Daisy Jones & The Six(37)

If The Six didn’t want me for that, I didn’t want whatever second prize they were offering.

Graham: Daisy didn’t want Billy throwing a temper tantrum every time she tried to contribute something of her own. She was laying down the law early. Probably the way the rest of us should have from the beginning. If we wanted any sort of meaningful say.

Certainly if Eddie had half of Daisy’s balls, he would have solved his issues with Billy like that years ago.

Billy: I said, “That’s fine, Daisy. We’re all in this together.”

Warren: I didn’t bother getting riled up about it because what was the point? But Billy was acting like this was one big hippie commune where everyone had a say. And that was a lie.

Karen: Billy did have a way of making you think you were crazy for even thinking things were unfair when, in fact, they were completely unfair. He wasn’t even aware of the way everyone revolved around him.

Rod: The chosen ones never know they are chosen. They think everyone gets a gold carpet rolled out for them.

Graham: Pete chimed in at one point and said, “While this is all out on the table, I’m taking full control over my own bass lines from here on out.”

Billy: I told Pete I was fine with him writing his bass lines. He’d been writing most of his bass lines for a while.

Karen: I said, “I’d like to step it up a bit. I think we can use me more often to round out songs. Maybe even do a song just keys and vocals.”

Eddie: I wanted a say in what I was playing. Everyone’s chiming in like Billy’s trying to control them—and he did. But he was really controlling me. I said, “I write my own riffs from here on out.”

Billy: I just kept thinking, Of course Eddie’s throwing a fit. I started to say something and Teddy put his hand out, kind of gave me a look like Don’t talk right now. Just hear them out.

Teddy and I both knew that some people needed to feel heard whether or not you actually listened to them.

Eddie: Look, I really liked Daisy. And I liked Karen, I wanted her to be able to contribute more. But a female vocalist on the whole album and more keys? Karen’s keys were softening us too much as it was, if you asked me.

I said, “I want to make sure we’re still a rock band.”

Graham said, “What do you mean?”

I said, “I don’t want to be in a pop band. This isn’t Sonny & Cher over here.” Billy bristled at that.

Billy: I was just getting shit on all night. I’m thinking, What did I ever do to you people except take us this far?

Graham: I thought Eddie’s point was well made. How was our music going to change with Daisy coming in? Especially if she was writing. But, of course, Billy felt like it was just people attacking him.

When you have everything, someone else getting a little something feels like they’re stealing from you.

Karen: Everything that was happening, it was all really undefined. Was Daisy a permanent part of The Six? I didn’t know. I know Daisy didn’t know. I don’t even think Billy knew.

Daisy: I had been mulling this over for a while, of how the billing would work and what I felt I deserved.

I said, “If you all will commit to this and you want me to join as a member of The Six, then I’ll be a member of The Six. My name doesn’t need to be featured. But if it’s temporary, then we need to discuss some other type of billing.”

Graham: You could just tell that Daisy was expecting us to say she was a member of The Six.

Karen: Billy said, “How about The Six featuring Daisy Jones?”

Rod: That’s how “Honeycomb” was billed. So I understood what Billy was trying to do.

Daisy: I thought, Wow, okay, he didn’t even give it a second thought.

Billy: She gave me two options. If she didn’t want me to have two options, she shouldn’t have given two options.

Warren: I just thought, Let the girl join the band, man.

Rod: Teddy could see that things were headed in a tense direction. He had tried to keep quiet most of the discussion but he finally piped in and said, “You’ll be Daisy Jones & The Six.” And no one was happy but everyone was kind of equally dissatisfied.

Daisy: I think Teddy wanted to make sure my name was prominent. I brought attention to the band. My name needed to be front and center.

Billy: Teddy was trying to protect the sanctity of The Six. We didn’t want to promise anything to Daisy.

Daisy: I don’t think Billy actually resented anything I asked for. All of it was reasonable. He was just pissed because I knew how much power I had and he would have preferred I either not know it or not use it. I am sorry but that is not my style. I mean, it shouldn’t be anybody’s, really.

Billy had been riding a bit too comfortable on the fact that everybody let him do what he wanted. And I was the first person to say, “You’re only in charge of me as much as I’m in charge of you.” And that opened the floodgates for Pete and Eddie and, well, everybody.

Rod: Teddy told the band that Runner wanted the album toward the top of ‘seventy-eight. It was already August. Creative differences and ego checks and all of that aside, it was back to the salt mines.

Karen: After we walked out of there that night, I thought, Holy shit. Daisy had just joined our band with top billing and fundamentally changed the dynamics of the group in a way that none of us had done before.