Daisy Jones & The Six - Taylor Jenkins Reid Page 0,84

next day that Jonah Berg came by for the first time. I was on pins and needles. I think we all were. Because Billy and Daisy wouldn’t even look at each other. We rehearsed “Young Stars” all afternoon, and even when they were singing together, in harmony, they weren’t looking at each other.

Jonah Berg: I show up and I’m expecting this warm atmosphere. I mean, this is a band that has just finished a great album. One where they are clearly all on the same page, working together seamlessly. Or so I thought. But I walk in, and they are in the middle of a song, and Daisy and Billy are about as far away from each other as two people can be, while still on the same stage. It was, visually, very jarring. You don’t realize how often singers stand close to one another until you see two people facing forward, fifteen feet between the two of them, not even looking at each other.

Graham: I kept thinking, Just get it together while this guy is here.

Karen: In this instance, I’d say it was on Daisy to fix what had just happened. And she wasn’t gonna do that.

Jonah Berg: But even with this tension in the room, the band sounded great. And the songs they were playing were great. That’s one thing that The Six has always done, and they did it even better when they had Daisy on board. They made music that—it could be the first time you heard a song—but you were tapping your foot along with them. That’s a testament to the work of Warren Rhodes and Pete Loving. Daisy Jones & The Six get a lot of credit for the intrigue of their lyrics—and certainly everyone’s paying attention to Billy and Daisy, as well they should—but that was one hell of a rhythm section.

Billy: I asked Rod, at some point, if we could reschedule Jonah to another day.

Rod: It was too late to move Jonah. He was already there watching them rehearse.

Daisy: I didn’t see why Billy had to make such a big deal out of it. We could easily have just made nice in front of Jonah Berg.

Jonah Berg: After a few songs, they take a break, they all come say hi to me at various points. I shared a cigarette with Warren outside and I figured he was my best chance at the truth. I said, “Level with me. Something’s up here.”

And he said, “Nothing’s up.” Just kind of shrugged his shoulders like he had no idea what I was talking about. And I trusted him. I believed that nothing out of the ordinary had happened, that this was just the way they worked together. Billy and Daisy just truly didn’t get along. And probably never really had.

Billy: I think it was that night that Jonah wanted to take us all out for a beer but I had told Camila I’d be home to help her get the kids in the bath, so I asked Jonah if he could do the next night and it didn’t seem to be a problem for him.

Eddie: We’re all supposed to be putting this band first, and Billy blows off the first night we’re supposed to be hanging out with Rolling Stone for the cover.

Daisy: I figured it was good news Billy was going home. I could take the first swing at the interview without worrying about him being around.

Jonah Berg: I appreciated that Daisy made herself available to me. So often, you go into a situation and you have certain band members that won’t really talk to you. Daisy made it easy to get a story.

Rod: Daisy didn’t want to go home. You know when you’re with someone and it’s clear they want to just keep hanging out, keep partying all night, keep working all night, keep doing whatever it is all night, because they don’t want to go and face whatever they have waiting for them at home?

That was Daisy when she was married to Niccolo.

Jonah Berg: We all go out that night, everybody but Billy. First, we head out to this Bad Breakers show over on the Strip. And it seems really obvious to me that Karen and Graham must be sleeping together. And I say to them, I said, “Are you two an item?” And Graham says yes and Karen says no.

Graham: I didn’t understand. I just didn’t understand Karen.

Karen: Graham and I could never last, it was never … I just needed