While not based on a true story, the Prime Video series recalls Fleetwood Mac, the Eagles and other hit groups at the time.
Now streaming on Prime Video, Daisy Jones & The Six is the captivating limited series chronicling the meteoric rise and fall of the titular rock band as they release their first album and embark on a massive tour before internal conflicts drive them apart. The show stars Riley Keough as Daisy Jones, with Sam Claflin as Billy Dunne, Suki Waterhouse as Karen Sirko, Will Harrison as Graham Dunne, Josh Whitehouse as Eddie Roundtree and Sebastian Chacon as Warren Rojas.
Based on Taylor Jenkins Reid's hit 2019 novel -- which was written as an oral history while the series is constructed as a music documentary -- the story set in the 1970s has drawn comparisons to the legendary rock band Fleetwood Mac, which has its own tumultuous history in addition to being one of the biggest bands for several decades around that time.
While writing the book, the author "watched a lot of Behind the Music," Reid told Rolling Stone about the hit VH1 docuseries, which featured an episode about Fleetwood Mac, whose mega-successful album, Rumours, was released in 1977, the same year as Daisy Jones & The Six's debut record, Aurora.
"There are certainly parallels to draw," said Harrison, who plays the band's guitarist and backup vocalist.
Of course, most of the show's cast was born in the late-'80s, early-'90s, putting them at the tail end of the Millennial generation. And admittedly, they were not as familiar with the group featuring Mick Fleetwood, John McVie, Stevie Nicks, Christine McVie, Lindsey Buckingham and others.
"Since finishing the show, you know, I've listened to a lot more Fleetwood Mac," Whitehouse revealed. "I feel like it's one of those bands where once you start listening, you go, 'Oh, they did this song too. And this is them as well.'"
"So, yeah, I got to know them a lot better and I listen to them a lot more now," he added.
Like Reid, the cast was influenced by more than just Fleetwood Mac, with references ranging from Joni Mitchell to drummer Joe Jones to disco singer Loleatta Holloway and the show itself calling out Carole King's Tapestry and performing a cover of the Faces hit, "Oh La La." (The opening credits even features Patti Smith's "Dancing Barefoot.")
For the author, the Eagles really informed her book, especially after watching the two-part documentary, History of the Eagles. She also took a lot of inspiration from a Behind the Music episode about the year 1977, which was "about the context of all of these different bands, and how 1977 was such a big year for rock," she said in the same RS interview.
"It's certainly inspired by so many different bands from that time period as well," Harrison told ET. "I think that they were pulling from many different artists when they assembled the idea of Daisy Jones & The Six."
When it came to constructing Daisy, whose life as a rock goddess is a wild one, Reid drew from "messy people," including Nicks as well as Courtney Love. Whereas Keough -- who's the granddaughter of icon Elvis Presley and the eldest daughter of singer-songwriter Lisa Marie Presley and musician Danny Keough -- had plenty of her own history to draw upon.
"My whole family are musicians and I've been around this world a lot and been on tour and all that kind of stuff," she told ET, while clarifying that by doing this series, in which she performs all of the band's original music, she wasn't "continuing my grandfather's legacy."
And although Keough looks nearly identical to Florence Welch while in costume as Daisy, she worked with costume designer Denise Wingate to pull from an array of influences to create her onscreen aesthetic. "It's the '70s, so it was just, like, the most incredible costumes. And we were sending each other photos of Cher and Joni Mitchell and Stevie Nicks," she said of those female icons, who were all huge at the time.
Elsewhere, Chacon, who plays the band's drummer, leaned into the same musicians that may have inspired his fictional character while growing up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, before they all moved to California.
"I was interested in, like, what the music that Warren was listening to when he was a kid," the actor said. "So, like, Tito Puente… And then I played, like, a jazz drummer Joe Jones, who passed through Pittsburgh and played there a little bit. So, like, maybe he saw him. And then Ginger Baker, in terms of, like, his movement and, like, just madness."
He added, "I was watching a lot of various drummers, trying to put it together, you know."
Echoing that sentiment, Whitehouse revealed that he "was watching a lot of documentaries." And because he's portraying the group's bass player, he was "sort of trying to emulate some of" what he saw of similar musicians at the time.
The hits of the 1970s, however, were not just limited to the rock and roll genre, with disco emerging during the decade. And for Nabiyah Be, that's an era she drew upon to play Daisy's roommate and best friend, disco pioneer Simone Jackson. "I took a little bit from Loleatta Holloway's experience," she said.
The actress also drew from what "would happen to a lot of Black artists, and a lot of women, you know, in general," she said, adding that she thought of "my father, also, in the '70s, trying to make it in the industry."
One such example is what happened to Darlene Love while working with producer Phil Spector. At the time, he attributed her vocal recording of "He's a Rebel" to another group without her permission. It's something that's referenced on the show, when Simone has to navigate a sexually aggressive record producer early in her career.
"I love that that kind of went there with the series as well," Be said, adding that she "was just really excited and felt really responsible to be truthful to so many women, so many background artists and vocalists that were fundamental to the disco genre."
And then there's the show's original music, which was produced by songwriter Blake Mills (Bob Dylan, Fiona Apple) in collaboration with Marcus Mumford and Jackson Browne as well as Tony Berg (Phoebe Bridgers, Andrew Bird) and features instrumentalists from Rilo Kiley, The Who, Nine Inch Nails, Pearl Jam, David Bowie, Elton John, Jeff Beck and The Wallflowers.
Aurora, the group's album which was performed by the cast, was very much inspired by Fleetwood Mac as well as the Rolling Stones and many, many others. "The music that we were given was so meticulously crafted, in terms of people pulling inspiration from that period," Harrison said. "So, you didn't have to go far to get inspiration."
Daisy Jones & The Six premiered March 3 on Prime Video, with the remaining episodes dropping in weekly batches on Fridays through March 24.
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