Daisy Jones & the Six: A Novel Read online

I said, “It was just an example. Write your own goddamn song.”

  Simone: “Tiny Love” was the Breeze’s biggest hit. And Wyatt pretended he wrote the whole thing.

  Wyatt Stone (lead singer, the Breeze): Why are you asking me about this? This is water under the bridge. Who even remembers?

  Daisy: It was starting to be a pattern. Once, I was having breakfast at Barney’s Beanery with a guy—this writer-director. Now, back then I always ordered champagne with breakfast. But I was also always tired in the morning because I wasn’t sleeping enough. So I needed coffee. Of course, I couldn’t order just coffee because I’d be too amped from the pills I was taking. And I couldn’t just have the champagne because it would put me to sleep. You understand the problem. So I used to order champagne and coffee together. And at the places where servers knew me, I used to call it an Up and Down. Something to keep me up, something to keep me down. And this guy thought it was hilarious. He said, “I’m going to use that in something one day.” And he wrote it down on a napkin and put it in his back pocket. I thought to myself, What the hell makes you think I’m not going to use it in something one day? But, of course, there it was in his next movie.

  That’s how it was back then. I was just supposed to be the inspiration for some man’s great idea.

  Well, fuck that.

  That’s why I started writing my own stuff.

  Simone: I was the only one encouraging her to make something of herself with her talent. Everybody else just tried to make something of themselves with what she had.

  Daisy: I had absolutely no interest in being somebody else’s muse.

  I am not a muse.

  I am the somebody.

  End of fucking story.

  The Rise

  of The

  Six

  1966–1972

  The Six started out as a blues-rock band called the Dunne Brothers in the mid-sixties out of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Billy and Graham Dunne were raised by single mother, Marlene Dunne, after their father, William Dunne Sr., left in 1954.

  Billy Dunne (lead singer, The Six): I was seven when Dad left, Graham was five. One of my first memories was when Dad told us he was moving to Georgia. I asked if I could come with him and he said no.

  But he left behind this old Silvertone guitar and Graham and I would fight over who got to play it. Playing that thing was about all we did. Nobody taught us, we taught ourselves.

  Then, when I got older, sometimes I’d stay late after school and mess around on the piano in the chorus room.

  Eventually, when I was about fifteen or so, Mom saved up and bought Graham and I an old Strat for Christmas. Graham wanted that one so I let him have it. I kept the Silvertone.

  Graham Dunne (lead guitar, The Six): Once Billy and I each had a guitar, we started to write new songs together. I wanted the Silvertone but I could tell it meant more to Billy. So I took the Strat.

  Billy: Everything grew from there.

  Graham: Billy got really into songwriting, really into the lyrics. All he’d talk about was Bob Dylan. Me, I was more of a Roy Orbison guy. I think we both had these stars in our eyes—wanted to be the Beatles. But everybody wanted to be the Beatles. You wanted to be the Beatles and then you wanted to be the Stones.

  Billy: For me, it was Dylan and Lennon. Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan and Hard Day’s Night. Those just … I was … Those men were my guides.

  In 1967, with the brothers in their teens, they brought on drummer Warren Rhodes, bassist Pete Loving, and rhythm guitarist Chuck Williams.

  Warren Rhodes (drummer, The Six): A drummer needs a band. It’s not like being a singer or a guitarist—you can’t just perform on your own. No girls were saying, “Oh, Warren, play me the drumbeat from ‘Hey Joe.’ ”

  And I wanted in, man. I was listening to the Who, the Kinks, the Yardbirds, stuff like that. I wanted to be Keith Moon and Ringo and Mitch Mitchell.

  Billy: Warren we liked right from the start. And then Pete was an easy grab. Went to school with us, played bass for this high school band that played our prom. When they broke up, I said, “Pete, come on and join us.” He was always really cool about stuff; he just wanted to rock out.

  Then there was Chuck. And Chuck was a few years older than the rest of us, from a few towns over. But Pete knew him, vouched for him. Chuck was real clean-cut—square jaw and blond hair and all that. But we auditioned him and turned out he was better than me, at rhythm guitar.

  I wanted to be a front man and now we had a full five-man band so I could do that.

  Graham: We got a lot better, really quickly. I mean, all we were doing was practicing.

  Warren: Day in and day out. I woke up, grabbed my sticks, and headed over to Billy and Graham’s garage. If my thumbs were bleeding when I went to bed, it was a good day.

  Graham: I mean, what else were we gonna do? None of us had girlfriends, except Billy. All the girls wanted to date Billy. And, I swear, it was like Billy was in love with a new girl every week. He’d always been like that.

  In elementary school, he’d asked out his second-grade teacher. Mom always said he was born girl crazy. She used to joke it’d be the end of him.

  Warren: We played house parties and a bar here and there. For maybe about six months or so, maybe a little longer. Got paid in beer. Which, when you’re underage isn’t so bad.

  Graham: We weren’t always hanging out in the, let’s say classiest of places. There were a few times a fight would break out over something and you were worried you might get caught in the cross fire. This one time we were playing a gig at a dive bar and this guy in the front got a little too jacked up on something. He starts swinging punches at people. I’m minding my own business playing my riffs when suddenly he’s coming for me!

  And then it all went lightning fast. Boom. He was on the ground. Billy had taken him out.

  Billy’d done the same thing when we were little kids. I was headed down to the five-and-dime and some kid tried to jump me for a couple nickels. Billy ran up to us and then just flattened him.

  Warren: You knew back then not to say any shit about Graham if Billy could hear you. You know, Graham wasn’t that good when we were starting out. I remember one time Pete and I were saying to Billy, “Maybe we should replace Graham,” and Billy said, “Say that again and Graham and I will replace you.” [Laughs] Honestly, I thought that was cool. I was thinking, All right, I’m not gonna get involved then. Never did bother me much that Billy and Graham thought of the band as theirs. I liked thinking of myself as a drummer for hire. I was just trying to have a good time playing in a good band.

  Graham: We started to play enough that some people around town knew who we were. And Billy was just starting to get into his lead singer thing. He had a look, you know? We all did. We stopped cutting our hair.

  Billy: I wore jeans everywhere, got really into big belt buckles.

  Warren: Graham and Pete started wearing these tight T-shirts. I’d tell them, “I can see your nipples.” But they thought that was cool.

  Billy: We got hired for this wedding. It was a big deal. A wedding meant we were gonna be heard by, you know, a hundred people. I think I was nineteen.

  We had auditioned for this couple with our best song. It was this slower, folkier song I’d written called “Nevermore.” Just thinking about it makes me cringe. Truly. I was writing about the Catonsville Nine and things like that. I thought I was Dylan. But we got the gig.

  And about halfway through our show at this wedding, I notice this fifty-something guy dancing with this twenty-something girl and I thought, Does this guy know what a creep he looks like?

  And then I realize it’s my dad.

  Graham: Our father was there with this young girl, about our age. I realized it before Billy, I think. Recognized him from the pictures our mom kept in the shoe box under her bed.

  Billy: I couldn’t believe it. He’d been gone ten years by that point. And he was supposed to be in Georgia. That asshole was just standing right in t
he middle of the dance floor, no idea his sons were up onstage. It had been so long since he’d seen us, he didn’t even recognize us. Not our faces or our voices, nothing.

  When we finished playing, I watched him walk off the dance floor. Didn’t so much as look at us. I mean, what kind of sociopath do you have to be not to notice your own sons when they are right there in front of you? How is that even possible?

  In my experience, biology kicks in. You meet that kid, and you know it’s yours, and you love that kid. That’s just how it works.

  Graham: Billy asked a few people at the wedding about him. Turns out, our father had been living a few towns over. Friends with the bride’s family or something. Billy was boiling mad, saying, “He didn’t even recognize us.” I always thought that he probably did recognize us and just didn’t know what to say.

  Billy: It messes with you, when your own father doesn’t care about you enough to say hello. I’m not saying it was a self-pity thing. I wasn’t sitting there asking, “Why doesn’t he love me?” It was more … Oh, okay, this is how dark the world can be. Some fathers don’t love their sons.

  It was a lesson in what not to be, I’ll tell you that much.

  Graham: Seemed like he was a drunk asshole anyway. So good riddance to him.

  Billy: After the wedding had ended, and everyone was packing up, I had a few too many beers … and I saw this woman working as a cocktail waitress at the hotel bar. [Smiles] Gorgeous girl. Real long brown hair, down to her waist, and big brown eyes. I’m a sucker for brown eyes. I remember she was wearing a tiny little blue dress. She was short. And I liked that.

  I was standing there in the hotel lobby, on my way to the van. And she was waiting on a customer over at the bar. You could tell, just watching her, that she wasn’t taking shit from anybody.

  Camila Dunne (wife of Billy Dunne): Oh my word, was he good looking.… Slim but still muscular, which has always been my type. And he had these thick eyelashes. And so much confidence. And a really big smile. And when I saw him in the lobby, I remember thinking, Why can’t I meet a guy like that?

  Billy: I walked right up to her, in that bar, holding, you know, an amp in one hand and a guitar in the other. I said, “Miss? I’d like your number, please.”

  She was standing up at the register. She had one hand on her hip. She laughed at me and kind of looked at me sideways. I don’t remember exactly what she said but it was something like “What if you’re not my type?”

  I leaned over the bar and said, “My name is Billy Dunne. I’m the lead singer of the Dunne Brothers. And if you give me your number I’ll write a song about you.”

  That got her. That doesn’t get every woman. But it usually gets the good ones.

  Camila: I went home and told my mom I met somebody. And she said, “Nice boy?”

  And I said, “I don’t know about that.” [Laughs] Nice never did much for me.

  Over the summer and fall of 1969, the Dunne Brothers started to book more shows in Pittsburgh and the surrounding towns.

  Graham: When Camila started coming out with us, I’ll admit I didn’t think she’d last much longer than the others. But I should have known she was different. I mean, first time I met her, she came to a gig of ours wearing a Tommy James shirt. She knew good music.

  Warren: The rest of us were really starting to get laid, man. And Billy was taking himself off the market. We’d all be with chicks and he’d be sitting there, smoking a joint, having a beer to keep himself busy.

  I came out of a girl’s room one time, zipping my pants up, and Billy was sitting on the sofa, watching Dick Cavett. I said, “Man, you gotta ditch that girlfriend.” I mean, we all liked Camila, she was foxy and she’d tell you your business right to your face, which I liked. But c’mon.

  Billy: I’d been infatuated before, called it love. But when I met [Camila], it was something different altogether. She just … made the world make sense to me. She even made me like myself more.

  She’d come watch us practice and listen to my new stuff and give me really good notes on it all. And there was a calmness to her that … nobody else had. It felt like when I was with her, I knew everything would be fine. It was like I was following the North Star.

  You know, Camila was born content, I think. She wasn’t born with whatever chip on her shoulder some of us are born with. I used to say I was born broken. She was born whole. That’s where the lyrics to “Born Broken” came from.

  Camila: When Billy met my parents for the first time, I was a little nervous. You only get one chance to make a first impression, especially with them. I picked out his outfit, down to his socks. Made him wear the only tie he had.

  They loved him. Said he was charming. But my mom was also worried about me putting my trust in some guy in a band.

  Billy: Pete was the only one who seemed to understand why I’d have a girlfriend. Chuck, one time, as we were packing up for a show, said, “Just tell her you aren’t a one-woman guy. Girls get that.” [Laughs] That was not gonna work on Camila.

  Warren: Chuck was real cool. He would cut right to the heart of something. He sort of looked like he’d never had an interesting thought in his life. But he could surprise you. He turned me on to Status Quo. I still listen to them.

  On December 1, 1969, the U.S. Selective Service System conducted a lottery to determine the draft order for 1970. Billy and Graham Dunne, both born in December, had unusually high numbers. Warren just missed the cutoff. Pete Loving fell in the middle. But Chuck Williams, born April 24, 1949, was assigned lottery number 2.

  Graham: Chuck got called for the draft. I remember sitting at Chuck’s kitchen table, him saying he was going to Vietnam. Billy and I kept thinking of ways he could get out of it. He said he wasn’t a coward. Last time I saw him, we played a bar by Duquesne. I said, “You’ll just come on back to the band when you’re done.”

  Warren: Billy played Chuck’s parts for a while but we’d heard Eddie Loving [Pete’s younger brother] had gotten pretty good at the guitar. We invited him to come audition.

  Billy: Nobody could be Chuck. But then we kept getting more shows and I didn’t want to keep playing rhythm guitar onstage. So we invited Eddie. Figured he could pitch in for a little while.

  Eddie Loving (rhythm guitar, The Six): I got along well with everybody but I could tell Billy and Graham just wanted me to fit into the mold they had set for me, you know? Play this, do that.

  Graham: Few months in, we heard from one of Chuck’s old neighbors.

  Billy: Chuck died in Cambodia. He wasn’t even there six months, I don’t think.

  You do sometimes sit and wonder why it wasn’t you, what makes you so special that you get to be safe. The world doesn’t make much sense.

  At the end of 1970, the Dunne Brothers played a show at the Pint in Baltimore where Rick Marks, lead singer for the Winters, was in attendance. Impressed with their raw sound and taking a liking to Billy, he offered them an opening spot on a few shows on their northeastern tour.

  The Dunne Brothers joined the Winters and quickly became influenced by the Winters’ sound and intrigued with their keyboardist, Karen Karen.

  Karen Karen (keyboardist, The Six): The first time I met the Dunne Brothers, Graham asked me, “What’s your name?”

  I said, “Karen.”

  And he said, “What’s your last name?”

  But I thought he said, “What’s your name?” again, like he didn’t hear me.

  So I said, “Karen.”

  And he laughed and said, “Karen Karen?”

  Everybody called me Karen Karen from then on. My last name is Sirko, for the record. But Karen Karen just stuck.

  Billy: Karen added this extra layer, a lushness, to what the Winters were doing. I started thinking maybe we needed something like that.

  Graham: Billy and I were starting to think … maybe we don’t need somebody like Karen. Maybe we need Karen.

  Karen: I left the Winters because I was sick of everyone in the band trying to sleep with me. I
wanted to just be a musician.

  And I liked Camila. She’d hang out after the shows sometimes, when she came up to visit Billy. I dug that Billy had her around sometimes or was always on the phone with her. It was a better vibe all around.

  Camila: When they went on tour with the Winters, I’d drive up to any weekend shows they had, and hang out backstage. I’d have spent four hours in the car and I’d get to the venue—usually these places were pretty sketchy with gum all over everything and your shoes sticking to the floor—I’d give my name at the door and they’d show me through to the back and, there I was, a part of it all.

  I’d walk in and Graham and Eddie and everybody would yell, “Camila!” And Billy would walk over and put his arm around me. Once Karen started hanging out, too … it just cinched it for me. I felt like, This is where I belong.

  Graham: Karen Karen was a great addition to the band. Made everything better. And she was beautiful, too. I mean, in addition to being talented. I always thought she looked a little like Ali MacGraw.

  Karen: When I said that I dug the fact that the boys in the Dunne Brothers weren’t trying to get with me, that doesn’t go for Graham Dunne. But I knew he liked me for my talent just as much as my looks. So it didn’t faze me much. It was sweet, actually. Plus, Graham was a sexy guy. Especially in the seventies.

  I never got the whole “Billy is the sex symbol” idea. I mean, he had the dark hair, dark eyes, high cheekbones thing. But I like my men a little less pretty. I like it when they look a little dangerous but are actually very gentle. That’s Graham. Broad shoulders, hairy chest, dusty brown hair. He was handsome but he was still a little rough around the edges.

  I will admit that Billy knew how to wear a pair of jeans though.

  Billy: Karen was just a great musician. That was all there was to it. I always say I don’t care if you’re a man, woman, white, black, gay, straight, or anything in between—if you play well, you play well. Music is a great equalizer in that way.

  Karen: Men often think they deserve a sticker for treating women like people.