Daisy Jones & The Six(68)

Eddie: I once saw Billy decline to give a group of fans his autograph by saying, “I just play music, man. I’m no more important than anybody else.” Watching that arrogant son of a bitch pretend to be humble was enough to make me want to scream. Pete kept telling me, “None of this matters. Don’t get all confused thinking it matters.” I didn’t get what he meant until it was all too late, I think.

Daisy: When people asked for my autograph, I used to write, “Stay Solid, Daisy J.” But when it was a young girl—which wasn’t often but it did happen from time to time—I used to write, “Dream big, little bird. Love, Daisy.”

Rod: People were excited about this band. They wanted to hear the album live. And Billy and Daisy could really deliver the goods. Not only were they dynamite but they were … hard to read. Enigmatic. They sang beautifully together, but they rarely got on the same mike. Sometimes they would look at each other and when they did, you couldn’t figure out what they were thinking.

This one time in Tennessee, Daisy was singing “Regret Me” and Billy was doing backup and she turned toward him, at the end, at the very end, and sang right to him. She was looking right at him and singing at the top of her lungs. Her face went a little red. And he sang, looking right back at her. He didn’t break her gaze. Then the song was over and they went on. Even I couldn’t have told you what exactly had just happened.

Karen: In general, if you paid attention, you saw a lot of dirty looks between them. Especially during “Regret Me.” Especially during that.

Rod: If you went to a Daisy Jones & The Six show thinking they hated each other, you could find some damning evidence for that. And if you went thinking something was up with them, that the hatred maybe masked something else, you could find evidence for that, too.

Billy: You can’t write songs with somebody, write songs about somebody, know that some of the songs you’re singing are ones they wrote about you … and not feel something … not be drawn to them.

Were there times I looked across the stage at Daisy and found myself unable to look away? I mean … yeah. Certainly, if you look at press photos from that tour, concert photos and what have you … you’ll see a lot of pictures of Daisy and I looking into each other’s eyes. I told myself we were putting it on but it’s hard to decipher, really. What was performance and what wasn’t? What were we doing to sell records and what did we really mean? Honestly, maybe I knew at one time but I don’t know anymore.

Daisy: Nicky was often jealous of what happened onstage.

“Young Stars” was about two people who were drawn to each other but forced to deny it. “Turn It Off’ ” was about trying to fall out of love with someone you can’t help but love. “This Could Get Ugly” was about knowing that you know someone even better than their partner does. These were dicey songs to be singing with someone. These were songs that made you feel something—made me feel what I felt when I wrote them. Nicky knew that. That was a very big part of our relationship. Making sure Nicky felt okay. That he was happy, making sure he was having a good time.

Warren: Night after night, it was packed shows, with a screaming crowd. With people singing along to every word. And then it always ended with Billy going back to his hotel room and the rest of us staying out partying until we found somebody to screw.

Except Daisy and Niccolo. They stayed out later than everybody. Everybody went to bed knowing Daisy and Niccolo thought the night was still young.

Daisy: The drugs aren’t so cute anymore when you wake up with dried blood under your nose so often that cleaning it off is part of your morning routine, like brushing your teeth. And you always have new bruises and you don’t know why. When there’s a knot in the back of your hair because you have forgotten to brush it for weeks.

Eddie: Her hands were blue. We were backstage getting ready to go on in Tulsa and I looked at her and I said, “Your hands look kind of blue.”

And she looked at them and said, “Oh, yeah.” That was it. Just oh, yeah.

Karen: Daisy slowly became a person none of us felt much like dealing with. And for the most part, we really didn’t have to. She wasn’t particularly needy or anything. The only issues were when she let things get so out of control, it was everyone’s problem. Like when she almost burned down the Chelsea.

Daisy: Nicky fell asleep having a smoke and the pillow caught fire at the Omni Parker House in Boston. I woke up because of the heat next to my face. Singed my hair. I had to put out the flames with the extinguisher I found in the closet. Nicky was completely unfazed by the whole thing.

Simone: I called her when I heard about the fire. I called her in Boston, I called her in Portland. I kept calling. She didn’t return my calls.

Billy: I told Rod to get her help.

Rod: I offered to take her and Nicky to rehab and she said I was being silly.

Graham: She’d slur a word here or there, she took a fall down the stage steps at some point. I think maybe in Oklahoma. But Daisy knew how to make everything look like fun and games.

Daisy: We were in Atlanta. And Nicky and I had partied all night and somebody had mescaline. Nicky thought it was a great idea to do mescaline. Everybody else had gone to bed and so it was just Nicky and me, high on a lot of stuff at once. The mescaline had just kicked in.

We broke the lock on the door leading up to the roof at the hotel we were staying at. The fans that had staked outside the lobby of the hotel had all gone home. That’s how late it was. He and I stood there, looking at the empty space where earlier in the day they had all been standing. It seemed romantic, the two of us up there. Everything quiet. Nicky took my hand and led me to the very edge of the roof.