BITTERSWEET TRAGEDY-DAISY JONES AND THE SIX

008: its all an act

After their performance, a journalist from Rolling Stones came to talk to the band. See if they were how they seemed on stage and through the media.

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JONAH BERG (rock journalist, Rolling Stone, 1971–1983): When I first came back and met the band after the Glasgow show, I was surprised at the level of camaraderie. They were out there, rocking out, smashing guitars. But backstage, everything seemed really calm. They seemed completely normal. Which is weird for rock stars. But The Six was never what you expect.

ARACELY: I was all an act, none of what we said or what we did was real.

KAREN: It was so much pretending.
Billy and Daisy are pretending they normally hang out after shows, which they had never done. Eddie's pretending he doesn't hate Billy's guts.

EDDIE: I had this strong urge to punch Billy in the face, but I couldn't. Not when Rolling Stone was around.

BILLY: I'm sitting down with Jonah and he's asking me questions about how we got started and what's next for us and all that.

JONAH BERG: When you're interviewing a band, you're interested in talking to everybody. Because a good story can come from anyone. But you're also keenly aware that it's people like Billy and Daisy—maybe Graham, Karen— that the readership is interested in.

EDDIE: Of course, Billy corners Jonah. Hogs his attention. Pete kept telling me to light a doobie and chill out. I left the bar and went back to the hotel with Aracely. Man how that woman had an impact on me.

ARACELY: We just laid together, and watched a movie. We played a little bit too, I was working on a new song. A song about love—because for the first time in a while, I felt loved. Truly loved.

EDDIE: She was so talented, much more talented than any of us. She wrote her music with such passion. It pained me knowing she'd never release it, Billy wouldn't let her.

BILLY: Aracely is a great writer, she just didn't write what I wanted to sing. That's all.

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A few days later Johan Berg published the article. Rob brought it too them, many had mixed emotions over..mainly Billy.

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JONAH BERG: From my vantage point, the biggest part of what made that band original and first-rate was the combination of Daisy and Billy. Daisy's solo album was nothing compared to what The Six was doing. And The Six without Daisy wasn't anything near what they were with her. Daisy was an integral, necessary, inescapable part of The Six. She belonged in the band. So that's what I wrote.

DAISY: Rod brought us the article before it came out and when I saw the headline I was so excited. I loved it.

JONAH BERG: I knew the headline before I even finished writing it. "The Six That Should Be Seven."

ROD: It was a great cover. A clear shot of all of them onstage together, Billy and Daisy singing into the same mike, Graham and Karen looking at each other. Everybody else really rocking out. In the foreground were about four or five people holding up lighters in the audience. And then there was the headline.

WARREN: We were on the cover of Rolling Stone. Rolling Goddamn Stone. I mean, you get jaded about a lot of things when you're ascending. But not that.

BILLY: I grabbed the paper from Rod.

GRAHAM: I don't think Billy was happy about it.

BILLY: "The Six That Should Be Seven."

ARACELY: [laughs] Oh I wish I could have taken a picture of his face! He was fuming with rage.

ROD: I believe Billy's exact words were "Are you fucking kidding me?"

BILLY: I mean, are you fucking kidding me?

ARACELY: Billy was very admin that he did not want Daisy in the band, but the people have spoken. We needed her.

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After much convincing, arguing, and even more arguing. The six finally became the so called seven. However they couldn't be called the seven, it didn't sound right. From then on they became 'Daisy Jones and the Six'

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DAISY: I remember the phone call exactly. I had the bottle of champagne in my hand and there were two girls on the couch and another one doing a line off my vanity. remember being irritated because she was getting coke in the spine of my journal. But then Rod said, "It's official."

ROD: I said, "The band wants you to do a full album with them."

DAISY: I was through the roof.

BILLY: Next thing we knew we were back at the studio. It was time to work on new music, a new album.

ARACELY: When Billy said we were working on a new album, I was ecstatic. This was finally my chance to show Billy what I have been working on.

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Aracely and Billy were sitting in the studio when she asked him if she could have one of her songs on the album. Billy quickly turned down the idea, not even willing to listen to Aracely's song. Despite Billy saying no, Aracely played it anyways.

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ARACELY: I played him two songs that day, and Billy said he hated them. What a liar. Billy didn't hate them, he loved them. In fact, he loved them so much that he claimed them as his own. He called us all into the studio and said he had these new songs. 'The River' and 'Rosemary' both of them being my songs.

BILLY: I wrote those songs, I don't know why she keeps claiming they are hers.

EDDIE: Man, I wanted to beat the shit out of Billy. He stole my girls songs! Here everyone was thinking he was this musical genius, when in reality he stole Aracely's songs.

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Billy continued writing songs for their upcoming album, he was at home when he finished his first song. He immediately went to play it for Camila and get her opinion.

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CAMILA: When the twins were just a few weeks old, my mom had taken them for a walk one afternoon and Billy asked me to sit down. He said he'd written another song for me.

BILLY: It was called "Aurora." Because Camila...she was my aurora. She was my new dawn, my daybreak, my sun peeking over the horizon. She was all of it. It was just a piano melody at that point, but I had all the lyrics. So I sat down at the piano and played it for her.

CAMILA: The first time I heard it, I cried. I mean, you know the song. It would have been impossible for me to not feel bowled over by those words. He had written me others but...this one...I loved it and I felt loved listening to it.
And it was pretty, too. I would have loved that song even if it wasn't about me. It was that good.

BILLY: She got teary and then she said, "You need Daisy on it. You know that." And you know what? I did know that. Even as I was writing it, I had known it. I wrote it to be a piano and vocal harmony. Before we even got back into the studio, I was writing for Daisy.