‘Daisy Jones & The Six’ Author Reveals Passion Between Fleetwood Mac Members Inspired Star-Crossed Love Story of Daisy Jones and Billy Dunne
The new Prime Video smash Daisy Jones & The Six reveals the passion depicted between star-crossed lovers of the eponymous band. The series’ eight installments showcase their rise and fall. Subsequently, the story is loosely based on the love story between Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham. The book‘s author and series producer Taylor Jenkins Reid reveals how much inspiration she drew from Fleetwood Mac’s former lovers to tell the story of Daisy Jones and Billy Dunne.
Netflix’s ‘Daisy Jones & The Six’ takes a hard look at the 1970s music business
The 2019 book Daisy Jones & The Six chronicles the rise and fall of a 1970s fictional band. A hard-luck music producer brought together ingénue Daisy Jones (Riley Keough) and The Six, a rock band led by heartthrob Billy Dunne (Sam Claflin). Subsequently, the sexual chemistry between them exploded.
Billy and Daisy’s partnership catapulted The Six from obscurity to fame. However, after a sold-out show at Chicago’s Soldier Field, the band suddenly calls it quits.
The film revisits the truth of why the band imploded, as told by the different viewpoints of its members. It tells the story of a band that imploded at the height of its fame.
However, the book’s author and series producer, Taylor Jenkins Reid, says a chance viewing of a Fleetwood Mac concert and the smoldering dynamic between Buckingham and Nicks gave the story of Daisy and Billy, its soul.
The passion between Fleetwood Mac members inspired the star-crossed love story of ‘Daisy Jones & The Six’
Author Taylor Jenkins Reid admitted that a chance viewing of a Fleetwood Mac concert inspired the basis of the book Daisy Jones & The Six. Reid wrote an essay for the website Hello Sunshine, explaining how the idea came about.
“In the summer of 1997, I was thirteen years old and highly addicted to channel-surfing between MTV and VH1,” she wrote. “Fleetwood Mac was always playing on repeat on both channels that summer, singing their greatest hits in a reunion show called The Dance. They were inescapable.”
Reid continued, “As the song [‘Landslide’] was coming to an end, Stevie and Lindsey moved closer to one another, smiling tenderly, maybe even a little bit wistfully. Lindsey stopped strumming for a moment, and Stevie let it fly as he watched from the sideline. And for one split second—truly, a slice of a moment—Lindsey put his fist under his chin and looked at Stevie as if she was a miracle.”
The author concluded, “Oh, they’re in love with each other.” Reid then explained that when she decided I wanted to write a book about rock ‘n’ roll, I kept coming back to that moment when Lindsey watched Stevie sing “Landslide.”
“How it looked so much like two people in love. And yet, we’ll never truly know what lived between them. I wanted to write a story about that, about how the lines between real life and performance can get blurred, about how singing about old wounds might keep them fresh,” she concluded.
What was the story between Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham that helped to inspire ‘Daisy Jones & The Six’?
The real story of the relationship between Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham reads much like the story of Daisy Jones and Billy Dunne of Daisy Jones & The Six.
Buckingham and Nicks met as high school seniors near Palo Alto, Calif., in the late 1960s. He was in a psychedelic rock band, Fritz, and asked her to join it as lead singer. The two had a mutual interest in music but weren’t yet romantically involved.
Fritz stayed together until the early 1970s, but Nicks and Buckingham were not yet an item. It took the band’s breakup to push the duo into dating.
After meeting Fleetwood Mac, consisting of Mick Fleetwood, John, and Christine McVie, Nicks and Buckingham signed on. Shortly after, Nicks and Buckingham and the McVie’s ended their relationship. Songs like “Dreams” and “Go Your Own Way” emerged from that cauldron of discontent.
Rumours would win Album of the Year at the 20th annual Grammy Awards in 1978. As of February 2023, Rumours has sold over 40 million copies worldwide, making it the sixth best-selling album of the 1970s and the 12th best-selling album of all time.
Three Daisy Jones & The Six episodes are currently available to stream on Prime Video. New episodes will be revealed every Friday throughout March until all eight air.
