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.