live performances.

Former Daughtry drummer Joey Barnes was at the same audition and made the cut only to drop out of the running due to disagreements regarding the contract.

Daughtry auditioned for American Idol in Denver, Colorado, with The Box Tops' "The Letter"; he was portrayed as a young rocker with Southern and hard rock influences.

He passed the audition by a split decision: approved by Paula Abdul and Randy Jackson, disapproved by Simon Cowell.

Simon felt that Daughtry at that time was too robotic.

After being given a Golden Ticket to Hollywood, he performed "The First Cut Is the Deepest", and sang "Emotion" during his trio performance with Ace Young and Bobby Bullard.

The song for Daughtry's a cappella performance remained unknown until American Idol Rewind aired Season 5 Hollywood week, when it was shown that he sang Elton John's 'Your Song'.

Daughtry eventually made it to the Top 24.

On March 1, 2006, Daughtry's "raw" performance of Fuel's "Hemorrhage (In My Hands)" received critical acclaim by all three judges.

On March 3, 2006, Jackson stated in an interview that Daughtry had been offered the opportunity to become Fuel's new lead singer, as the band was at the time without a lead singer.

At a welcome home party, Daughtry said he had declined the offer, but, he said, "he'd still like to work with them somewhere down the road."

Chris Daughtry was in the final four on May 10, 2006, and found himself in the bottom two with Katharine McPhee.

Released by RCA Records, Daughtry's self-titled debut album became the fastest selling debut rock album in Nielsen SoundScan history, selling more than one million copies within five weeks of release, and music's top-selling album of 2007.

The album was recorded before the band was officially formed, making him the only official member present on the album.

In its ninth week of release, Daughtry reached number one on the Billboard chart.

Chris Daughtry is the third most successful American Idol contestant in terms of record sales, behind Kelly Clarkson and Carrie Underwood, who both won their respective seasons.

On August 2, 2008, at the Tom's River Fest in Tom's River NJ, Daughtry, Kowalczyk, and Live performed Live's rendition of "I Walk the Line" together.