Before the band Daughtry wraps a busy 2025, lead singer Chris Daughtry joins us for an Audacy Check In to talk about the latest project, 'SHOCK TO THE SYSTEM (PART TWO),' the standout song, "ANTIDOTE," and much more.

From inside the Hard Rock Hotel New York, Daughtry linked up with Abe Kanan and revealed his approach to releasing music as EPs this year, giving fans more time to absorb each song. "We have fully experienced that, and to the point where we've noticed far more engagement to all the newer stuff that we're playing, because they got it in small doses," shares Daughtry. "They were able to absorb it and digest it before the tour as opposed to a full album's worth of stuff all at once, and they only latch on to like, you know, one or two songs."

Speaking of tours, Chris has recently wrapped dates with Disturbed, and the band will be a part of the inaugural, 'Unwrapped: An Acoustic Holiday,' on Friday, December 12, in Everett, WA at Angel Of The Winds Arena. Daughtry will join Brent Smith and Zach Myers of Shinedown, The Pretty Reckless, Hollywood Undead, Mammoth, Sleep Theory, Des Rocs, and Return to Dust for this very special event.

When thinking of tours he'd still like to be a part of, Shinedown is high on this list, as are some other Rock stalwarts. "I think Shinedown would be a fun tour, even Avenge Sevenfold is, as weird as that may sound to some people, I think that would be a really awesome tour."

"We were able to go out with Disturbed, which I think, 5 years ago would have probably been laughable to a lot of their fans," admits Daughtry. "We went out on stage and it was like the place lit up and we're like, 'oh, this is working.'"

With the constant touring and years of success, Daughtry has carved quite a lane for himself in the world of music, so much so that many forget his name is Chris and he's just known singularly as Daughtry, like Slash or Madonna.

"They've been thinking that for years," he laughs. "I think the weirdest thing is when fans have come up to me and either named their cat Daughtry or their kid."

"This is true. There is a girl out there in the universe that her first name is Daughtry. I don't know the last name, so that would really be interesting to know how those two ring together, but, yeah. I never thought of it as any other name than a surname, but, here we are"

For more from Daughtry, check out the full conversation above.

Too cool to cry and too hot to stress, the one and only Meghan Trainor steps into the Hard Rock Hotel New York for an Audacy Check In this week, fresh with her new single, "Still Don't Care," and on the way to the release of her seventh studio album, 'Toy With Me.'

"My truth right now is the 'Still Don't Care' song. It's truly how I feel," Trainor tells Mike Adam. "I can't wait to be 30-something and like really not care what people think, but at 31 I still did, and I got a lot of comments that made me cry all night long and I have to stop and learn how to not give strangers so much power, says my therapist, and I agree. So I wrote this song about it and it's helped me a lot and I can't wait to start performing it and truly believing it and feeling it."

The new album, 'Toy With Me,' arrives everywhere on April 24, and Meghan will embark on 'The Get In Girl Tour' starting in June. When asked if there's anything that will surprise fans on 'Toy With Me,' Meghan gave us a sneak peek into the song "Shimmer."

"There's a few songs on this album that I think, when I play it for people, there's one song that jaws drop," she reveals. "There's a song called 'Shimmer.'"

"I always call her if my song 'Me Too,' if she had an older sexier sister, it's 'Shimmer.' Maybe younger, maybe she's Gen Z, but she's a cool girl and people freak out."

Speaking of songs, after naming "Sledgehammer" by Fifth Harmony as her favorite track she's written for another artist, Mike asked Meghan about her front row seat to watching Sabrina Carpenter's star rise to stratospheric levels. Trainor penned Sabrina's debut single, "Can't Blame a Girl For Trying," in 2014, and has always known it would only take one song to make her massive.

"I've been watching her since her first song that I wrote 10 years ago came out, 'Can't Blame a Girl for Trying.' I love that song," remembers Meghan. "I've never watched someone work so hard. She put in the work, she did everything that everyone tells us to do, and I just remember being like, 'how come it's not clicking for people? She's perfect. Like what is going on?'"

"It only took one explosion song and then it was out of here. People told me when I was 19 like, 'It only takes one,' and I was like, 'what do you mean?' They're like, 'it just takes one song' and 'All About That Bass' was my one song."

For more from Meghan Trainor, check out the full Audacy Check In above.

Gwen Stefani has unwrapped a few new holiday songs this season, released the Deluxe Edition of her album, 'You Make It Feel Like Christmas,' and she continues to be the gift that keeps on giving with a No Doubt Las Vegas residency planned for The Sphere in 2026. Tis the season for more Stefani so lets dive into an Audacy Check In.

Earlier this month Gwen debuted the Amazon Exclusive song, "Shake The Snow Globe," set to appear in the upcoming film, 'Oh. What. Fun.' which arrives on December 3. Stefani also found her sleighbell swagger on "Hot Cocoa," which is featured on the new deluxe version of her 2020 Christmas album, 'You Make It Feel Like Christmas.'

"I wasn't even planning on it. I got this call last summer, they sent me the link and so I'm like sitting in Oklahoma at like 100 degrees asking my kids, 'hey, you want to watch this Christmas movie?'" reveals Gwen to Audacy's Dorothy Tran. "Sometimes things just come out of nowhere and it's just one of those things where, here we are again, and I just feel so grateful because every time I get asked to be part of anything these days, it's hard for me to explain it because people can't see it from my perspective, but you're always super grateful, but the longer it goes, the more you realize you're at the end of something. You have to be, you know what I mean? But then you get this life again and, so the gratitude just gets deeper."

Becoming a Christmas Queen in her own right, Dorothy wanted to know when it's the right time to decorate for the holiday. For Gwen, it all depends on where she is with husband, Blake Shelton. "I live in Oklahoma now half the time, half the time here [in Los Angeles], and depending on if we're there for the holidays or not," she shares. "I love to do the fall stuff, like sometimes Blake will go out and we'll get stuff from nature and do a fall design around the door. We're such nerds, it's so much fun and we have like these little traditions now that we do. Well we didn't get to do it this year because we were here."

"I think after Halloween it's fair game," Gwen says confidently. "You know what really I've learned is at the end you're just ready. You're like, get this out of my house. I don't want to see a snow globe ever again," she laughs.

Once the lights are down and the tree is packed, there's plenty more in store for Gwen in 2026, as No Doubt's residency at The Sphere has stretched to 18 dates across May and June. The nostalgia is running deep as the band preps for the show, and they look back on the music that has impacted generations.

"I love certain songs for what they've done, not just for me but for people, like a song like 'Don't Speak' that, it's just a pure song that didn't even make sense to No Doubt really, because it was so different from everything we were doing," says Stefani. "It just has so much, I guess, truth in it that it just transcends languages."

Just last month Gwen found herself back on stage singing "Don't Speak," as an invited guest at Dua Lipa's Los Angeles show. "It was just, she knew. like it was such the perfect choice," gushes Gwen. "And then honestly, like I got up on stage and we did that together and she's just, she's a superhero. I mean, she is a Wonder Woman. She's so beautiful. She's disgustingly beautiful because it's not just the outside, she's just so smart and cool and beautiful on the inside."

"It was crazy because at that point, when I said yes, I didn't know we were doing The Sphere," she shares. "When everything kind of aligns and it's like, 'wow,' like this is supposed to be happening, obviously, because there's no way you could plan that."

For more from Gwen Stefani, check out the full conversation above.