Is Chris Daughtry The Dog On Masked Singer

After a storied run on another Fox reality show, the end came for the Rottweiler on Wednesday nights (Dec. 18) season finale of The Masked Singer.

[Spoiler alert: This story contains the identity of the eliminated runner-up on Wednesday night’s The Masked Singer.]

Rottweiler has been here before. The big dog with the powerful voice made it all the way to Wednesday night’s (Dec. 18) season 2 finale of The Masked Singer, beating out a Destiny’s Child (Michelle Williams), R&B diva (Patti LaBelle) and Seal to raise his hand as the runner-up on the hit Fox series. When the canine head finally came off, viewers were face-to-snout with a singer they know all too well who used his deep run on the show to prove to the world that you can teach an old dog new tricks.

His run included strong covers of The Killers‘ “Mr. Brightside,” Bruno Mars‘ “Grenade,” Ed Sheeran‘s “Castle on the Hill” and, on the finale, a forceful take on Sia‘s “Alive,” with lyrics that held an extra dose of resonance for the hard-rock veteran. As usual, judge Ken Jeong was clueless, joining the rest of the panel in a wide range of off-base guesses that verged from Jared Leto to Darren Criss, Dave Franco and Jason Mraz. But if they’d listened more closely, they might have picked up on clues about redefinition and changing the way people perceive him and realized that the man behind the mask on the two-hour finale was former fourth-place American Idol finisher and rock star Chris Daughtry.

Billboard caught up with Daughtry to find out why he slipped on the mask and how he found his zen on the show.

You mentioned in your clue packages that this was a very liberating experience that really allowed you to show a new side of yourself and stretch out artistically. Can you describe what you meant by that?

What was so attractive to me was being under this veil of anonymity and being free to perform choreography and doing things I would not typically do as a performer for my own band and how I could freely do that without worrying about being judged, or my band or anyone going, “Dude, what are you doing?” There was this very meditative aspect of being in this costume — no one knows who you are, you can’t talk to anyone, you can’t really do anything and you’re seeing through this 4-inch-by-4-inch screen in your mask, so you’re almost forced to just be with yourself and really be present. It was probably the most present I’ve ever been in any situation like this. And the fact that you don’t know who you’re up against or who else is out there or what songs anyone is singing, there’s something very liberating about that as well because you’re not going, “Oh, I have to change my song now because this person is doing this.” Or “I gotta up my game.” I’m only competing with myself, and that was really… almost transformative.

What made you decide to do this show? You were obviously on American Idol and you know how these shows go, so you’d think once you do, you might not want to do a second one. Was it your kids, your fans…?

This was such a different animal altogether, no pun intended. I remember years ago seeing this video of Ryan Reynolds as the unicorn on King of Masked Singer in Korea, and I remember seeing that and going, “That looks fun. I would love to do something like that.” Fast-forward to last year and my publicist asked if I’d ever heard of The Masked Singer … so I watched it and said, “I have to do this. This looks like so much fun to me.” Of course my kids came into play thinking how cool it would be for them to see their daddy as a dog. They still think it’s me, but at the same time — I have twins — my son was like, “Daddy, I know that sounds exactly like you and some of the clues even sound like you, but I keep track of your schedule and when you’re gone and when you’re not and it just doesn’t add up.” He’s a little detective.

I actually watched it with Noah last week, because we were in Arizona doing a show and it came on and we were able to watch it, but most of the time it’s after their bedtime and they’ll catch it the next day.

He’s not wrong, you definitely had the coolest costume, with the ripped abs and the gold chain…

I kept asking them to put a shirt on me because it looked too salacious, it felt self-indulgent.

You kept talking about how you wanted to reinvent yourself, so what has happened in your career that made you feel like you needed a reboot?

I felt like I need an experience, something that I’d never done. You tour so much and it’s the day-in and day-out, and I felt like I was in need of some real excitement. And when this opportunity came along, I got more excited than I have in a long time. I didn’t look at it on the same parallel as going on Idol, but as something that is going to challenge me in ways I’ve never been challenged and I’ll get to do it without anyone knowing who I am, which was so attractive to me.

It showed with your song choices. You sang a Sia song on the finale and really stretched, without people knowing it, the concept people have of you. Talk about that song and some of the others you did that helped get you out of the hard-rocker persona people put you in.

I specifically stayed away from rock. I wanted to find songs that spoke to me and really challenged a different part of my voice. I didn’t want to disguise it and try to sing like a different person, but I wanted to do songs that would not put me in that range that would be too obvious, that higher register. I saved those kinds of songs, like “Alive,” toward the end because at that point, it didn’t matter. I’ve always wanted to do a Sia song. I’ve always been a huge fan of her voice and her songwriting, and that song to me summed up my entire experience because I felt so alive in that costume in such a weird way and so present in a way that I’ve never really been before onstage. No one was looking at me. They’re seeing this… thing, this totem of a character, and they have no idea who’s under it. I felt so free to do whatever the song called for. The choreography was so fun, but man, I never realized how hard it was going to be to pull all that off under a weighted suit. I got so winded every performance. I think [OneRepublic’s] “Love Runs Out,” I just dropped to the floor afterwards because I was completely gassed. It’s like singing in a paper bag.

That’s what everyone else told me — it was hard to see, breathe, expand your diaphragm to get air…

We’d practice the choreography in a room, and you’d kind of get a sense of that room, but then when I went out onstage, I had no idea where I was. I was getting lost, landing on all the wrong marks, facing the wrong direction. It took me three or four tries to gain my bearings and figure out where I was. There’s no peripheral vision whatsoever, and it’s very hard not to get frustrated in that moment and completely forget to have fun. I had to really mediate in that costume before going out and to sit there and be like, “This is fun, this is not serious. Just have fun with it.” And I did, and this was the most fun I’ve had onstage in as many years as I can remember.

I know, right? Seal? I mean seriously? It was very surreal, and I found out when everyone else did, because we don’t see them unmasked. We don’t hear the songs, so I’m watching it and the first time I hear Leopard, I’m like, “Holy sh–, that’s Seal!” There was no doubt in my mind. I know his voice all too well and I know Seal and I can’t wait to actually get to talk to him about it. And when Patti LaBelle got revealed, I was like, “Are you kidding me?” I felt like she got robbed. It was pretty validating, to be honest.

The funny thing is, some of the guesses the judges had, your name came up, but toward the end they were talking about Jared Leto, Darren Criss, Gavin Rossdale… those are all pretty good guesses and nothing to sneeze at…

Those were definitely the guesses that made me most excited, because I’m fans of those artists and it was pretty flattering to be mistaken for them.

Now that you’ve done this and proven to people that you’re much more than Chris Daughtry the rock guy, are we going to see something different from you, something poppier?

I kind of feel like I’ve been dabbling in the pop world for a while. I feel like our record Baptized tread that line of pop pretty well, and the last record, Cage to Rattle, was headed more in the rock direction. And I feel like the way I’m headed now, even after this show, is I want guitars to come back. We’re in the studio working on new stuff already, and it’s pretty rockin’! But it certainly gives me more confidence onstage to do more than what people have seen me do in the past, and it’s opened up my world in a way I didn’t really expect. It’s certainly going to have an influence on my approach to songs and performance.

So by wearing a mask, you can now be more yourself onstage. It’s the interesting irony of this show…

All along, the judges said you were one of the strongest vocalists and had a good chance of being in the finals. How did you feel about coming in second place? Not to put too fine a point on it, but you’ve been on that end of things before on Fox reality singing shows [Daughtry placed fourth on season 5 of American Idol]. Did you think you had a chance to win?

Because I never knew what I was up against I never knew what to expect ever. I only knew what I did and I didn’t know if someone just brought the house down right before me and I’m just going out there to pick up sloppy seconds of their applause. It was a shock to me in the sense that I didn’t know the competition. My goal was to certainly make it past four. I didn’t want to be fourth place again. I was very happy that I made it to the finale. My goal was to get to the finale.

I’m really bad at guessing, except for Seal was very obvious to me because I recognized his voice so well. I’m not a big sports fan, but I had reason to believe that the really tall Thingamajig was going to be Dennis Rodman, for whatever reason. My keyboard player is a big sports guy, and he was guessing [Victor Oladipo] all along. And I was like, “Nope, I swear to you it’s Dennis Rodman!” I’m definitely the Ken Jeong of the guessing game.

Who did you tell you were on the show? And who are you excited to tell now?

Nobody knew except my manager and my wife. But from the very first commercial, I was getting texts from friends I’ve known since high school and grew up with who weren’t even asking me. They were like, “Dude, you’re not fooling anybody in that costume.” I couldn’t say anything, so I was like, “What are you talking about? What’s The Masked Singer? Man, he does sound like me, I can’t wait to find out who that is!”

Everyone in my circle — they all just know. They’re not even asking me, they have no doubt in their mind. They know me enough to know the clues and my voice, and my kids have been asking me about it ever since it came out. And like I said, my son keeps track of my schedule so obviously it isn’t me. [Laughs] I think I’m going to be most excited to be able to talk about it freely, because I’ve had to do meet-and-greets at shows where fans have been bringing me swag with dogs on it and asking me about it and I’ve had to keep a very strong poker face this entire time. It’s gonna be nice to just not have to lie.

A daily briefing on what matters in the music industry Email Address By subscribing, I agree to the

He also said he rose to fame “almost overnight.” Being on American Idol is one way to get some overnight success in the industry, and Daughtry was on season 5 of the singing show. There were also two references to football in the clue video. One said, “The first time I touched a pigskin under the Friday night lights, I learned preparation is key.” And the other clue was a fantasy football champion ring. According to ESPN, Daughtry played football in high school — but said he wasnt very good at it.

After the second clue video, fans were just further convinced. The Rottweiler said hes been judged since he entered the game — which he certainly was on American Idol — but also that hes finally standing on his own. Usually Daughtry performs in his band of the same, but now hes solo on the show. The Rottweiler also drew a picture of an angel in the clue package, which could be a nod to the song he co-wrote called “Send Me All Your Angels.”

On Dec. 10, in a pre-performance video, the Rotweiller discussed his favorite thing about the holidays — being with his kids. In the video, you can see a gift addressed to Cadence, which many would assume is the name of one of the Rotweillers children. Now, none of Daughtrys children are named Cadence. His high school band, however, went by that moniker. Additionally, the pup gifts the judges a hand-drawn card, indicating some type of artistic talent. In a 2015 interview with Comic Book, Daughtry said he had, “been an artist since I was like five years old way before I had any interest in music at all.”

In the Nov. 13 episode, even more clues pointed to Daughtry, while the judges continued to not even come close to guessing him. One was a North Carolina flag, which is where Daughtry was born. Another was that he came from humble roots, selling vacuums, which Daughtry also did. Meanwhile, his “revealing item” was a drawing that he did, and Daughtry is actually quite a skilled artist. He even designed the cover of a Batman comic.

Throughout the season, the judges guessed a variety of male singers, from Brian Littrell from the Backstreet Boys, to JC Chasez from NSYNC, to Bruno Mars, to Darren Criss. But fans had one guess from week one, and were proven right during the finale on Dec. 18. After being named the runner-up to the Fox, the Rotweiller was revealed to be Chris Daughtry from the rock band Daughtry (and from American Idol).

I know, right? Seal? I mean seriously? It was very surreal, and I found out when everyone else did, because we don’t see them unmasked. We don’t hear the songs, so I’m watching it and the first time I hear Leopard, I’m like, “Holy sh–, that’s Seal!” There was no doubt in my mind. I know his voice all too well and I know Seal and I can’t wait to actually get to talk to him about it. And when Patti LaBelle got revealed, I was like, “Are you kidding me?” I felt like she got robbed. It was pretty validating, to be honest.

This was such a different animal altogether, no pun intended. I remember years ago seeing this video of Ryan Reynolds as the unicorn on King of Masked Singer in Korea, and I remember seeing that and going, “That looks fun. I would love to do something like that.” Fast-forward to last year and my publicist asked if I’d ever heard of The Masked Singer … so I watched it and said, “I have to do this. This looks like so much fun to me.” Of course my kids came into play thinking how cool it would be for them to see their daddy as a dog. They still think it’s me, but at the same time — I have twins — my son was like, “Daddy, I know that sounds exactly like you and some of the clues even sound like you, but I keep track of your schedule and when you’re gone and when you’re not and it just doesn’t add up.” He’s a little detective.

Rottweiler has been here before. The big dog with the powerful voice made it all the way to Wednesday night’s (Dec. 18) season 2 finale of The Masked Singer, beating out a Destiny’s Child (Michelle Williams), R&B diva (Patti LaBelle) and Seal to raise his hand as the runner-up on the hit Fox series. When the canine head finally came off, viewers were face-to-snout with a singer they know all too well who used his deep run on the show to prove to the world that you can teach an old dog new tricks.

A daily briefing on what matters in the music industry Email Address By subscribing, I agree to the

Now that you’ve done this and proven to people that you’re much more than Chris Daughtry the rock guy, are we going to see something different from you, something poppier?

Also I didn’t want to be too high up in my register because it was going to be super difficult in the costume and I didn’t want to be too signature me. We would lower keys to showcase a different part of my voice. I didn’t really disguise it. Maybe I backed off a little bit on the grit.

Let’s talk about the appeal of the Rottweiler costume. You’ve mentioned you were bit by one. Do you feel differently about Rottweilers now?

You’re obviously very musical and used to performing in front of crowds. Were there any aspects of doing that in this way that you didn’t account for and discovered — good or bad — when you first took the stage this season?

I remember seeing this clip years ago of Ryan Reynolds as a unicorn on King of Masked Singer in Korea and ever since I saw that, I was like, “Oh my gosh, that would be so fun to do, just in any capacity.” Just to sing in a costume like that and no one knows who you are, I thought that was really fun.

What intrigued me the most was just the freedom to perform under that veil of anonymity and not feel like you have to do what people expect you to do because they know who you are or think know who you are and that was really attractive to me.

FAQ

Who is the dog on The Masked Singer 2022?

Who played the Rottweiler on masked singer?