Ever wonder how a band celebrates a No. 1 album? If you're Daughtry, you hit a bar for a few beers and a sing-along of 'No Surprise.' Well, that's what the band did the night before as a little precursor to their Sessions taping in Los Angeles. In addition to celebrating their chart-topping album, Daughtry rocked several new tunes -- in addition to a surprise Toadies cover -- before Chris Daughtry and guitarist Josh Steely sat down to talk about parenthood, Daughtry's unashamed fandom of Celine Dion and how they plan to take a page from Metallica.

Interview
AOL: Congratulations on the No. 1 album. When you hear this final record, what do you take from it and what do you hope others take from it?

Daughtry: It's a journey. When I listen to it from top to bottom, there's so much real life in this record. There's so much pain and things that people go through on a daily basis. There's also a lot of hope in it as well, and I think that people do take that from the record. We've gotten numerous responses from people saying, "You don't even know how accurate that is to my life, like you wrote that song to me." Those are definitely things we love to hear because we're just trying to write songs and be good storytellers at the end of the day.

Steely: It's humbling because we've all, as music lovers, been touched deeply by music and our favorites. It just makes me feel so justified for all that dreaming.

AOL: You surprised everyone today with a Toadies cover. What was the impetus behind that?

Daughtry: Actually, our drummer was like, "Hey, man, you remember that song?" This was a song I grew up on -- loved it through high school and loved that record, 'Rubberneck.' I always thought they were a very underrated band.

Steely: We talked about it for a while, too. We've been wanting to do it and just out of the blue this came up.

AOL: You'll definitely be educating a lot of young people on the Toadies.

Daughtry: There's been many situations where we've mentioned bands in interviews that maybe people didn't know about and our fans would go check them out and buy their records, and then the bands would, on Twitter, respond to us. I'm honored to have the privilege to do that.

AOL: Who else falls into that category?

Daughtry: I'm a singer's person. I love Richard Marx's voice. He's a phenomenal singer. Rod Stewart ... I mean, c'mon. Celine Dion, I'm not ashamed. Those people blow me out of the water. Their voices are phenomenal and I've always gravitated towards them, whatever kind of music it was.

AOL: What songs from the new album are you most excited to perform live?

Daughtry: One of the most fun songs to play live is our opener 'Every Time You Turn Around.' It gets the crowd going. But as far as just favorite songs that we connect with emotionally, is probably 'September.'

Steely: It takes us all on a ride.

AOL: Which band or artist do you most admire as far as how they've handled their career?

Daughtry: I would say Bon Jovi.

Steely: U2 as well. We got to tour with Bon Jovi and we got to see why 20, 30 years of Bon Jovi is not too much. Everyone on their feet the entire time -- 20,000, 30,000 people singing along to every word. It's just like, 'Wow. You just gotta hope you get half that.'

AOL: Did either of those bands give you any advice on the road?

Daughtry: We did get a chance to hang out with Jon [Bon Jovi] and Richie [Sambora] but they just really respected what we did and basically told us we were doing it right. That was one of the best things we could have heard. One of the coolest things was at the last show, Jon did like a little speech and said, "This is the last time you'll see this band ever open for anybody." That was pretty big.

AOL: As a songwriter, was there anything that surprised you as you went about recording this album? Particularly that of self-discovery?

Daughtry: For sure. 'September' was something that I hadn't thought about ... where I grew up or what that was like for years. As an adult, you tend to think back on how your summers were memorable and that was something you had to look forward to. Then you get older and everything kind of bleeds together -- you're always working, birthday's just another day ... everything's just kind of jumbled together. So as a kid, everything was simple. You have nothing to lose, nothing to worry about and thinking about those things for the first time in forever ... how that brought the song together, it was almost like a gift. I didn't expect those lyrics to come out and they just did.

AOL: How does being a parent influence you?

Steely: It makes me just want to try to give them the best time I can when I'm with them. Unfortunately we're not with our kids a lot, and I'm sure I speak for all of us -- we all try to really be the best dad ever while we're home. That definitely translates into everything we do, every interview or song we do. It's always in there.

AOL: What would they consider the perks of having musician fathers?

Daughtry: Showing my kids a picture of me and Miley Cyrus was certainly a treat for them, but I got to take them to the Taylor Swift show and they got to meet her. It was way cooler than what I do.

Steely: I have a little boy who just wants to meet Chris Daughtry. When he leaves the room he's like, "Where'd Chris Daughtry go?" He goes looking for him everywhere. He's just fascinated 'cause he's only two and we've been a band for a few years, so all he knows is Daughtry -- Daughtry daddy.

AOL: What songs have moved you the way your songs move fans?

Daughtry: 'Remember When' by Alan Jackson is a song that like kills me. That's like the cycle of a marriage. Listening to that song with my wife, we both get all choked up. That's one that I listen to and I understand everything that he's talking about. It's just a beautifully written song.

Steely: There's so many. I was just even thinking 'Wherever I May Roam,' the Metallica tune. It's like just watching them on tour and just ruling and stomping all over the world. Recently, I saw that video and I'm like, "Oh, that's our life, too. We do that ... maybe not as heavy."

Daughtry: We'd like to, at some point.

--Steve Baltin

Daughtry's new album 'Leave This Town', which debuted at No.1 on the Billboard 200, and their new single 'No Surprise' are both released September 14 in the UK. (Pre-order the album with iTunes)