Is Daisy Jones & the Six a Real Band? Here's Everything to Know (2024)

Amazon Prime Video is bringing Taylor Jenkins Reid's hit novel to life with its new series.

Starring Riley Keough and Sam Claflin, the series follows the rise and fall of a rock band from the 1970s as they deal with fame and their complicated relationships with each other.

Presented in a documentary style, the miniseries follows the band members as their recount their journey in their own words.

Despite the show's format, Daisy Jones & the Six isn't actually a real-life band. However, it was inspired by one.

Read ahead to learn about the real inspiration behind Daisy Jones & the Six and how the actors prepared to play the fictional band.

What band inspired Daisy Jones & the Six?

Reid has noted that she was heavily inspired by Fleetwood Mac when writing her 2019 novel Daisy Jones & the Six, namely the band's iconic album Rumours, which was recorded in the aftermath of several relationship breakups among its members.

In a post for Hello Sunshine in 2019, Reid recounted watching the band perform "Landslide" during their 1997 reunion show The Dance, and noticing the chemistry between Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham.

"Imagine my surprise when my mother later explained that, though they had once dated, they weren't together anymore," she wrote. "This completely defied logic to me. But they love each other! I saw it with my own eyes!"

She noted that years later, when she "understood the full story of Fleetwood Mac," she revisited the performance again, this time taking note of how Nicks performed "Silver Springs" "like a woman scorned, holding that microphone like a weapon, drilling holes into Lindsey's head with her eyes as she sang that her voice would haunt him."

"I was savvier then, I understood that sometimes looking like you're in love or in hate are things you ramp up a bit to make a good show," she continued. "I also understood then what I could never have conceived of in 1997: Love makes no godd--- sense."

As she decided that she wanted to write a book about rock 'n' roll, she added that she 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."

She continued, "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."

And from there, Daisy Jones & the Six was born.

Are the actors really singing in Daisy Jones & the Six?

Though Daisy Jones & the Six isn't a real band, the cast certainly prepared like one for the series. Every single actor is singing and performing their instruments on the show, according to Vanity Fair. Suki Waterhouse, who plays Karen, had some experience in music (she's recorded an album and EP) but for many of the fictional bandmembers, they were starting from square one.

Despite being the granddaughter of Elvis Presley, Daisy Jones & The Six is one of the first times Keough has performed publicly.

"We talked about [Keough] singing and we talked about her grandfather and she sort of said, 'You know, I know I have it in me, but I really don't sing outside the shower,'" producer Lauren Neustadter told Vanity Fair. "'This is not a thing that I've done before, but I'm ready to do the work,' and she really did."

After sending in an audition tape of her singing a Fleetwood Mac song, Keough was told she needed to learn to belt if she wanted the role. And that's exactly what she did.

"I was like, 'I can't do it,' and when I can't do something it lights a fire in me to be able to do it. I was like, I have to do it. I'm gonna go to this vocal coach, and he's gonna teach me how to f---ing belt, whatever I need to do to get this," the actress told Vanity Fair. "It really became about pushing myself to do things I've never done before."

For Claflin, he had to learn how to sing and play the guitar.

"I have to say, I'd never picked up a guitar before I got this part," Claflin told Vanity Fair. "And, you know, having read the book, it wasn't overly clear that I was due to be playing because we took some creative freedom and slightly shifted the parts a little bit, meaning that I was going to be playing not lead guitar, thank God, but rhythm guitar. I had to learn how to hold the guitar, how to strum a guitar. I had the biggest journey to go with the singing as well."

"I get misty thinking about the transformation and the dedication," producer Neustadter said of Claflin's musical transformation. "During COVID he was in England with his kids, and he was homeschooling them during the day, and he would take care of them, and then he would put them to sleep and he would get on a Zoom to [learn how to] play the guitar. And he also really changed. He transformed his body to really be like a '70s rock star. ... He was really transforming into Billy, and Riley did the same."

Is Daisy Jones & the Six releasing music?

With the release of the series, Daisy Jones & the Six's fictional album Aurora is becoming a reality. The first trailer for the show featured the lead track, "Regret Me," which is sung by Keough and Claflin.

"We finally have Aurora. A stunning, nostalgic, timeless album that captures the drama, pathos, and yearning of the band's zenith and nadir all in one," Reid shared in a statement to Rolling Stone. "A snapshot of time, intoxicating and dangerous. That delicious moment that you know can't last… Daisy Jones & the Six are real. And they are better than my wildest dreams."

The album, which will consist of 11 songs, was largely produced and written by Blake Mills, with several real-life artists writing additional songs, including Phoebe Bridgers, Madison Cunningham, Marcus Mumford, and Jackson Browne.

The full album will be released the same day the show premieres on March 3. It is also available for purchase on vinyl.