Daisy Jones & The Six(61)

You know, I think a lot of how I defined myself was in relation to him. I always—my whole life until around that point—I always felt like Billy Dunne’s little brother. And that was when it occurred to me that he probably never defined himself as Graham Dunne’s older brother. Would never have thought to.

Billy: In hindsight, I can see why they were mad. But I don’t regret any work I did on that album. The work speaks for itself.

Karen: It’s so complicated. Was the album our best one because Billy was forced to let us in on the composing and arranging from the outset? I think so. Was it the best one because Billy ultimately took the reins back? Because Teddy knew when to make Billy listen to other ideas and when to let him run the show? Was it only the best because of Daisy? I have no idea. I spent a lot of time thinking about it and I have no idea.

But when you’re a part of something as big as that album ended up being … you want to know if you were an integral part. You want to believe they couldn’t have done it without you. Billy never did put much effort into making everyone feel integral.

Billy: All bands have trouble with this stuff. You know how hard it is to get this many people to agree on anything this subjective?

Artie Snyder: I heard little inklings of grief, later. That some of the band weren’t happy with the changes. Or maybe the way the changes were handled. But I thought it was sort of odd, the way everyone was getting upset at Billy as if he was in charge. Teddy was in charge. If Billy redid Eddie’s tracks, it’s because Teddy thought Billy should redo the tracks. I never once saw Billy do anything Teddy wasn’t backing.

I even made a joke once, when Teddy was out of the room. Billy had wanted to take out the Dobro on some song but Teddy wanted it in. When Teddy was gone, I said, “Should we just go ahead and take it out and see if he notices?”

Billy shook his head, really serious. He said, “Biggest hit we’ve had was a song I thought I hated. Teddy’s the only one that saved it.” He said, “If it comes down to his opinion or my opinion, we go with his opinion.”





Simone: I finally got Daisy to agree to buy a plane ticket to be back in L.A. for the start of rehearsals.

Daisy: When I told Nicky that it was time for me to go back to L.A., he wasn’t very supportive. The band had to do press and prerelease stuff. We had to get ready to head out on tour. And he knew that. I had told him all of that when we met. But he said, “Don’t go. Stay here. The band doesn’t mean anything.” And that hurt. Because the band meant everything. This thing that felt like all of my worth … he treated it like it was nothing. I’m embarrassed to say he almost had me. I almost didn’t leave for the airport.

Simone knocked on the door and Nicky said, “Don’t answer it.”

I said, “It’s Simone. I have to answer it.” She was standing there and she had this furious look on her face, and I’ll never forget, she said, “Get. Your. Fucking. Suitcase. And Get. In. The. Cab. Now.” I’d never seen her like that. And something just sort of clicked in me.

You have to have one person in your life that you know would never do anything to steer you wrong. They may disagree with you. They could even break your heart, from time to time. But you have to have one person, at least, who you know will always tell you the truth.

You need one person who, when the shit hits the fan, grabs your stuff, throws it in a suitcase, and gets you away from the Italian prince.

Simone: I dragged her ass home.

Karen: Daisy comes back from this monthlong vacation and she’s somehow ten pounds lighter than when she left, which, you know, Daisy didn’t have ten pounds to lose. And she’s cut all of her hair off and she’s got a diamond ring on, and she’s a princess.

Billy: I was floored—I mean absolutely positively floored, my jaw about hit the floor—when she showed up married.

Daisy: What did he care? Honestly, what did he care? That’s what I was thinking. He was married. I couldn’t be married?

Warren: Let’s not go crazy here. She married the son of a prince. When she got back I asked her how many people had to die before this guy was king and she said, “Well, technically, the Italians don’t have a monarchy anymore.” So … that doesn’t sound like much of a prince to me.

Rod: We were slating the album for release that summer. As it got closer, we started sending the finished record out to critics and magazines. We had a lot of requests for interviews.

We wanted a big, splashy magazine cover to hit the stands right as the album came out. Obviously, we wanted Rolling Stone. And Daisy, specifically, wanted Jonah Berg again. So I made the call and he agreed to do it.

Jonah Berg: The plan was that I was going to hang out with them during rehearsals.

I did feel a certain connection with them, the band, because I knew that it had been my article that had pushed them into doing an album together. So if I thought the album sucked, that would have been a little embarrassing. But I was really blown away by it. Lyrically, there was a lot going on. Billy and Daisy were credited equally. And some of the most gripping songs were ones where they were credited together. So I was coming into the situation assuming that the story here was that Billy and Daisy had an intense collaborative chemistry.

Karen: The first few days of rehearsal, it was really subtle, but if you were paying attention, you’d notice that Billy and Daisy never actually spoke to each other.