Daisy Jones & The Six(33)

So that’s what I wrote.

Daisy: Rod brought us the article before it came out and when I saw the headline I was so excited. I loved it.

Jonah Berg: I knew the headline before I even finished writing it. “The Six That Should Be Seven.”

Rod: It was a great cover. A clear shot of all of them onstage together, Billy and Daisy singing into the same mike, Graham and Karen looking at each other. Everybody else really rocking out. In the foreground were about four or five people holding up lighters in the audience. And then there was the headline.

Warren: We were on the cover of Rolling Stone. Rolling Goddamn Stone. I mean, you get jaded about a lot of things when you’re ascending. But not that.

Billy: I grabbed the paper from Rod.

Graham: I don’t think Billy was happy about it.

Billy: “The Six That Should Be Seven.”

Rod: I believe Billy’s exact words were “Are you fucking kidding me?”

Billy: I mean, are you fucking kidding me?





Daisy: I knew not to say a single thing about that article. None of us acknowledged it except Rod and I when no one else was around. Rod told me that if I wanted to officially join The Six, I should just hang tight and the opportunity might present itself.

Rod: Billy started to calm down after a few days. By the time we all got back on the plane to head to L.A., he was downright reasonable.

Billy: I wasn’t trying to be … ignorant. I was aware of the fact that our biggest hit had been with Daisy. And Teddy had been floating the idea of another song or two with Daisy in the future. I knew that we were more mainstream, more marketable, with Daisy—obviously I was aware enough to see that. But I was taken by surprise at the idea of having her formally join the band.… And also that the suggestion was made so publicly.

Graham: The article was about how good we were with Daisy. Sure, it was with Daisy but I really felt like the takeaway was how good we were.

Eddie: By the time the article came out, the tour was over. The seven of us, Rod, the engineers, the roadies … we were all headed home.

Warren: We had to take a commercial flight, back to the States. I felt like a pauper.

Billy: I got out of my seat pretty soon after we took off. I walked over to Graham and Karen. I said, “What would it look like, do you think? Letting Daisy join the band?”

Karen: I thought the article was right. She was an honorary part of the group. Why not make it official? Why not have her on all our songs?

Graham: I told Billy to let her join.

Billy: They were no help.

Warren: At one point in the flight, Billy was sitting next to me making a list of pros and cons, you know, whether Daisy should join the band or not. And I see Karen coming out of the bathroom looking like somebody’s balled her. All flushed and her hair messed up. So I turn around and who’s mysteriously gone from his seat? Bones.

Eddie: I’m sitting in the back of the plane and I could see Graham getting up, Karen’s walking around, Billy’s talking to them. I’m watching, trying to figure out what the hell’s going on. I turn to Daisy and I say, “What do you think they’re doing up there?”

But she’s got her nose in some book and she goes, “Shut up, I’m reading.”

Warren: I looked over when Billy was writing his little list about whether Daisy should join the band, and he didn’t have that many cons and it seemed like he was really searching his brain for some.

I said, “Make sure you write ‘Gives you a hard-on you’d rather not have’ in the cons section.”

He told me I didn’t know what I was talking about. I said, “All right, you don’t want my opinion.”

He said, “Yes, I do.” And I looked at him and he said, “Fine, I don’t.”

So I sat back, sipped my Bloody Mary, and went back to reading the instructions on the barf bag.

Karen: Billy came back to where Graham and I were with this list. He’d slowly come to the conclusion that he wanted more hits and Daisy would bring us more hits.

I said, “You know, she might turn us down.” That thought never occurred to Billy or Graham. But Daisy had more hype than even we did.

Graham: We decided we’d do one album with Daisy. See how it went.

Billy: I was making a decision that affected a lot of people. What is good for me might not necessarily be good for everybody else. I had to weigh that. Warren, Graham, Karen, Rod. They all wanted to get bigger, to top the charts. We all did. I had to take that into account.

No matter how much I may have preferred to keep a healthy distance from her personally.

Warren: I wasn’t sure why Billy was stressing about it so much. He was just going to do whatever Teddy told him to do anyway.

Karen: People have said Billy didn’t want Daisy to join the band because he didn’t want to share the spotlight but I don’t think that was the case. Billy wasn’t really an insecure guy in that way. That was sort of the problem with him, really. Was that he wasn’t intimidated by anyone else’s talent.

I think she just … unsettled him. However you want to interpret that.

Billy: By the time we landed at LAX, I decided that it was a good idea to at least float the idea by Teddy. If he thought we should do an album with Daisy, then I’d ask her.

Rod: When we landed, I caught up to Billy and checked in, asked him what he was thinking. He said he wanted to talk to Teddy about whether Daisy should join the band. So I pulled Billy over to a pay phone and I called Teddy and I said, “Teddy, tell Billy what you told me this morning.”