Written by In 2019, Dayseeker became dangerously close to calling it quits. After seven years slogging it out on the metalcore circuit, the Orange County quartet were tired, broke and disillusioned. Their fourth album, Sleeptalk, was the last roll of the dice.
“There was an unspoken vibe in our camp that if Sleeptalk wasn’t going to go over well, I didn’t know how much longer we were going to be able to keep doing the band thing,” remembers frontman Rory Rodriguez. “You tour for five or six weeks at a time and make pennies.”
Luckily, Sleeptalk changed everything. The album was a turning point, which saw them abandon discordant metalcore for pop melodies and glossy guitars, while Rory’s impressive vocals, switching from a whisper to a scream, hit emotional and commercial paydirt. After years of playing to 15-20 people per night, not only did their gigs start to sell out, the rooms were packed with crowds singing every word.
I didn’t know how much longer we were going to be able to keep doing the band thing
Rory Rodriguez
“When we started touring that record, it was a ‘holy shit’ moment,” smiles Rory.
Since then, there’s been steady progression. Once an optometrist between tours, Rory has finally hung up the white coat, able to sustain himself on royalties – certainly no mean feat in the current climate.
Last year, they released Creature In The Black Night, their horror-themed sixth album, which aims for the same ground as Bad Omens’ 2022 smash, The Death Of Peace Of Mind, and will surely power them to even greater heights. At the end of every gig, Rory makes a point of expressing his gratitude to the audience.
“We always thank the crowd for choosing to stand there and give us their time and their energy,” he says. “We got so used to playing to nobody for a long time, and feeling like a lot of people didn’t care about our band.”
People care now, and there’s been a dramatic increase in the crowd gathered to hear Rory’s heartfelt speech. Speaking to Hammer in his gentle, wavering voice from his home in Long Beach Los Angeles, dressed in a black T shirt and silver, octagonal glasses, he’s enjoying downtime with his four-year-old daughter, having recently completed a US tour supporting In This Moment.
A blue sky gleaming enticingly behind him, he humbly recalls what was the band’s most successful year yet. In 2025, they headlined tours across Europe and the USA, headed out on the road with Ice Nine Kills, and climbed to 2.6 million monthly listeners on Spotify. And in February, they’ll return to the UK to support Motionless In White, taking their soulful sound into arenas.
It helps that modern metal is in the midst of a fascinating transition. The scene’s biggest current stars, Sleep Token, Bad Omens, Poppy and Spiritbox, all have a distinct distaste for genre boundaries, mixing heavier sounds with dark, horny r’n’b and pop influences. It’s been branded ‘baddiecore’, and Dayseeker, too, have been lifted by the wave.
“I don’t know if I love the term ‘baddiecore’, but I’m grateful to be in the conversation,” Rory laughs. “If you tried to push boundaries 10 years ago, a lot of people would not be receptive to it. I think that caused metal and rock to get really stale.”
I don’t know if I love the term ‘baddiecore’ but I’m grateful to be in the conversation
Rory Rodriguez
What’s really fuelled Dayseeker’s ascent, though, is the emotional reach of their music. It helps that Rory has the kind of voice that can cause devastation with a single chorus, but he also has the ability to talk about his own traumatic upbringing in a way that resonates with people.
Rory is named after his uncle, who was murdered aged just 23. His parents split when he was six, and his mother took majority custody, despite the fact she had a severe addiction to methamphetamine. Already “painfully shy”, Rory was too young to navigate his mother’s erratic and absent behaviour, only starting to grasp what was really going on when he hit high school.
“What you experience at home is your normal,” he says. “I started meeting all these really warm, nurturing moms of my friends in school…and that wasn’t what I was experiencing at home.”
When he was 14, he discovered guitar and the piano. “I tried sports when I was a kid, and I always felt awkward and I just didn’t get it,” he explains. “When I picked up guitar and started singing, it felt like I had something in my life that I understood.”
He started writing music in high school, recording a solo EP and uploading it to the Internet after a particularly bad breakup (apparently it sounded so awful, he’s now removed it), later joining his first “really bad” band when he was 18.
Because he was having such a hard time at home, he gravitated towards dark and deeply emotional music, discovering Linkin Park and emo bands such as Dashboard Confessional, Taking Back Sunday and My Chemical Romance, attracted to the pain evident in their songwriting. He explains: “I felt like they understood what I was going through.”
Now Rory, provides that same beacon of light to thousands of fans who feel he can articulate their own struggles, and who have found solace in his vulnerability. Dayseeker’s 2022 album, Dark Sun, was written about Rory’s father, who passed away from cancer in July 2021.
“There’s a saying that, if you let somebody’s memory die after they pass away, they die twice,” he says. “For a long time after my dad passed, our whole live show was centered around how I could explain what an impact he had on me.”
Dayseeker’s new album sees Rory open up even further, as he speaks of cutting off close relationships to protect his peace. “Because of my relationship with my mom and her drug abuse, I have this fear of abandonment,” he admits. “As I’ve gotten older, I’ve realised what I won’t accept from somebody who’s close to me in my life.”
When we ask if he’s talking about Dayseeker’s founding guitarist, Gino Sgambelluri, who left the band in November, he assures us we’re joining dots that aren’t there. “I can’t overstate enough how much we love Gino,” he says. “It was tough to announce that, and then just see people post theories about why he left that are not rooted in reality.”
If you let somebody’s memory die after they pass away, they die twice
Rory Rodriguez
It’s all part of navigating fame – something Dayseeker are going to have to get used to. It might not always be easy, but Rory is taking it in his stride. Even as the band’s touring obligations increase, he’s determined to be present in his daughter’s life. “I want to give her a life that I did not have when I was a kid,” he says.
Meanwhile, the band have their sights set on taking things as far as they can go. Having already achieved more than he thought possible, for Rory, every day is a pinch-me moment.
“I wouldn’t say that I had faith it was going to work out – we love doing this so much that we kept chasing it,” he admits with a smile. “But the last few years have felt like our dreams are coming true.”
Creature In The Black Night is out now via Spinefarm. Dayseeker support Motionless In White in the UK from February 5
