Careers often are about choices: knowing when to take a certain path as opposed to another one. Sometimes those paths are forced on us, or at least we are nudged toward them. Chris Daughtry knows the feeling.

      Many musicians would have leaped at the chance to be lead singer for a band that they admire, for example, but when Fuel offered the position to the North Carolina native he respectfully declined.

      "I just knew," he recalls from a Florida tour stop. "I didn't want to be the guy who replaces the other guy for one thing. I didn't want to be put in the situation where I didn't have any control over the music, stepping into an already successful group whose fans had listened to this guy for many years and they've got this new dude coming out of nowhere." It was not difficult to turn down, he says.

      Then there was that other, very public, path, the one that American Idol took him down and then unceremoniously dropped him off in a controversial vote that saw Daughtry, who appeared to be a frontrunner, being asked to leave after making it to fourth place.

      He since has said, with apparent sincerity, that he was glad he did not win. "For me, and what I was wanting from my own career, being the winner of Idol doesn't exactly reflect or translate to a rock band. I'm not a solo artist by any means. I never wanted to be." He has been in a band since he was 16.

      "[Not winning Idol] gave me the opportunity to not be that [solo] guy, and come out with my own band and own record and success and not be put in that pop category," he says.

      So far, so good for Chris Daughtry. By May of this year his debut album, Daughtry, was closing in on 2.5 million in sales, having reached the top of the charts, and he and his band, also dubbed Daughtry, were enjoying headliner buzz across the nation. "We kind of knew we would do OK right off the bat because of the TV exposure and Idol fans," he says. "But we were not really sure how we would do after that. We've done far beyond what we expected."

      The reality of success matches very well with the dreams, he suggests. "I enjoy every minute of it. I just wanted what I wanted ever since I can remember. Getting to do what I love to do every single day of my life, even the stuff that comes along with it, I can deal with it because I'm doing what I love to do."

      As to whether the view from inside the music industry is different from when he was on the outside looking in, Daughtry says he had no preconceived notions. "I knew relatively nothing about it. It's all a learning experience for me. I'm like a sponge, trying to learn as much as I can," he says.

      He seems to have no regrets about his Idol participation. "It was great. I say all the time I would do it all over again if I had to. Luckily I don't," he says. "It definitely got me to show people what I did, so it's definitely a great platform to launch a career."

      He feels he left Idol with momentum. "I was working on my record before any other contestants. I wasn't sitting around waiting for it to happen. I was trying to do everything I could to kind of secure my own spot," he says.

      As to whether Idol can continue to capture the public's imagination to the extent that it has, Daughtry responds with his own question. "Who knows," he says. "Everything ends up becoming old after a while and hitting its peak, and who knows where it goes from there."

      The show has become the phenomenon it is, he believes, "because people feel they have a part in making the person they are a fan of big. I guess a part of them feels like they own you, that they are a part of your success," he adds.

      He is proud of the success that he has forged so far. "The fact that we are able to do what we do on such a large scale so early in our career is a pretty big thing to us. I don't take that for granted," Daughtry says.

      He believes what he does reaches people because he writes from his life and heart. "What I write I think people can relate to and have gone through in life. A lot of people come up to say our music got them through bad times. People relate on that level. Music gets them through their day," he says.

      He can remember the days when he was driving home from work and listening to his favorite music on the radio or CDs as an escape from the normal problems of life or a bad day at work. "Escaping from reality through music was such a huge thing. When you are able to impact people at that level it's pretty phenomenal."

      The key to making a song your own, Daughtry says, is to find one element in it to which you can relate and from which you can draw. What he offers, he suggests, is not a heavy message. "It is definitely entertainment. I'm not really writing about anything that takes a rocket scientist to figure out. We are just writing about our lives, things that everybody goes through. The people get that."

      His lyrics are very simple, he says, but carry a meaning at the same time. "I like people to take their own interpretation, not necessarily what I wrote about or am going through, but how it relates to their life now."

      That, he agrees, is part of the power of music. "It was always that escape for me from everyday life, something very magical in listening to a song and forgetting everything bad that had gone on that week or day. Bands that I would sing along to and I saw made me go, 'That's what I want to do with the rest of my life.' There's something very powerful about seeing a band up there, just singing and performing, and then that band totally evokes emotion from you. It's very powerful and I wanted to possess that power. I wanted to be part of that. I took bands like that, and I was totally and hugely inspired by their writing and their intensity and their delivery of songs, and tried to incorporate that in my own formula of songwriting."

      The power of a band is special, he re-emphasizes. All of his influences, for the most part, are bands. "We wrote music together and shared the space together and there was a chemistry there. Bands like Alice In Chains and Soundgarden totally influenced me. It made sense for me to be in a band. You've got other guys onstage with you up there doing the same thing you are doing, giving a show, and you have those guys to feed off of."

      He is proud of his band. "They're all phenomenal musicians. They all bring something different. They're not just good at their instruments. They're good musicians. They know why songs work when it comes to writing. My drummer probably arguably is a better singer than I am. He does amazing backup vocals. These are great people and they're like brothers and very tight. They've got each other's back onstage. We're not there to upstage anyone. Everybody brings their own flair to the stage."

      Daughtry can't picture himself doing something else. He says he is home when he is onstage. "My heart and soul come out when I'm there. I'm feeling the songs and the crowd and relating to the CD and getting them involved and just pouring out everything I have," he explains.

      Performing is instant gratification, he says. "It's right there in your face. You know they are there to see you and singing every word to every song. You feel 10 feet tall and bulletproof every night. It's great to have fans so diehard about you. It definitely makes that experience better."

      He appreciates that his audience is very broad, from pre-teens to 80-plus "and every race and gender. It's a really cool thing."

      He wants to keep that variety in his music too, refusing to be limited by a genre. "I've always said a good song is a good song, whether it be country or hip-hop or rock. If it has all the elements of a good song, something people relate to and a good hook and they can sing, too, it doesn't matter what genre. That's not to say I will ever write hip-hop [laughs], but I may have a few country songs."

      Chris Daughtry hasn't stopped thinking big with those songs, either. "I don't want to be pompous and say I want to be the next U2 and the next Bon Jovi, but I want to be the next U2 and the next Bon Jovi," he says, laughing heartily. "I want to be doing stadiums. I still want to be in the game 10, 15 years from now and still support my family and put my kids through school. I'd like to get my songs in a film definitely to start, and a few cameos here and there won't be bad. And I want The Simpsons to do a little parody on me. I want to make an appearance. If you're listening or reading this, call me up!"