Daisy Jones & The Six(9)

Anyway, we left Mom with the mailman and got in the van.

Karen: We gigged everywhere along the way from Pennsylvania to California.

Billy: Camila made her choice and there was a big part of me that felt like, All right, I’ll be single then. See if she likes that.

Graham: Billy straight up lost his mind on that trip.

Rod: It wasn’t the women I was worried about, with Billy. Although there were a lot of women. But Billy would get so messed up after shows that I’d have to wake him up the next afternoon by slapping him across the face, he was that far gone.

Camila: I was sick to my stomach without him. I was … kicking myself. Every day. Waking up in tears. My mom kept telling me to track him down. To take it back. But it felt like it was too late. He’d gone on without me. To make his dreams come true. As he should have.

Warren: When we got to L.A., Rod hooked us up with a few rooms at the Hyatt House.

Greg McGuinness (former concierge, the Continental Hyatt House): Ah, man, I’d love to tell you that I remember The Six coming in and staying with us. But I don’t. There was so much going on, so many bands back then. It was hard to keep track, I remember meeting Billy Dunne and Warren Rhodes later, but back then, no.

Warren: Rod called in his favors. We started playing bigger gigs.

Eddie: L.A. was a trip. Everywhere you looked, you were surrounded by people who loved playing music, who liked to party. I thought, Why the hell didn’t we come here sooner? The girls were gorgeous. The drugs were cheap.

Billy: We played a few shows around Hollywood. At the Whisky, the Roxy, P.J.’s. I had just written a new song called “Farther from You.” It was all about how much I missed Camila, how far I felt from her.

When we hit the Strip, that felt like we were really coming into our own.

Graham: All of us started to dress a bit better. You really had to step up your game in L.A. I started wearing my shirts unbuttoned halfway down my chest. I thought I was sexy as hell.

Billy: That was about when I got really into … what is it that people call it now? A Canadian tuxedo? I was wearing a denim shirt with my jeans, pretty much every day.

Karen: I felt like I couldn’t focus on playing if I dressed in miniskirts and boots and all that. I mean, I liked that look, but I wore high-waisted jeans and turtlenecks most of the time.

Graham: Karen was so fucking sexy in those turtlenecks.

Rod: Once they were starting to get some good attention, I set up a show for them at the Troubadour.

Graham: “Farther from You” was a great song. And you could tell Billy felt it. Billy couldn’t fake anything. When he was in pain or when he was joyful, you could feel it.

That show at the Troubadour that night, as we were playing, I looked over at Karen and she was in it, you know? And then I looked at Billy, and he’s singing his heart out and I thought, This is our best show yet.

Rod: I saw Teddy Price standing in the back, listening. I hadn’t met him before but I knew he was a producer with Runner Records. We had a few friends in common. After the show, he came up and found me, said, “My assistant heard you guys at P.J.’s. I told him I would come listen.”

Billy: We get offstage and Rod comes up to me with this real tall, fat guy in a suit and he says, “Billy, I want you to meet Teddy Price.”

First thing Teddy says is—and you have to remember he had this real thick upper-crust British accent—“You’ve got a hell of a talent for writing about that girl.”

Karen: Watching Billy, it felt a little bit like watching a dog find a master. He wanted to please him, wanted the record deal. You could feel it dripping off him.

Warren: Teddy Price was ugly as sin. A face only a mother could love. [Laughs] I’m just messing around. He was ugly, though. I liked that he didn’t seem to care.

Karen: That’s the glory of being a man. An ugly face isn’t the end of you.

Billy: I shook Teddy’s hand and he asked me if I had any more songs like the ones he’d heard. I said, “Yes, sir.”

He said, “Where do you see this band in five years? Ten years?”

And I said, “We’ll be the biggest band in the world.”

Warren: I signed my first pair of tits that night. This girl comes up to me and unbuttons her shirt and says, “Sign me.” So I signed her. Let me tell you, that’s a memory you have for a lifetime.

The following week, Teddy joined the band at a rehearsal space in the San Fernando Valley and listened to the seven songs they had prepared. Shortly after, they were invited to the Runner Records offices, introduced to CEO Rich Palentino, and offered a recording and publishing deal. Teddy Price, personally, would be producing their album.

Graham: We signed the deal around four in the afternoon and I remember walking out onto Sunset Boulevard, the six of us, the sun hitting us right in the eyes and just feeling like Los Angeles had opened its arms and said, “Come on in, baby.”

I saw a T-shirt a few years ago that said, “I Got My Shades on Cuz My Future’s So Bright,” and I thought the little shit that was wearing it doesn’t know what he’s talking about. He never stood on Sunset Boulevard, sun blinding his eyes, with his five best friends and a record contract in his back pocket.

Billy: That night, everybody was out partying over at the Rainbow and I walked away, walked down the street to a pay phone. Imagine achieving your wildest dream and feeling empty inside. It didn’t mean anything unless I could share it with Camila. So I called her.