Chris Daughtry Was Once Approached About Singing for Aerosmith

Imagining Aerosmith without Steven Tyler is somewhat hard to do, but during a dispute with the singer back in 2009, guitarist Joe Perry started feeling out potential collaborators when Tyler announced plans to pursue a solo career. And one of the vocalists considered was reportedly Chris Daughtry, who shared his story during an episode of The Dave Rickards Podcast (heard below).

While history shows that Tyler never exited Aerosmith and the group eventually worked things out with the singer, there was a bumpy period in the band where the singer and the group butted heads over Tyler's solo album intentions. With Tyler planning to be out of the picture for two years, the group started assessing their other options, and apparently Perry reached out to Daughtry at one point.

Daughtry was still pretty hot, having garnered recognition for bringing a rock presence during his 2006 American Idol run. The singer issued his first album with his band that year and followed it up with 2009's Leave This Town.

Daughtry recalled to Rickards, "I get this random call from Joe Perry. Joe Perry and Steven were apparently at odds with each other. It was all in the news; this isn't private information. I think this was right when Steven Tyler was going on American Idol and they weren't touring together. I think it was like a public breakup sort of thing."

He adds, "Joe Perry calls me. I'm, like, 'First of all, I didn't know Joe Perry had my number. This is incredible.' I thought it was a joke at first, but he didn't even take time to, like, 'How're you doing?' He just went into his reason for calling me. 'And I don't know what Steven's doing, but we wanna work. How would you feel about hitting the road with us? You've got some cool songs we could play too.'"

Daughtry says he was initially speechless, explaining, "First of all, I don't consider myself any caliber of singer that Steven Tyler is as far as I would not be able to tackle those songs the way Steven Tyler tackles them. He is irreplaceable, in my mind. Furthermore, Steven Tyler's alive. This whole fear of pissing off one of my heroes was just looming, and I was, like, 'There's no way I can do this, Joe.'"

The vocalist adds, "[This] was a terrifying concept, the moment the words left [Joe's] mouth." But, Daughtry says it's a story that he "will hold near and dear for the rest of my life."

When pressed if he could sing "Dream On," Daughtry stated, "On a good day, where I'm not beat up, I can nail that high part at the end, but that is like one out of every five times. And then there's other times where I would just bail."

It all eventually worked itself out. Tyler spent a stint in rehab in late 2009 and by 2010 they were back touring, with the new album Music From Another Dimension then following in 2012.

Daughtry, meanwhile, has gone on to release six studio albums, and earlier this week he released the new single "Artificial." He's currently on tour with Ayron Jones supporting on select dates.