Night.
Hi there, how are you today? Thank you for finding this podcast Loves Someone with Delilah. As you may or may not know, I have been on the air at night for a long time, playing requests and dedications on your radio and I love doing my show, I stink and love hosting my show. But one of the things that always made me kind of sad and frustrated me was the fact that on my radio show at night I can only talk for two or three minutes at a time, because you know, with the music format, you
got to play the music. So when podcasts started to become a thing, I thought, awesome, Now I can have in depth conversations that don't have to stop after two minutes. I can talk to somebody about what's important to them, what really means. And so we started this podcast Love Someone with Delilah, and what we are endeavoring to do. What my goal is not just to entertain you, but
to inspire you. A lot of things are entertaining, but once you watch it, you're no better off than when you started, or once you listen to it, you're no better of a person than before you started listening. And with this podcast, what I hope to do is inspire you, inspire you to find that thing within you, whatever that is. Maybe it's taking care of children, maybe it's taking care of the elderly. Maybe it's taking care of our planet.
Maybe it's being actively involved in education or a feeding program. I don't know what that thing is. Maybe you have the gift of hospitality. Maybe you're an artist. Maybe your talent is singing, and through your voice you make the world a better place. Such is the case with our guest today. You probably know him from American Idol, maybe from his killer music that I have been playing on my show for years. Our guest today on this podcast
Loves Someone with Delilah is Chris Daughtry. Chris not only a songwriter, a recording artist, but he's also a humanitarian, a husband, a great dad, and he is passionate about sharing his heart with others. Chris Daughtry, thank you for making your way out to the farm. Thank you for coming to my studio. Welcome aboard.
Thank you so much.
So let's talk about music and especially I wanted to talk to you about your new song, but I'm going to be a blubbering mess. Janie sent it to me the other day last week, and I cried listening to it the first or second time, and I thought, no, this can't be saying what I think think it's saying, because it's saying it too well. So then I looked up the lyrics just to make sure my heart was being fillayed.
Yeah.
Yeah, and you were saying everything I want to say to my kids. And it's such a beautiful way.
Yeah, yeah, it's it certainly has has kind of morphed into that for us as well. It's I think there's so many kids out there that feel just not enough or not good enough, or that they're they're not what they're supposed to be according to society standards. Are these these people? Are these people? And and I just feel like love transcends all that, and I just, you know, we try to instill that in our own kids.
And it's not just kids, everyone, it's everyone. Right.
Well, when we first wrote it, Okay, so a little little backstory, my wife had had she had tried to kind of it that she wrote stuff when she was younger, and she loved writing and doing poetry, and it was all about lyrics. And I kind of blew it off a little bit, not you know, in almost like I write songs. That's that's my territory, you know what I mean. But it just a few years ago she had she had brought me some lyrics, and I was like, I'm
not gonna dismiss this this time. I'm you know, there might for all I know, I've been missing out on some real gold here. And I read these lyrics that she had written and and I was like, I had the chorus in my head already, and I was like, Okay,
this is this is something very special. And I went to my studio and started writing it and did a whole demo and I played it for and she just bawled and and for like this this song is almost like three years old at this point now, but for the first like year, every time I listen to the demo, it would always just choke me up.
I shouldn't be embarrassed about the fact that I was sitting here in this chair in the studio bawling. Yeah, flayed my heart.
The only reason I'm not is because I've been through the emotions so many times that that I've you know,
been able to separate. But yeah, and it was this internal struggle that she was dealing with that that, you know, and she was getting those those feelings out on paper and feeling like needed to be a certain way or whatever, and and knowing that I wanted her to just be who she is and be happy and be like, I love you for you, like, don't don't feel like you need to be a certain way or or or you have to hide this part of yourself or whatever. And
so it became became that. And it's we've seen, at least I've seen in the performances, have had people came up to me and it was like, You've helped me through this or that. And it's such an amazing feeling to see that this has the potential to really affect people on a really deep level. Yeah, because oh, I
just I don't know, like I want people. I want people at our shows to all feel welcome, you know, and to not feel that they're being judged by this person or they don't fit into this group or whatever. I want everybody to feel acceptance and love. You know.
Jamie and I have been besties for almost thirty years now. I stole her away from another radio show in Boston years ago when we first met, and we were talking yesterday and she said, what are we going to do? We're talking about how crazy the world is. There was a shooting at a college that her niece attends, and she said, what are we going to do? And I said, We're going to do what we've always do, which is tried to use the platform God has given us to
tell people that love is all that matters. It is all that matters, that that all this nonsense that's being rammed down our throat about divisiveness, that I'm right and you're wrong, that I'm good and you're bad, that I'm black and you're white, that I'm left in your right, that I'm straight and you're gay, and all this divisive nonsense is killing us. It doesn't matter, It doesn't matter.
What matters the heart of each person's soul and that's what matters.
That's all that matters. That we are all incredibly amazing, creative beings that are different. Your fingerprint is different than mine. There's no fingerprint in the world like yours, there's no Irish print in the world like yours. You are unique. So let's celebrate that instead of expecting other people to be what we think they should be.
Yeah, And.
I was, I was on social media.
The other day.
I have friends from high school that I keep in touch with, and there's a group of four of us that have lost kids and we're just we support each other. And one of the moms said, you know, I just feel like I'm not enough, and I had to, you know, not on the public forum, but just reach out and say, Okay, You've always been enough. You are so awesome. I've known you since you were, you know, at eleven years old,
and you're awesome, just so awesome. But even you know, it's not just kids that feel that, it's all of us.
Oh, I feel like we don't Oh my gosh, I went I went through so much self doubt just making this record and just trying to figure out who I was as a human being, and you know, reconciling my own limiting beliefs growing up. And we all go through feeling like not part of the the group or the kid yeah yeah or yeah or as the cool kids say it now fomo, you know, you feel like, am I doing enough? Am I? Am I? Am I teaching my kids enough? Am I doing this right? Am I?
You know? There's always that question in life, so it's good to have someone say that you are enough. You are right now, how you are, where you are.
Chris Daughtry, hold that thought. I just want to give a quick shout out to one of our sponsors, a sponsor that helps make this podcast possible. When you're entertaining people in your backyard, maybe yeah, I don't know, one hundred or so. You need a little help preparing the outdoor patio furniture has to look great. The patio deck needs a good power washing before all those people arrive and oftentimes after they all leave too. You want flowers that are in full bloom and a grass that's green
and healthy looking. I get the help for all those things at the Home Depot in their garden department. It's where I go when I turn my backyard into our outdoor family room. The home Depot, more saving, more doing with me on today's episode of Love Someone with Delia in the studio with me is Chris Daughtry, And I was just asking you if you sound different to you on the headphones? Oh yeah, Like do you like your voice better on the headphone when you hear yourself?
I I feel like it makes me want to talk differently. That's it's so weird. Hearing your voice now because I listened to you a lot growing up.
Because you wanted to Chris, or confession session, because your mom confession session.
It was in the dentist office.
And in the backseat of the car and mom make home.
Nobody made me listen to the radio. We always had some sort of pop radio on in the house. It was always like I was always into catchy songs, So it was it was either love songs or pop radio or country music.
Because a lot of when I went we're going to talk about the military in a minute, but when I went overseas and when I traveled with the troops, ninety nine point nine percent of the young men in uniform said, oh my gosh, my mom made us listen to you when we were coming home from football practice. My mom always made me listen to you when we were coming home from the swim team or whatever.
It sounds like all of my fans' kids, my mom, My mom makes me listen to you guys, And we hear that all the time. Yeah, So when anybody ever asked, like, what band are you in, I always say, your mom's favorite band.
There you go, there you go. So when you're not performing, when you're not touring, you're parenting. You have three at home?
Now three at home?
How old twins are?
Eight? And four?
Twins are boys? Girls?
Boy and a girl, a boy and a girl, and then youngest is a boy?
And so soccer do we do this soccer thing?
Sports? I was a soccer dad for like two or three weeks, and then Adeline realized she didn't like soccer as much as she thought she did, so she decided to bail on it.
So I was, is it that she didn't like soccer, she didn't like getting up on Saturday mornings and spending her whole week and being cold on the soccer field?
Yeah, I would. I was watching her and I was like, she's just kind of wandering around, like kicking dirt. I don't think she likes this as much as the idea of liking this.
It well good for her.
First I tried it, and I was like, baby, I'm not going to force you to be out here if you don't want to be out here.
Yeah, you know, you.
Obviously don't like but I do like soccer. I'm like, what do you like about it? You're just you're not doing anything. But but yeah, but she's a great singer and really, yes she is, and oh that is awesome. She's she's taken some voice lessons and wants to get back into that. And so you actually we actually wrote a song and recorded it for her class. It was it was the cutest thing ever about Koala bears.
Yeah, you wrote a song about Koala bears. Yes, me here just like a.
Well, she had the melody in her head and I was like, okay, so you she had a list of things that she could choose to write about or do for her homework, and she chose to do a song.
How cool is that the schools are realizing that's to learn. And so I love that my kids come home and they're like, well I could write a paper or I could do a video presentation. I'm like, oh, we are so down with that. Let's get out the drone.
So I said, okay, so I'll help you with this, you know, being the songwriter that I am, I will help you concoct this and and and we'll record and it'll be a whole thing. I said, just think about, you know, some some little pointers, some little facts about Kohala bears and if you had and she said, I already got it figured out. She's like, Kohalas are brave Koalas, look sweet kohala is ukuaa lipt his leaves And I was like, okay, never mind, you got this. Obviously had
the mess. She's eight, but she was seven at the time. She had the melody worked out and I was like, okay, let's tweak some stuff here. And it was one take and she was like okay, Daddy love you by walked out in my studio. I'm like, okay, that just happened. And that just happened. And then the next day she turned it in and they wanted her to sing it on the morning announcements and I was like, she's not gonna.
She was in front of that camera within like seconds saying it to the whole and then they took her around to different classes and she sang it. It was the cutest thing ever. So she obviously has zero problem with stage fright.
Well, I told you about my uh my love for being on stage. I was actually I think if I had any of that DNA genetic testing done, they would discover I was born with the show off gene. It's labeled like in two five something. There is definitely a gene that your daughter and I daughter I share. But my daughter, who is named after me but is adopted from Africa, she was born with the show off gene. And unlike your daughter that can sing and come up with the melody, my daughter is just like me. She
can't dance, though she can. She's got rhythm. Girlfriend's got rhythms. So she's taken dance, She's taken you know, cheerleading, she's taken gymnastics. I'm like just.
Growing.
Yes, yes, I think I made.
Because you should water the other one too, because it's dying.
But your family's in Nashville. Now, you got three kids at home and some that are grown. Yeah, and you're on the road a lot.
Yeah, but this year has been pretty chill. Last year we spent a good I think seven months out of the year on the road, but we were all over the world. We were in South Africa and UK and Europe. It was fun.
And does your wife get to go on those really cool South Africa.
UK You know she hasn't, which is why we're trying to like figure life out right now. We're like trying to restructure things because we want our kids to be able to travel more we want her to be able to experience this stuff more as a family and kind of incorporate it a little bit more so it's not so separated home school. That's that I didn't want to say it before home school time. Right now, Yeah, we're thinking about that.
And if if your wife is anything like me, you really need to find someone.
We're already in the process. Yeah, I didn't want to get too personal, but yeah I did come on it.
Deep.
We've we've Yeah, the kids are super pumped and uh cool, yeah cool.
Bought us a motor home. Well, we had a thirty year old motor home that we took a family road trip in a couple of years ago. Yeah, and my godson, you met Ryan other engineered, not Jeff because he would rather have needles stuck in his eye than go on a road trip with seventeen children. But we took a road trip with my kids, my godkids, seventeen kids.
All on one motor home.
Well, we had the motorhome and a thirteen passenger van, and the motorhome broke down about every two hundred miles. Yeah, you couldn't help us out. The guys told you what it would Yeah, get fixed. Duck tape was our best friend. So after that, Paul bought a lesser old motor home. It's like eighteen years old and it's beautiful, nice, and he's like, okay, so as soon as the kids are grown and not in school, we're going to take off. And I'm like, honey, that will be a thousand years old.
That's exactly what my wife says. We got to get a RV and we want to go travel, and you know, when the kids are cross.
You got to do it.
We're gonna be she's older than me, so she's she'll be forty six this year.
You just can't wait.
Yeah, I know, we did it because you're.
Youngest is in kindergarten.
He hasn't started. He'll be five.
Yeah, so next year kindergarten. So so you're talking eighteen years baby. Paul's not even in preschool yet, so that's you know, for me, twenty years. No, we got to do it now.
Yeah, So we've talked about it. We did get an RV last this past summer and went camping and tried it out. It was more glamping than camping, but it was still they loved it. They loved it, so I know that they would they would thrive. I was.
I was a camper, backpacker, girl, scout hiker for years and now I'm like, oh no, a bed, a bet, a real bed, not a mattress on the ground, but a real bad it's happened.
Yeah, I'm not about that. Life's I like my sleep too much.
Yeah, glamping is heaven exactly.
And I have the option. I have a bed.
Yeah, if you if you want to go lay on the ground, that's that's fine. But you got the option.
I don't. I don't have to prove anything. You ever watch that show Naked and Afraid, I'm like, I have no you ever seen it where they go out in the wilderness and they have to just survive, survive, like completely survive, sunburn, all the bites, everything in the jungle, no things. It's not even worth it. No, no, nothing to prove if that, if I'm forced to do that, then I'll die. I'll probably not survive very long.
Well, if it was in the woods around here and you were with me, you would survive because I know how to forage.
I could teach you, okay.
A thousand plants that you can eat and probably ten or fifteen that you should never eat. Okay, yeah, so it would be fine, and you're vegetarian, so yeah it would be great. Wow. I just had a visual of us doing one of those reality shows, not the naked part, but the foraging and the bug bite, and.
You teaching me what no, no, no no.
Here, here's a real simple rule. Anything red when you're in the forest. Any berry that's red, almost all of them are poisonous.
Okay, good to know, to know.
It's like, you know, a bad trick.
A red berry is red berries are almost table, which is the color for stop. So I mean that makes there you go.
Yeah, Chris Daughtry, I can't thank you enough for supporting Point Hope and for loving kids, for sharing your amazing gift of music with all of us. I hope to see you back here in the studio very very soon, and I wish you the best of luck with your new song. It's so beautiful.