Chris Daughtry Drops Hard-Hitting Rock EP ‘Shock to the System’, Shows New Musical Direction

On September 12, Big Machine Records released Shock to the System (Part Two), a seven-track EP marking a stark shift in sound. The music strikes harder, cuts deeper, and pushes past old limits.

A quiet piano opens with "The Seeds" before crashing into "Divided" with raw power and thundering beats. The EP storms through "The Day I Die," "Terrified," and "Razor." Then, it wraps with "The Bottom."

"It's been a slow progression to getting to this point. This sounds crazy, but I didn't know I had permission," said Chris Daughtry, according to Spin. The split from RCA Records freed him to break from mainstream constraints.

This sound traces back to his start. As a teen in North Carolina, he soaked up the raw energy of grunge. Alice in Chains, Nirvana, and Soundgarden influenced his music.

This EP follows last year's Part One, which shot two tracks to the top of Billboard's Active Rock chart, "Artificial" and "Pieces." Rather than wait to finish a full album, the band split the work to speed up the release.

Josh Steely and Brian Craddock still command the guitars, staying true through two decades of changes. Yet the crowd looks different now. Fresh faces mix with old fans as the sound shifts.

"We knew that we were going to lose a pocket of our audience," Daughtry told Spin. "I had to be okay with that and kind of rip the Band-Aid off. ... It's basically about climbing out of my own hole and reclaiming my own identity again.” 

His path started on American Idol in 2006. According to Big Machine Records, three of their albums went platinum. Next month kicks off a tour with Seether. You can check Daughtry's website for concert dates and tickets.