Daughtry: Town Where You Belong

Not everything was sunshine during the tour though. A bomb scare cleared out the BankAtlantic Center near Tampa Bay, Fla., delaying the show by three hours, and Daughtry had to take the stage before a virtually empty stadium. "It was like playing at band practice and just the neighbors were showing up," Daughtry says. "The house lights were up, and you could see the janitors sweeping," Paul adds.

This time Daughtry will tour as an established headliner in support of "Town." The band will do 15 shows this summer across the country for fan club members and radio contest winners; at the end of September Daughtry begins a 100-stop North American tour. "We're very cognizant of who our audience is and we're going to places where they are," McIlwaine says. "It's going to be everything from Seattle to Spokane [Wash.] to Boise [Idaho] to Bozeman [Mont.], all the way up to Poughkeepsie, N.Y., and down to Tampa, Fla."

Rock This Town

In the wake of his appearance on "American Idol," Daughtry's fan base was, according to McIlwaine, 65%-70% female, generally between the ages of 25 and 45. Since he started the band, however, 19 pushed to broaden his exposure through targeted radio play and youth-oriented concert dates. "We did one of the unofficial balls for the inauguration that was attended by 7,000 juniors and seniors in high school," he says. "I literally felt like I was looking out at a high school dance with no chaperones. Daughtry played an acoustic set—and the kids were singing every lyric back to him."

Plans for international touring are still in the early stages. "The challenge with international is that they always want the U.S. story to be happening," McIlwaine says. "So we've got to simultaneously create the U.S. story and create some windows of time to go international." The label is considering appearances in Australia, South Africa and Europe. The United Kingdom was Daughtry's most significant sales territory outside the United States, where "Daughtry" peaked at No. 13 and has sold 42,000 copies, according to the Official Charts Co.

The band will make numerous TV appearances the week "Town" arrives. There also will be online and in-person shows at locations still to be announced. RCA makes a point of trying to break news through Daughtry's Web site, daughtryofficial.com, and has been flexible enough to revamp its release schedule after a couple of debuts were pre-empted by pirates. (The song and the video for "No Surprise," plus the album's track list, hit the Internet before the label intended.)