Graham: We decided we’d do one album with Daisy. See how it went.
Billy: I was making a decision that affected a lot of people. What is good for me might not necessarily be good for everybody else. I had to weigh that. Warren, Graham, Karen, Rod. They all wanted to get bigger, to top the charts. We all did. I had to take that into account.
No matter how much I may have preferred to keep a healthy distance from her personally.
Warren: I wasn’t sure why Billy was stressing about it so much. He was just going to do whatever Teddy told him to do anyway.
Karen: People have said Billy didn’t want Daisy to join the band because he didn’t want to share the spotlight but I don’t think that was the case. Billy wasn’t really an insecure guy in that way. That was sort of the problem with him, really. Was that he wasn’t intimidated by anyone else’s talent.
I think she just … unsettled him. However you want to interpret that.
Billy: By the time we landed at LAX, I decided that it was a good idea to at least float the idea by Teddy. If he thought we should do an album with Daisy, then I’d ask her.
Rod: When we landed, I caught up to Billy and checked in, asked him what he was thinking. He said he wanted to talk to Teddy about whether Daisy should join the band. So I pulled Billy over to a pay phone and I called Teddy and I said, “Teddy, tell Billy what you told me this morning.”
Graham: Of course Teddy was on board with Daisy joining the band!
Billy: Teddy reminded me that when we first met, I’d told him I wanted to be the biggest band in the world. He said, “You two singing together is how you do that.”
Eddie: When we landed, Pete and I caught up with Warren and Graham and Karen and they said, “We’re gonna ask Daisy to join the band,” and I couldn’t believe it.
Once again, No. One. Fucking. Asked. Me.
Daisy: They were all whispering and huddled up and I caught Rod’s eye and he winked at me and I knew.
Billy: I got off the phone with Teddy and I said to Rod, “All right, tell her she’s in.” And then I got in a cab and went straight home to my girls.
Karen: When we all left the airport that day, we all headed in our own directions. It was like school was out for the summer.
Billy: The moment I walked in the door of my home, it was like Daisy and my band and the music and the gear and the tour … none of it existed. I was ready to get Camila strawberry ice cream at any hour of the night and to play any tea parties Julia wanted. My family was all that mattered.
Camila: Billy came home and he needed a day or two, to decompress. But then there he was. With us when he was with us. And happy. And I thought, Wow. Okay. We’re figuring this out. We’re doing this right.
Rod: I gave it a few days. I let the dust settle a little bit, made sure Billy wasn’t going to change his mind. And then I called Daisy.
Daisy: I’d checked back in to my favorite cottage at the Marmont.
Simone: When Daisy got back from the road, I was back, too. And I think it is important to mention that after that tour, Daisy was jacked up. I mean, she was higher than all get-out, all the time. I thought, What happened to you out there? She could barely handle being alone. Always calling people to come over, always begging me not to get off the phone. She didn’t like being home by herself. She didn’t like things being calm.
Daisy: I was having a few people over when Rod called. It was the day I’d shot my Cosmo cover. I’d done an interview while we were in Europe and that afternoon I’d done the photo shoot.
Some of the girls from the shoot came over to my place afterward and we were drinking pink champagne and about to go for a swim when the phone rang. I picked it up and I said, “Lola La Cava speaking.”
Rod: Daisy’s pseudonym was always Lola La Cava. She had too many men trying to corner her. We had to start deflecting about where she was at any given time.
Daisy: I remember the phone call exactly. I had the bottle of champagne in my hand and there were two girls on the couch and another one doing a line off my vanity. I remember being irritated because she was getting coke in the spine of my journal.
But then Rod said, “It’s official.”
Rod: I said, “The band wants you to do a full album with them.”
Daisy: I was through the roof.
Rod: I could hear Daisy doing a bump as I talked to her. I always struggled with that when it came to my musicians—and it never got easier. Should I monitor their drug use or not? Was it any of my business? If I knew they were using, was it my place to determine how much was too much? If it was my place, then how much was too much?
I never came up with an answer to that question.
Daisy: When we got off the phone, I screamed into the room and one of the girls asked what I was so excited about and I said, “I’m joining The Six!”
None of them cared very much. In general, when you have drugs to spare and a nice cottage to do them in, you’re probably not attracting people that care about you.
But I was so happy that night. I danced around the room for a bit. I opened another bottle of champagne. I had more people over. And then, around three in the morning, when the party died down, I was too amped to go to bed. I called Simone and I told her the news.
Simone: I did worry. I wasn’t sure being on tour with a rock band was turning out to be good for her.
Daisy: I told Simone I was going to go pick her up and we were going to celebrate.
Simone: It was the middle of the night. I’d been sleeping. I had my hair wrapped, my sleep mask on. I wasn’t going anywhere.
Daisy: She told me that she would come meet me in the morning for breakfast but I kept insisting. She finally told me I didn’t sound safe to drive. I got mad and got off the phone.
Simone: I thought she was going to bed.
Daisy: I had too much energy running through me. I tried to call Karen but she didn’t answer. I finally decided I had to tell my parents. For some reason, I thought they would be proud of me. Not sure why. After all, I had the number 3 song in the country just a few months prior and they hadn’t so much as tracked me down to send a note. They didn’t even know I was back in town.
Suffice it to say, heading to their house at 4:00 A.M. was not the smartest idea. But you don’t get high for smart ideas.
Their place wasn’t far—a mile down the road, a world away—so I decided to walk. I started up Sunset Boulevard and into the hills. I got to my parents’ about an hour later.
So there I was, standing in front of my childhood home, and somehow I decided that my old room looked lonely. So I climbed over the fence and up the gutter pipe, smashed the window of my bedroom, and got in my own bed.
I woke up to see the cops standing over me.
Rod: I do wonder what I should have done differently with Daisy.
Daisy: My parents didn’t even know it was me in the bed. They heard somebody and called the police. Once it was straightened out, they weren’t going to press charges. But by that point, the bag of coke in my bra, the joints in my change purse—it didn’t look good.
Simone: I got a call that morning from Daisy from jail. I bailed her out and I said, “Daisy, you gotta stop all this.” And she just let it go in one ear and out the other.
Daisy: I wasn’t in jail long.
Rod: I saw her a few days later and she had this cut on her right hand, from the outside edge of her pinkie all the way down past her wrist. I said, “What happened here?”