Camila looked at me for a moment and then she said something that changed my life. She said, “Don’t count yourself out this early, Daisy. You’re all sorts of things you don’t even know yet.” That really stuck with me. That who I was wasn’t entirely already determined. That there was still hope for me. That a woman like Camila Dunne thought I was …
Camila Dunne thought I was worth saving.
Billy: The man looked at my hand and it seemed like he was looking at my wedding ring and he said, “Are you married?” I nodded. He laughed and said his girlfriend would be crushed. Then he said, “You got kids?” That caught my attention, caught me off guard. I nodded again. He said, “Got any pictures?” And I thought of the photos, in my wallet, of Julia and Susana and Maria.
And I put the glass down.
It wasn’t easy. I fought for every inch, as my hand moved closer to the bar it felt like it was moving through wet cement. But I did it. I put the glass down.
Daisy: Sometime in the early morning, Camila picked Julia up out of my bed, and she grabbed my hand. I grabbed her hand back. She said, “Good night, Daisy.”
And I said, “Good night.” Julia was slumped into Camila’s chest, fast asleep. And she readjusted herself a little bit and pushed her head into Camila’s neck, like it was the safest, softest place she’d ever been.
Billy: I pulled out my wallet and I showed the man the photos I had of my daughters. And as I did, he took my glass from in front of me and put it on the bar on the other side of him.
He said, “Gorgeous girls.”
I said, “Thank you.”
And he said, “Makes you want to live to fight another day, doesn’t it?”
And I said, “Yes. It does.”
He looked at me and I stared at the glass and … I felt strong enough. To walk away from it. And I didn’t know how much longer I’d feel that strong. So I put down a twenty and I said, “Thank you.”
He said, “Don’t mention it.” And then he picked up my twenty and handed it back to me and said, “Just let me buy it, all right? So I can know I did something for somebody once.”
I took the money back and he shook my hand.
And I left.
Daisy: I opened the door for her and she slipped out into the bright hallway with Julia. She said, “No offense, but I hope I never see you again.” And, to be honest, it stung. But I understood what she meant. When she got to her door, Camila looked back at me and it was the first time I realized she was nervous. Her fingers were shaking as she put her key in the door.
And then she slipped into her room. And she was gone.
Billy: I went back up to my hotel room and I shut the door behind me and slumped against it. Camila and the girls were asleep and I just watched them. And then I broke down crying, right there on the floor. And I thought to myself, That’s it. I’m done. It’s gonna come down to rock ’n’ roll or my life and I’m not choosing rock ’n’ roll.
Daisy: I was on the next flight out.
Rod: The next morning, I see Daisy’s gone and she’s left a note saying she’s left the band and would never come back.
Warren: I woke up in the morning and Daisy had left. Graham and Karen didn’t want to be in the same room with each other. Then Billy comes onto the white bus and announces he’s taking a break from touring. So Rod has to cancel the rest of the tour.
Rod: I can’t fulfill a tour without Billy or Daisy.
Warren: Eddie got mad—flew off the handle.
Eddie: There’s only so long you can live your life while it’s being dictated to you by somebody else, you understand? And I don’t care how much money is in it for me, I’m not somebody’s lackey. I’m not some indentured servant. I’m a person. And I deserve a say in my own career.
Warren: Pete said he was leaving regardless of what happened.
Graham: It all just started crumbling down.
Rod: Daisy was MIA. Billy wanted to shut the whole thing down himself. Pete was out. Eddie refused to work with Billy. Graham and Karen wouldn’t speak to each other. I went to Graham and I said, “Talk some sense into Billy.”
And Graham told me he wouldn’t “say shit to Billy.”
And I thought, If the bottom falls out here, what am going to do? I thought about signing other bands and doing this all over and taking another set of screwed-up people and trying to make their careers and I just … I don’t know.
Warren: I appeared to be the only person who didn’t have his panties in a twist about something.
But we’d had a good ride. And if it was over … I guess, there wasn’t much I could do about that, was there? So, so be it.
Billy: I never knew why Daisy left, exactly. What it was about that night, that show, that made her leave. But the way I saw it: I didn’t know how to write a good album without Teddy. And I didn’t know how to write a hit album without Daisy. And I couldn’t do it with either of them. And I wasn’t willing to let any of it cost me a fraction of what it had already cost me.
I turned to everybody on the bus and I said, “It’s over. The whole thing. It’s over.”
And not one person in the band—not Graham, not Karen, not Eddie or Pete, not even Warren or Rod—tried to convince me otherwise.
Karen: When Daisy left, it was like the Ferris wheel stopped turning and we all got off.
Daisy: I left the band because Camila Dunne asked me to. And it was the very best thing I’ve ever done. It is how I saved myself. Because your mother saved me from myself.
I may not have known your mother very well.
But I promise you, I loved her very much.
And I was so very sorry to hear she passed away.
Author’s Note: My mother, Camila Dunne, died before the completion of this book.
I spoke with her a number of times during the course of my research, but I could not hear her point of view of the events that took place in Chicago on July 12 and 13 due to the fact that I learned the full scope of them only after her passing.
She died on December 1, 2012, at the age of sixty-three from heart failure, a complication of lupus. It brings me great comfort to be able to report that she died surrounded by our family, my father, Billy Dunne, at her side.
Then
and
Now
1979–Present
Nick Harris: Daisy Jones & The Six have never played together, never been seen together, since their show at Chicago Stadium.
Daisy: When I left Chicago, I made my way straight to Simone and I told her everything and she got me into rehab.
I’ve been sober since July 17, 1979. And when I left the facility, I changed my life. All of the things I’ve achieved since then have been because of that decision. When I left the music business, when I published my books, when I started meditating, when I started traveling the world, when I adopted my sons, and opened the Wild Flower Initiative, and changed my life for the better in ways that I could never even fathom in 1979—it was all possible because I got clean.
Warren: I married Lisa Crowne. We have two kids, Brandon and Rachel. Lisa made me sell the houseboat. Now I live in Tarzana, California, in a huge house surrounded by strip malls, my kids are in college, and no one asks me to sign their tits anymore. I mean, occasionally Lisa does. Just to be nice. And I take her up on it. Because there are about a million different guys who would have loved to sign Lisa’s tits at some point in their lives. And I try to never lose sight of that.