And she said, “If Graham broke your heart, I’d kill him, too. You know that. But we both know Graham’s not going to break your heart. We both know which way this is going to go.”
I got a little defensive but Camila never really backed down from too much. She was very good at knowing what everybody else should do and she had no problem telling you. It was really annoying. How right she always was. And she would tell you “I told you so.” You’d do something she told you not to do and it wouldn’t work out and you’d find yourself bristling around her, just waiting for that “I told you so” to come. And she’d always land it right when your defenses were down.
CAMILA: If you come to me and ask me for advice, and then you don’t take my advice, and it blows up in your face exactly like I told you it would, what do you expect me to say?
KAREN: I told her, “Graham’s an adult. He can handle whatever he gets himself into. It’s not my job to make his decisions.”
Camila said, “Yes, it is.”
And I said, “No, it’s not.”
CAMILA: I told her, “Yes, it is.”
KAREN: And we just kept going on like that until I gave up.
DAISY: We were recording and Julia was in the booth. They had all come to visit Billy that day. And there was something wrong with my mike so I was sitting it out while everyone tried to fix it.
I went into the control booth and asked Julia if she wanted to get a cookie. She took her headphones off her head and said, “Does my dad say it’s okay?” It was so sweet.
Teddy leaned on the talkback button and said, “Julia would like to know if she may have a cookie.”
Billy leaned in and said, “Yes, she may.” And then he added, “Just make sure it’s a…normal one.”
I took Julia by the hand and we went to the kitchen and we split a peanut butter cookie. She told me she liked pineapples. I remember that because I love pineapples and I told her that. She got really excited, that we had that in common. I told her we should split a pineapple sometime. And then Karen came into the kitchen and Camila was calling out for Julia and I brought her to her. Julia waved goodbye to me and Camila thanked me for watching her.
CAMILA: The whole way home, [Julia was] saying, “Can Daisy Jones be my best friend?”
DAISY: As soon as they left, Eddie called me and Karen back into the booth. And somebody, I don’t remember who, said I was good with kids. And then Eddie said, “I bet you’d make a great aunt.”
You don’t think to tell someone they will be a good aunt if you think they will be a good mom. But I knew as well as anybody, I wouldn’t be a good mom. I had no place thinking of being anybody’s mom.
I wrote “A Hope Like You” soon after that.
BILLY: When Daisy showed me “A Hope Like You,” I thought, This could work as a piano ballad. It was such a sad love song. About wanting somebody you can’t have and knowing you’re going to want them anyway.
I said, “How do you hear it?”
She sang a tiny little bit of it and I just…I heard it. I heard what it should be.
DAISY: Billy said, “This is your song. It should be just you and the piano on the track, that’s it.”
KAREN: That was a great song to record. I was really proud of it. Just Daisy singing and me on the keys. That’s it. Just two bitches playing rock ’n’ roll.
BILLY: Daisy and I wrote a lot of good stuff after that. We’d be working in the lounge at the studio or back at Teddy’s pool house if we needed some peace and quiet.
I would come in with something I was working on and Daisy would help me refine it. Or vice versa. We’d work on one of Daisy’s ideas.
ROD: It seemed like there was a period of time where Daisy and Billy were coming in with new stuff every day.
GRAHAM: It’s really exciting, when you’re constantly creating. We’d be working on tracks for “Midnights” or adding some layers to “Impossible Woman” and then Daisy and Billy would come in with a new one we were all excited about.
KAREN: It felt a little manic, that period of time. So many people in the studio. So many songs coming in and out. Recording and recording and recording. Playing things a thousand times, always trying to improve upon the last one.
There was so much to do, so much to keep us busy. But we were all coming into the studio in the morning, still hungover from the night before. It was like zombies at 10:00 A.M. Until the coffee and the coke kicked in.
ROD: The early tracks were sounding great.
ARTIE SNYDER: When the songs started coming together, we were realizing we had something really special on our hands.
Billy and Teddy would always stay late and listen to what we had. Listen to it over and over again. There was an energy to the control booth those nights. Super quiet in the rest of the studio, real dark outside. Just the three of us listening to rock getting made.
I was going through a divorce back then so I was happy to stay as late as they wanted. We’d be up in the studio at three in the morning sometimes. Me and Teddy slept there if we wanted to. Billy always went home. Even if it was just for two hours until he came back.
ROD: It was really starting to sound out of this world. I wanted to make sure Runner was prepared to back these guys up with some real money. This album deserved to make a big splash.
I was lobbying Teddy for a huge number at the first pressing. I wanted a clear hit single. I wanted rock and pop airplay. I wanted a massive tour lined up. I was getting very ambitious. I wanted big momentum out of the gate.
Everybody knew Daisy and Billy on tour promoting this album was going to sell out venues and it was going to sell records. You could feel it. And Teddy made sure everybody was on board. Even at Runner Records, you could feel the excitement.
DAISY: Billy and I did about four songs in a mad rush of writing over about a week or two. I mean, we actually did seven songs. But only four of them made it onto the album.
ROD: They turned in “Please,” “Young Stars,” “Turn It Off,” and “This Could Get Ugly” all within about a week.
BILLY: The concept for the album took shape naturally. We—I mean, me and Daisy—we could see that we were writing about the push and pull between the lure of temptation and staying on the right path. It was about drugs and sex and love and denial and a whole mess of stuff.
That’s where “Turn It Off” came from. The two of us writing about how every time you think you’ve got something licked, it keeps rearing its head.
DAISY: “Turn It Off” was me and Billy at the pool house, him on the guitar, me pitching the line “I keep trying to turn it off/but, baby, you keep turning me on,” and then it all just snowballed from there.