“I’m not above anybody”: How Dayseeker’s Rory Rodriguez became metalcore’s reluctant new superstar

The last sentence Kerrang! heard from Rory Rodriguez a few months ago, composing himself for the release of Dayseeker’s sixth album Creature In The Black Night, now seems amusing: “I just hope people are receptive to it.”

He knows – and reiterates today – that it’s their best record to date. But he’s still not immune to the onslaught of online noise that now comes with everything his growing band touches.

“It’s hard not to pay attention, if you spend a year of your life working on something and throw so much of your soul into it,” admits a slightly lethargic Rory, meeting K! the morning after a signing event in Los Angeles. “It’s hard to be vulnerable in that way.”

And who can blame him? All of a sudden, years into the game, he finds himself at the helm of an absolutely massive band. Their 2019 breakout record Sleeptalk kicked the door open for follow-up Dark Sun to rush through it. But now Creature In The Black Night finds Dayseeker clambering up the staircase to the next level – proven in real-time by some cold, hard facts. Rory tells K! their latest LP has “quadrupled the numbers we did for Dark Sun”. Take lead single Pale Moonlight, on course to become their biggest hit.

He might be a qualified optometrist, but Rory is not a statistician. At home, locked in to fatherhood and being present for his four-year-old daughter Hazel, such numbers only go so far. Until you throw him in front of a crowd of 40,000 at Kentucky’s Louder Than Life Festival, as he found himself in September, that is. We must remember – and Rory does – that only three years ago, 500-capacity rooms were a “big deal” for Dayseeker.

“What’s that term?” Rory asks, pausing to find the adequate phrase. “Imposter syndrome. Sometimes, those moments [like Louder Than Life] settle in as, ‘Holy shit, maybe I don’t understand how well our band is doing.’ Honestly, we got so used to the band not doing well, for a very long time. Now, if there’s real, tangible success, it feels very surreal.

“I’m figuring it out, because it’s that thing, ‘Be careful what you wish for,’” he considers. “For a long time, the goal was just to be able to support myself and pay my bills. About four years ago, I quit my nine-to-five desk job and could comfortably live off Dayseeker, which is amazing. But it feels like we’re on a train right now, and it’s going somewhere we can’t really control. That, to me, is a little scary.

“Sometimes, the parasocial relationships that people have online with bands like Sleep Token or Bad Omens, they have this obsessive quality and get fixated on people,” he elaborates. “I know some of those guys have felt an invasion into their privacy, and that’s where I get a little weirded out, especially being a father. It’s a moving train that we can’t stop, but it’s incredible at the same time.”

Rory will cross those bridges when they come. Like his now-peers Sam Carter, Noah Sebastian and Courtney LaPlante before him, the public seems to have elected him as the heir to the metalcore throne. Does this humble, gentle father-figure feel ready to embrace the status that his juggernaut pipes and soul-stirring songs have earned him?

“You get hungrier for bigger and better things,” Rory admits, breaking the shield of modesty. “I look at bands who are more popular and worry about my birth certificate getting leaked online,’” he half-jokes, referencing the time when one Sleep Token ‘fan’ crossed far too many lines.

“There’s the Hollywood Palladium, which [holds] 4,000 people – we might take a swing at that at some point,” he teases. “Just to see, ‘Can we reach that level of success?’ We are always a little hungrier to see what the next step is, but we’re still very happy with it, because I have so many friends who are just as passionate about playing music as we are. For whatever reason, the stars never really aligned for them to find a career in music. If it doesn’t get any better than this, it’s still amazing, even having all of what we have right now.”

For every flicker of ambition he allows into our conversation, Rory restores the balance with humility and gratitude. It’s emblematic of the personality that he pours into the music, whether he’s whipping up a stadium-sized chorus just to ‘crawl back to my coffin’ or dancing with his fears in Pale Moonlight, rather than confronting them in a head-on collision. It’s not in Rory’s nature to cosplay the role of the mouthy, headstrong and extravagant rock star.

“I’ve seen it,” he warns. “We’ve toured or been friends with people who get a slight taste of success, and they change a little bit.”

As Dayseeker’s sharp upswing continues, Rory is determined to stay true to the values that initially inspired him to project his emotions into songs.

While his mother battled with drug addiction, the teenage Rory Rodriguez found himself latching onto music as way to cope with the challenges of his upbringing, forging a connection long before his songwriting exploits had entered the fold.

“I would lock on to a band like Linkin Park,” he recalls. “‘Man, that guy knows what I’m going through.’ It was a release, emotionally, to relate to this person who turned their pain into something beautiful.”

In the driver’s seat of Dayseeker, he’s still visibly fuelled by the possibility of having that effect on someone who needs to hear his message. For some artists, this is an accidental by-product. But when fans tell Rory how Dark Sun – a record about his father’s passing – helped them navigate grief, it hits home for the frontman.

“It’s come full-circle, standing on the other side of the dynamic,” he reflects.

Interestingly, Rory didn’t idolise Chester Bennington in the same way that many young fans now plaster posters of him all over their walls. Onstage, the late Linkin Park frontman might command thousands of fans, but his songwriting provided a window into their human side, something Rory will always look to prioritise himself.

“I fixated way more on the music as a whole, and less on a single individual,” he muses. “I wouldn’t say I ever really hyperfixated on the ideology of being a rock star. It was always more about, ‘Their music’s incredible, and it helps me through problems I’m dealing with.’

“Being on the other side of the coin, you realise we’re all just human beings; people who are passionate about playing music. I’ll meet somebody, and they’re like, ‘Oh my god, you’re Rory!’ I’m just a person. I’m not above anybody. We all exist in the same playing field, and I don’t want to feel like some larger-than-life person because of what we do for a living.”

Having slaved away in Dayseeker for nine years until music became Rory’s full-time profession, perhaps it’s a blessing in disguise that the band’s success came this far into their career. Now, he’s grounded and steadfast in his morals. Maybe Rory is the human rock star that the world needs. The counterforce to Vessel or Papa V Perpetua, who are revered as gods, not mortals.

The spotlight that illuminates Rory finds a man shaped by his surroundings and lived experiences, just as much as his undeniable talent. From his “cocky” late father, who was “probably a better singer than I am right now”, he realised the path of grace and humility was one he was more comfortable with. From his daughter, the patience and selflessness that puts everything Dayseeker does into perspective.

“At the forefront of every decision I make in my life is, ‘How does this impact my daughter, and is that in her best interests or not?’ Maybe I went onstage and wasn’t really feeling it, but you still have to show up and put on your show, because, in the back of my mind, I am trying to make a living for my kid so that she can have a better life than I did. My purpose in life is to support and take care of her.”

For the scores of Dayseeker fans strapping in for this journey to the summit of the mountain, they can rest assured that Rory’s conviction is staunch. He’s a man who won’t compromise on his beliefs, and will do everything in his power to ensure Dayseeker – in all their success – continues to operate at the best of his ability. “As the stakes get higher, the better job we want to do,” he declares.

While many artists work 10 steps ahead of the curve, Rory is keen to let Creature In The Black Night endure its fully-fledged era before Dayseeker set about exceeding the high standards they’ve now set.

“We’re gonna continue to maintain the same formula, because it works well for us,” he says of the timespans. “It works well to hone in on writing for a period. I don’t want to go near a recording studio for a year or two, and then [you feel] really inspired, fired-up and motivated.”

Far more pressing is their return to British shores, taking on some of the biggest rooms as main support to Motionless In White, alongside Make Them Suffer. While they’ve had a taste of London’s Alexandra Palace before, accompanying Pierce The Veil, the chance for songs like Shapeshift and Nocturnal Remedy to fulfil their destiny of belonging in an arena will be realised, come February.

“We got to play Ally Pally with Pierce, and it’s a beautiful room,” smiles Rory. “We invested a lot of time into the UK and Australia, and it’s cool to see our investment pay off.” In the meantime, Rory is taking it all in his stride, grateful to be here, conductor of the aforementioned high-speed train.

“There was a general consensus in our camp that if [Sleeptalk] didn’t do well, I couldn’t foresee us being a band for a lot longer,” he remembers. “If it didn’t, I don’t know if you and I would be having this conversation right now.”

Thank god we are, Rory Rodriguez. Father to Hazel. Full-time musician of four years. And finally, frontman of this ever-growing metalcore phenomenon. Whether or not he’s ready for bigger things, he’s earned them.

Creature In The Black Night is out now via Spinefarm. Dayseeker tour the UK with Motionless In White from February 5. This feature originally appeared in the winter 2025 issue of Kerrang!.

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