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Published
July 2, 2008

Joey Barnes doesn't live his life like most rock stars. The drummer for Daughtry still spends a great deal of his down time in the 'Boro. He travels sans entourage, his face bare of identity-shielding shades indoors. He drives a Honda, not a tricked-out Hummer. It seems a smash hit album, tour and even a couple Grammy nominations haven't changed this Greensboro native much.

"My bank account's bigger," Barnes says of his newfound fame. "And that just allows me to do what I want to do. I'll always be the same dude. I've always been weird and eccentric and eclectic and all the other 'e' words. I know who I am and what I can do and what I can't do and what I want to do. I've always known that."

What he's always wanted to do is play music. Growing up in a family of musicians, Barnes was introduced to music at a young age.
"My dad is a musician, and my mother is, as well. That's how they met," Barnes says. "My uncles are musicians. Just everybody was playing music. My dad made me a drum set before I was born. They'd take pictures of me playing on it. But they never forced me to play on it or anything like that. It was just a thing I watched them do and then decided I wanted to do, too."

Music may have been in Barnes' blood, but his first attempts at playing were anything but successful.

"I remember hitting myself in the face with the drumsticks because they were bigger than my arms," Barnes says. "And I'd cry, and my dad would have to come up, and I did it so often that he knew what happened because I had marks all over my face."

Barnes finally mastered the instrument and played his first gig, a wedding, at age 10. During his high school years at Vandalia Christian School, he formed bands with friends, experimenting with singing and even playing bass.

"I started wanting to sing behind the drums," Barnes says.

"And it was easier because I was kind of hidden back there, so I was free to learn and get better and if I hit bum notes, I could hide behind the symbols or something like that and just point at him (the lead singer)."

Barnes played in several bands through the years, including the Suicide Darlings, the Patrick Rock Band and a cover band called Seven and the Deadlies, which covered songs by female artists, with the members dressed in drag. With those bands, he graced the stages of many clubs in the area, including the Blind Tiger and Greene Street Club. But he says the first club he played, the Rhino, remains his favorite.

Barnes played the local club circuit for nearly 10 years, but he didn't get his big break until several years ago, when he met a relatively unknown local singer, Chris Daughtry, at a battle of the bands where they were both competing.

"I guess my talent just kind of blew him away. I guess he was just taken aback. He was breathless, like Faith Hill," Barnes jokes. "So I guess we had kind of a mutual respect for each other, and that's the first time we met and talked, and I remember seeing him at the theater, and I came up to him and I was like, 'I'm your drummer, because you need one.'"

A few months later, Daughtry became a household name after his 2006 appearance on "American Idol," and when an opening for a drummer came up in his band, he remembered Barnes, who he'd kept in touch with since the competition.

The band's debut album, "Daughtry," (RCA, 2006) went four-times platinum, spent weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard charts and garnered four Grammy nominations.

"That's a cool thing (Grammy nomination), that's awesome and it's scary because at the same time, it's a first album," Barnes says. "It's scary because the people are very finicky, and one minute they'll be behind you, and then the next minute, they're on to something else. It's like ADD. The country's got a massive ADD problem. And there's so many shows and new stars, and there's always someone who can take your place. It's a dangerous business because if that's (fame) what you're in it for, you're gonna get let down."

The band went on tour, first hitting clubs and theaters with lesser-known bands, then arenas and amphitheaters with Nickelback and most recently, Bon Jovi. And while Barnes enjoyed seeing new places and playing in front of thousands of fans, the grueling schedule began to take a toll on him.

"Last year was absolutely horrifying because we played about 300 shows in that year," Barnes says.

"You're on a bus, on a plane, on a bus, on a plane, like, 'Where am I? I have no idea.' We go overseas; we come back; we go back overseas. I mean, it was absolutely nuts."

Last month, Barnes headed back to Los Angeles to begin recording Daughtry's second album.

"That's the most fun we're going to probably have for the next two years," Barnes says. "The recording the record is going to be the vacation. It's after that, when we tour the record for about a thousand years, like we did the last one, I'm not looking forward to that quite yet. It's a whole
different mindset."
When Daughtry's previous tour ended in April, Barnes returned to the Triad for a few months to relax, catch up with friends and even play a few gigs for fun with old buddies, including local musician Patrick Rock. And according to his friends, being a regular dude is something that comes naturally for Barnes.

"I don't think he's changed at all," says Patrick Rock. "Really, he's still humble. He's a good cat.

The only changes are he travels a lot more. And he's well-deserving of everything he gets. He's just super-talented all across the board."
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