Daisy Jones & the Six Read online

  She’d started wearing all of those bangles by then, as many as would fit on her arms. Everything clinked when she moved. So as Daisy is putting her pillbox back in her pocket, her bangles start clanging and I made a joke about how they were built-in tambourines. And she thought that was cool. She took a pen and wrote it down on her hand.

  And then when she put the pen away, she took out the pillbox again and took two pills from it and put them in her mouth.

  I said, “Daisy, you just took two.”

  She said, “I did?”

  I said, “Yeah.”

  She just shrugged and swallowed them.

  I said, “C’mon, don’t be one of those people.”

  DAISY: I was irritated by that. I shoved the pillbox in her hand. I said, “Take them if you’re so worried about it. I don’t even need them.”

  KAREN: She threw the pills at me.

  DAISY: But the moment I handed the pillbox over to her and I saw her put it in her back pocket, I started panicking. The dexies were one thing. That was fine. I could snort coke if I needed to.

  But I could not sleep without the Seconals.

  KAREN: It surprised me how easy it was for her. To just hand it all over and stop.

  DAISY: When we got to the hotel, Hank was already in my room. I said, “I ran out of reds.” He just nodded and picked up the phone. By the time I wanted to go to sleep, I had another bottle in my hand. It depressed me, how easy it was. Don’t get me wrong, I wanted the pills. I needed the pills. But it was just so boring, so repetitive. Having any narcotic I needed at any time, nobody really stopping me.

  As I fell asleep that night—I think I was still holding a brandy glass—I heard myself say, “Hank, I don’t want to be with you anymore.” At first I thought there was another woman in the room, saying those words, but then I realized I was saying them. Hank told me to go to sleep. And I didn’t so much fall asleep as feel like I was disappearing.

  When I woke up in the morning, I remembered what had happened. I felt embarrassed but also sort of relieved, to have actually verbalized it. I said to Hank, “We should talk about what I said last night.”

  And he said, “You didn’t say anything last night.”

  I said, “I told you I didn’t want to be with you.”

  He just shrugged and said, “Yeah, but you say that all the time when you’re falling asleep.”

  I’d had no idea.

  GRAHAM: It was pretty clear to everybody that Daisy needed to drop Hank.

  ROD: There are a lot of slimy managers out there and they make the rest of us look bad. Hank was taking advantage of Daisy, clear as day. Somebody needed to be looking out for her.

  I said, “Daisy, if you need help, I’m here.”

  GRAHAM: I think Daisy saw what Rod was doing for us—the way he made sure everything was taken care of. Rod was the first guy to tell anybody that we were going to rule the world. He wasn’t telling us to be happy with what we had and to keep our mouth shut. And, not to be a jerk but…he wasn’t sleeping with us and keeping us high as fuck so we didn’t know heads from tails.

  I told Daisy, “Leave Hank and team up with Rod. He’s got you covered.”

  ROD: I was already doing so much for Daisy anyway. I’d hooked up Rolling Stone to see the show. They were sending Jonah Berg out to come watch the set and then hang out afterward. It was a potential cover. I’d made a point of including Daisy in that. I didn’t have to. I could have pushed for it to be just a story on the band but I figured what’s good for the goose is good for the gander.

  KAREN: The day that Jonah Berg was coming, we were in Glasgow.

  DAISY: I was stupid. I picked a fight with Hank right after sound check that day.

  KAREN: Graham had come over to my room that afternoon to bring me one of my suitcases. Somehow my things had ended up with his stuff. He was standing in the hotel hallway, at my door, holding a duffel bag of my bras and underwear. He said, “I believe this is yours.”

  I grabbed it from him and rolled my eyes at him. I said, “Oh, I bet you just love having your hands on my panties.” I was just joking around.

  But he shook his head and he said, “If I get my hands on those panties, I want to have earned it the old-fashioned way.”

  I laughed and said, “Get out of here.”

  And he said, “Yes, ma’am.”

  And he walked back to his room. But when I shut the door, I…I don’t know.

  DAISY: I broke it to Hank when it was just the two of us in my hotel room. He was putting his arms around me and I was done with it. I kept snapping at him and he asked me what my problem was and I said, “I think it’s time we part ways.” Hank tried to ignore me a few times, kept telling me I didn’t know what I was saying. So I said it really clear. “Hank, you’re fired. You should leave.” Well, he heard it that time.

  GRAHAM: Billy and I were planning on going out to grab a bite—I’d bet him he wouldn’t eat haggis.

  DAISY: Hank got in my face. He was so angry and he was standing so close to me that as he spoke, his spit landed on my shoulder. He said, “You’d still just be screwing rock stars if I hadn’t found you.”

  When I didn’t say anything back to him, Hank cornered me, up against the wall. I didn’t know what he was going to do. I’m not sure he knew what he was going to do.

  When you’re in a situation like that, when you have a man looming over you, it’s as if every decision you made to lead to that moment—alone with a man you don’t trust—flashes before your eyes.

  Something tells me men don’t do that same thing. When they are standing there, threatening a woman, I doubt they count every wrong step they made to become the asshole they are. But they should.

  My body was stick straight—I felt sort of shockingly sober—and I put my arms out in front of me, holding on to whatever space I could try to defend. Hank was staring right into my eyes. I don’t know if I was even breathing. And then Hank punched the wall and walked out of the room, slamming the door on his way out.

  After he left, I triple-locked the door behind him. He yelled something in the hall but I couldn’t make it out. I just sat on the bed. He never came back.

  BILLY: I was walking out of my room to go meet Graham when I saw Hank Allen coming out of Daisy’s room muttering, “That fucking bitch.” But he seemed to be calming down so I was thinking I should let it go. Then I saw him stop and turn, like he was going to go back into Daisy’s room. I could tell he was trouble right then. You can see it in somebody’s gait, you know? Hands balled up into fists and jaw tight and all that. I caught his eye and he saw me. We looked at each other for a moment. I shook my head, to say, That would be the wrong move. He kept looking at me. And then he looked down at the ground and walked out.

  When he was gone, I knocked on Daisy’s door. I said, “It’s Billy.”

  It took a moment but she opened the door. She was wearing a navy dress—that kind where the sleeves are off the shoulders. I knew people always talked about how blue Daisy’s eyes were but that day was the first time I really noticed them. They were so blue. You know what they looked like? They looked like the middle of the ocean. Not the shoreline, not that light blue. They looked like the dark blue of the middle of the ocean. Like deep water.

  I said, “Are you okay?”

  She looked sad, which I’d never really seen before. And she said, “Yeah, thank you.”

  I said, “If you need to talk…” I wasn’t sure how I could really help but I figured I should offer all the same.

  She said, “No, that’s all right.”

  DAISY: I didn’t realize just how much of a wall Billy put up around himself when he was near me until that moment, when suddenly there was no wall. Like how you don’t register you’re hearing the hum of a car engine until it’s turned off.

  But I looked him in the eye then
and I saw the real Billy.

  I realized I’d been looking at this guarded, cold version of him the whole time up until then. I thought, It might be nice to know this Billy. But then it was over. Just one second of realness from him and then, poof, gone the way it came.

  GRAHAM: I was waiting for Billy when my phone rang.

  KAREN: I don’t know why it was that day that I decided to do it.

  GRAHAM: I said, “Hi.”

  And Karen just said, “Hi.”

  KAREN: We were sort of quiet on the phone for a second. And then I said, “How come you’ve never made a move on me?”

  I could hear him drinking a beer. I could hear him take a sip. He said, “I don’t take shots I know I’ll miss.”

  It was out of my mouth before I’d decided to say it. I said, “I don’t think you’ll miss, Dunne.”

  And then as soon as I said it, there was a dial tone.

  GRAHAM: I have never run anywhere faster than down that hall to her room.

  KAREN: Three seconds later—that’s not an exaggeration—there’s a knock on my door. I opened it and Graham was out of breath. A tiny run down the hall and he was out of breath.

  GRAHAM: I looked right at her. She was so gorgeous. Those thick eyebrows. I’m a sucker for a girl with thick eyebrows. I said, “What are you saying to me?”

  KAREN: I said, “Just go for it, Graham.”

  GRAHAM: I stepped right into her room, I shut the door behind me, and I grabbed that woman and kissed her good.

  You don’t usually wake up in the morning and think, This is going to be one of the most exciting days of my life. But that day was. That day with Karen…that was one of them.

  WARREN: Here’s something I’ve never told anyone. No, this is good. You’re gonna like this.

  When we were doing our show in Glasgow, sometime after sound check, I’m taking one of my beer naps—which is what I would call having a beer and taking a nap—and I wake up because Karen is having sex with somebody in the next room! I can’t even sleep it’s so loud.

  I never found out who it was but I did see her being a little flirty with our lighting tech so, anyway, I think Karen had a thing with Bones.

  BILLY: After I left Daisy, I tried to find Graham for lunch but he wasn’t anywhere.

  GRAHAM: When it was time to leave to get down to the venue, Karen made me sneak out her door, go to my room, change, and then meet her at the elevators.

  KAREN: I didn’t want anyone to know anything.

  BILLY: By the time we all got backstage, everybody was running around like chickens with their heads cut off because Daisy’s band was nowhere to be found.

  EDDIE: Apparently, Hank went down to the Apollo on his way out of town and took all five of Daisy’s band members out with him. They just up and left.

  KAREN: It was such a low blow.

  GRAHAM: Nothing was supposed to come before the music. Our job was to go out there and play for the audience. No matter what personal shit was going on.

  DAISY: My band had walked out. Just walked out. I didn’t know what to do.

  HANK ALLEN (former manager, Daisy Jones): All I care to say is that Daisy Jones and I had a strictly professional relationship from 1974 to 1977, which was mutually terminated due to differences of opinion regarding the trajectory of her career. I continue to wish her the best.

  BILLY: I find Rod and he’s already in damage control mode. I said to him, “Is it really that bad if Daisy doesn’t play one night?”

  And then I realized, as I said that, that he was probably her manager now. And so, you know, to him…yeah, it was.

  ROD: Jonah Berg was in the audience. From Rolling Stone.

  KAREN: Everybody was trying to figure out what to do. But Graham is trying to catch my eye every second no one’s looking. I was laughing to myself thinking, We are supposed to be trying to solve a problem here.

  GRAHAM: I couldn’t stop looking at Karen.

  KAREN: Graham was always the guy I would talk to about stuff. And that night I found myself wanting to tell him about this great afternoon I’d had. It was like I wanted to talk to him about him.

  DAISY: I said to Rod, “Maybe I should go out there on my own.” I didn’t want to give up. I wanted to do something.

  EDDIE: Rod had suggested that Graham go out there with Daisy and the two of them do a few acoustic versions of some of the songs from her album. But Graham wasn’t really paying attention. I said, “I can do it.”

  ROD: I sent Daisy and Eddie out there with no idea what was going to happen and the whole time I’m watching them walk out to the mike like a cat on hot bricks.

  DAISY: Eddie and I did a few songs. Really pared down. Just his guitar and me singing. I think we did “One Fine Day” and “Until You’re Home.” It was fine but we did not blow anybody away. And I knew Rolling Stone was out there and I needed to make a good impression. So on the last song, I decided to go off script.

  EDDIE: Daisy leaned over to me and she gave me this vague beat and a key and told me to come up with something. That was it. Just “Come up with something.” I did my best, you know what I mean? You can’t exactly make up a song on the fly like that.

  DAISY: I was trying to get Eddie to play something I could sing my new song to. I wanted to sing “When You Fly Low.” He started and I sang a few bars, tried to get into a rhythm with him, but it wasn’t working. I finally said, “Okay, forget that.” I said it right in the mike. The audience was laughing with me. They were rooting for me. I could feel it. So I started singing it a cappella. Just me and my voice, singing this song I’d written.

  I’d worked hard on it, I’d polished it up from beginning to end. There wasn’t a stray word in the whole thing. And it was just me and my tambourine with the stomp of my feet.

  EDDIE: I was there behind her, tapping a beat out on the body of the guitar for her, helping her out. The crowd was into it. They were watching our every move.

  DAISY: It was such a rush, singing like that. Singing a song that I felt in my heart. Words that I had written that were all mine.

  I watched the people at the front of the crowd listening to me, hearing me. These people from a different country, people I’d never met in my life, I felt connected to them in a way that I hadn’t felt connected to anyone before.

  It is what I have always loved about music. Not the sounds or the crowds or the good times as much as the words—the emotions, and the stories, the truth—that you can let flow right out of your mouth.

  Music can dig, you know? It can take a shovel to your chest and just start digging until it hits something. That night, singing that, just reaffirmed that I wanted to put out an album of my own songs.

  BILLY: I was standing backstage watching Daisy and Eddie when she started singing “When You Fly Low.” She was good. Better than…Better than I’d realized.

  KAREN: Billy was staring at her.

  DAISY: When I was done, the audience was hooting and hollering and I felt like I’d gone out there and done the very best with what I had. I felt like I’d really turned it around and put on a good show for them.

  BILLY: After she finished the song, I heard her saying goodbye to the audience and I thought, We could do “Honeycomb” now. Just me and her.

  GRAHAM: I was surprised to see Billy going out there.

  DAISY: I used my usual line, “That’s it for me tonight! It’s time for The Six! Everybody get your hands together.” But in the middle of me talking, Billy walked out onto the stage.

  Billy really shined onstage. Some people, you bathe them in those lights and they disappear. But some people, they glow. Billy was like that. I mean, offstage, no. Offstage, he was sullen and sober and he barely had any sense of humor that I could see. At that point, I thought he was sort of a bore, to be honest with you.

  But onstage he looked like there
was no place he’d rather be than standing right there with you.

  EDDIE: I was sitting there with the guitar and Billy comes up to me. I said, “What do you want me to play?”

  But instead, Billy put his hand out, asking for my guitar. I’m the fucking guitarist. And he’s trying to take my guitar.

  He said, “Can I borrow it, man?”

  I wanted to say, “No, you cannot borrow it.” But what could I do? I’m standing up in front of thousands of people. I handed it over and Billy took it and walked right up to the mike with Daisy. I’m standing there with my dick in my hand, no reason to be on the stage. I had to slink off.

  BILLY: I waved to the crowd and said, “How about this Daisy Jones, everybody?” And the audience cheered. “Do you all mind if I ask Daisy a question?” I put my hand on the mike and I said, “How about ‘Honeycomb’ now? Just me and you?”

  DAISY: I said, “All right, let’s do it.” There was only one mike out there. So Billy stood right next to me. He smelled like Old Spice and his breath smelled like cigarettes and Binaca.

  BILLY: I started playing it acoustic.

  DAISY: It was a bit slower than we normally played the song. It gave it a tender feel. And then he started singing, “One day things will quiet down/we’ll pick it all up and move town/we’ll walk through the switchgrass down to the rocks/and the kids will come around.”

  BILLY: And Daisy sang, “Oh, honey, I can wait/to call that home/I can wait for the blooms and the honeycomb.”

  KAREN: You know how sometimes people will describe other people and say they make you feel like you’re the only one in the room? Billy and Daisy could both do that. But they somehow did it with each other. They each seemed like they thought the other one was the only person in the room. Like we were watching two people who didn’t realize thousands of people were watching them.

  DAISY: Billy was a great guitar player. There was an intricacy, a delicateness when he played.