Daisy Jones & The Six(38)

Billy: Everyone always acted like I was such a difficult guy. But Daisy asked for an equal say and billing and I gave her both. What more did she want?

I mean, I wasn’t even sure it was the right thing to do. But I did it to keep her happy, to keep everybody happy.

Graham: We became a democracy instead of an autocracy. And democracy sounds like a great idea, but bands aren’t countries.

Billy: To be honest, I thought Daisy’d get tired of trying to write an album pretty quickly. I underestimated her.

Let me tell you this. Don’t ever doubt Daisy Jones.





Aurora




        1977–1978





In August 1977, the seven members of the band entered Wally Heider’s Studio 3 to begin the process of writing and recording their third album.



Graham: Karen and I left her place that morning, heading over to Heider. I said to her, just as we walked out of the door, “Can’t we just drive over together?”

She said she didn’t want people thinking we were sleeping together.

I said, “But we are sleeping together.”

She still made us take two cars.

Karen: You know how easy it is to screw up your entire life by sleeping with somebody in your own band?

Eddie: Pete and I drove over that morning. By that point, I think he and I were the only two still staying at the place in Topanga Canyon. Before he’d gotten back from the East Coast, I’d had the place all to myself.

I said to Pete on the way there, I said, “This should be interesting.”

And he told me to not take it all so seriously. He said, “It’s just rock ’n’ roll. None of this really matters.”

Daisy: When we all met up at the studio that first day, I brought this basket of cakes that someone had sent over to my place at the Marmont and my notebook full of songs. I was ready.

Eddie: Daisy showed up in a thin tank top and these tiny cutoff shorts. Barely covered anything.

Daisy: I run hot and I always have. I am not going to sit around sweating my ass off just so men can feel more comfortable. It’s not my responsibility to not turn them on. It’s their responsibility to not be an asshole.

Billy: I had written about ten or twelve songs so far. All of them in great shape. But I knew I couldn’t go in there and tell them that I’d written the album already. Like I did with the other two albums. I couldn’t say that.

Graham: It was kind of funny, to be honest. Watching Billy put on this act like he gave a shit what anyone else wanted on the album. God bless him. You could see the effort he was putting in. Talking all slow, thinking about his words.

Daisy: We were sitting around and I handed over my notebook. I said, “I’ve got a lot of good stuff in here to start from.” I thought maybe everyone could read it all and we could discuss it from there.

Billy: Here I am, holding back my twelve great songs, so that no one thinks I’m trying to control things, and Daisy’s just walking into a band she’s brand new to, expecting everyone to read a whole journal of ideas.

Daisy: He didn’t even flip through it.

Billy: If Daisy and I were going to write an album together, it needed to be just the two of us. You can’t give seven people a say in the words. Somebody had to take charge and control the process.

So I said, “Look, I wrote this song ‘Aurora.’ It’s the one I really believe in out of everything I’m working on for this album. The rest is up to us all. Daisy and I will write some songs and everyone will take a crack at the arrangements and once we’ve got a slate of great songs that we all love, we’ll narrow it down to the best of the best.”

Karen: Maybe it’s revisionist history, but I think when Billy played “Aurora” it felt clear that we could build an album around it.

Graham: We were all on board with “Aurora” as a great place to start—it was a great frickin’ song. After that, Daisy started talking about ideas for the album as a whole.

Warren: I wanted no part in writing. That morning felt like a waste of my time. Everyone’s sitting around, talking about shit I don’t care about. I finally just said, “Don’t you all think that Daisy and Billy should go write the songs and come to us when they have them?”

Karen: Teddy was really decisive about it. He handed Billy the keys to his guesthouse and said, “You two pop on over to my place, set up in my guesthouse, and get to writing. Everyone else is going to get to work on this new one.”

Eddie: Billy didn’t want us composing anything for that song without him. But he also didn’t want Daisy writing songs without him. So he had to choose whether he went with Daisy and got started writing or stayed with us and worked on the arrangement for his new song.

And he chose Daisy.

Billy: I got to Teddy’s pool house first and so I got settled. Made myself a cup of coffee, sat down, looked through my notes trying to decide what to show Daisy.

Daisy: By the time I opened the door, Billy’s already there, he’s got his notebook out to show me. Not so much as a hello. Just “Here, read my stuff.”

Billy: I told her the truth, I said, “I’ve got a lot of the album written already. Do you want to take a look at it and see where we can make adjustments together? See if maybe there’s some gaps that we can fill in with some new stuff or the stuff you’ve written already?”