Daisy Jones & The Six - Taylor Jenkins Reid Page 0,29

had felt the right to do it.

Camila: When you put your life in your music, you can’t be clearheaded about your music.

Graham: I think Daisy was just very unexpected for Billy.

Artie Snyder: When we cut together the version with Daisy, it was so compelling—their voices together—that Teddy wanted to strip almost everything else away. He had me soften the drums a bit, amp up the keys, cut out some of Graham’s more distracting flourishes.

What we were left with was this sprawling acoustic guitar and percussive piano. Most of the attention went to the vocals. The song became, entirely, about the relationship of the voices. I mean … it moved—it was still up-tempo, it still had a rhythm—but it was eclipsed by the vocal. You were hypnotized by Billy and Daisy.

Eddie: They took a rock song and they made it pop song! And they were so pleased with themselves about it.

Rod: Teddy was over the moon with how it turned out. I liked it, too. But you could see the way Billy bristled as he listened to it.

Billy: I liked the new mix. But I did not like Daisy’s vocals. I said, “Just do the new mix without her vocals. It doesn’t need to be a duet.” Teddy just kept telling me I had to trust him. He said that I had written a hit song and that I had to let him do his thing.

Graham: Billy was always in charge, you know? Billy wrote the lyrics, Billy composed and arranged all of the songs. If Billy goes to rehab the tour is over. If Billy is ready to go back to the studio, we all have to report for duty. He ran the show.

So “Honeycomb” was not easy for him.

Billy: We were all a team.

Eddie: Man, Billy was in such denial of what a bulldozer he was to the rest of us. Billy got Billy’s way every time and when Daisy showed up, he stopped getting his way every time.

Daisy: I did not understand what Billy had against me. I came in and I made the song just a little bit better. What was there to be upset about?

I ran into Billy at the studio a few days later, to hear the final cut, and I smiled at him. I said hello. He just nodded his head at me. Like, he was doing me a favor by acknowledging my presence. He couldn’t even extend a professional courtesy.

Karen: It was a man’s world. The whole world was a man’s world but the recording industry … it wasn’t easy. You had to get some guy’s approval to do just about anything and it seemed like there were two ways to go about it. You either acted like one of the boys, which is the way I had found. Or you acted real girlie and flirty and batted your eyelashes. They liked that.

But Daisy, from the beginning, was sort of outside of all that. She was just sort of “Take me or leave me.”

Daisy: I didn’t care if I was famous or not. I didn’t care if I got to sing on your record or not. All I wanted to do was make something interesting and original and cool.

Karen: When I first started, I wanted to play the electric guitar. And my dad got me piano lessons instead. He didn’t mean anything by it—he just thought the keys are what girls play.

But it was stuff like that, every time I tried anything.

When I auditioned for the Winters, I had this really great minidress I’d just bought, it was pale blue with a big belt across it. It felt like a lucky dress. Well, the day I tried out, I didn’t wear it. Because I knew they’d see a girl. And I wanted them to see a keyboardist. So I wore jeans and a University of Chicago T-shirt I stole from my brother.

Daisy wasn’t like that. It would never have occurred to Daisy to do that.

Daisy: I wore what I wanted when I wanted. I did what I wanted with who I wanted. And if somebody didn’t like it, screw ’em.

Karen: You know how every once in a while you’ll meet somebody who seems to be floating through life? Daisy sort of floated through the world, oblivious to the way it really worked.

I suppose I probably should have hated her for it, but I didn’t. I loved her for it. Because it meant she was less inclined to take the shit I’d been taking