Billy: That was about when I got really into … what is it that people call it now? A Canadian tuxedo? I was wearing a denim shirt with my jeans, pretty much every day.
Karen: I felt like I couldn’t focus on playing if I dressed in miniskirts and boots and all that. I mean, I liked that look, but I wore high-waisted jeans and turtlenecks most of the time.
Graham: Karen was so fucking sexy in those turtlenecks.
Rod: Once they were starting to get some good attention, I set up a show for them at the Troubadour.
Graham: “Farther from You” was a great song. And you could tell Billy felt it. Billy couldn’t fake anything. When he was in pain or when he was joyful, you could feel it.
That show at the Troubadour that night, as we were playing, I looked over at Karen and she was in it, you know? And then I looked at Billy, and he’s singing his heart out and I thought, This is our best show yet.
Rod: I saw Teddy Price standing in the back, listening. I hadn’t met him before but I knew he was a producer with Runner Records. We had a few friends in common. After the show, he came up and found me, said, “My assistant heard you guys at P.J.’s. I told him I would come listen.”
Billy: We get offstage and Rod comes up to me with this real tall, fat guy in a suit and he says, “Billy, I want you to meet Teddy Price.”
First thing Teddy says is—and you have to remember he had this real thick upper-crust British accent—“You’ve got a hell of a talent for writing about that girl.”
Karen: Watching Billy, it felt a little bit like watching a dog find a master. He wanted to please him, wanted the record deal. You could feel it dripping off him.
Warren: Teddy Price was ugly as sin. A face only a mother could love. [Laughs] I’m just messing around. He was ugly, though. I liked that he didn’t seem to care.
Karen: That’s the glory of being a man. An ugly face isn’t the end of you.
Billy: I shook Teddy’s hand and he asked me if I had any more songs like the ones he’d heard. I said, “Yes, sir.”
He said, “Where do you see this band in five years? Ten years?”
And I said, “We’ll be the biggest band in the world.”
Warren: I signed my first pair of tits that night. This girl comes up to me and unbuttons her shirt and says, “Sign me.” So I signed her. Let me tell you, that’s a memory you have for a lifetime.
The following week, Teddy joined the band at a rehearsal space in the San Fernando Valley and listened to the seven songs they had prepared. Shortly after, they were invited to the Runner Records offices, introduced to CEO Rich Palentino, and offered a recording and publishing deal. Teddy Price, personally, would be producing their album.
Graham: We signed the deal around four in the afternoon and I remember walking out onto Sunset Boulevard, the six of us, the sun hitting us right in the eyes and just feeling like Los Angeles had opened its arms and said, “Come on in, baby.”
I saw a T-shirt a few years ago that said, “I Got My Shades on Cuz My Future’s So Bright,” and I thought the little shit that was wearing it doesn’t know what he’s talking about. He never stood on Sunset Boulevard, sun blinding his eyes, with his five best friends and a record contract in his back pocket.
Billy: That night, everybody was out partying over at the Rainbow and I walked away, walked down the street to a pay phone. Imagine achieving your wildest dream and feeling empty inside. It didn’t mean anything unless I could share it with Camila. So I called her.
My heart was beating so fast as the phone rang. I put my fingers to my pulse and it was throbbing. But when Camila answered, it was like laying down in bed after a long day. I felt so much better, just hearing her voice. I said, “I miss you. I don’t think I can live without you.”
She said, “I miss you, too.”
I said, “What are we doing this for? We’re supposed to be together.”
And she said, “Yeah, I know.”
We were both quiet on the line and I said, “If I had a record contract, would you marry me?”
She said, “What?”
Camila: I was just so excited for him if it was true. He’d worked so hard for it.
Billy: I said it again. “If I had a record contract, would you marry me?”
She said, “You got a record contract?”
That’s when I knew, right then. That Camila was my soul mate. She cared more about the record contract than anything else. I said, “You didn’t answer my question.”
She said, “Did you get a record contract, yes or no?”
I said, “Will you marry me, yes or no?”
She didn’t say anything for a while, and then she said, “Yes.”
And then I said, “Yes.”
She started screaming, so excited. I said, “Come on out here, honey. Let’s get hitched.”
It Girl
1972–1974
Determined to make a name for herself outside of the Sunset Strip, Daisy Jones started writing her own songs. Armed only with a pen and paper—and no musical training whatsoever—Daisy created a songbook that soon grew to include rough sketches of over a hundred songs.
One night during the summer of ’72, Daisy attended a Mi Vida show at the Ash Grove. She was dating Mi Vida front man Jim Blades at the time. Toward the end of the set, Jim invited Daisy onto the stage to do a cover of “Son of a Preacher Man” with the band.
Simone: Daisy had grown her hair out really long by then, gotten rid of her bangs. She always wore hoop earrings and she never wore shoes. She was just very cool.
That night at the Ash Grove, she and I were sitting in the back and Jim tried to get her to go up there and she kept saying no. But he kept at it most of the night and eventually, Daisy got on that stage.
Daisy: It was a surreal feeling. All of those people looking at me, expecting something to happen.
Simone: When she started singing with Jim, she was kind of timid about it, which surprised me. But I could feel her getting more and more into it as the song went on. And then somewhere around the second chorus she just let it rip. She was smiling. She was happy up there. And people couldn’t take their eyes off of her. By the time they got toward the end, Jim had stopped singing and just let her go. She brought the house down.
Jim Blades (lead singer of Mi Vida): Daisy had this incredible voice. It was gritty but never scratchy. You’d have thought she had rocks in her throat that the sound had to travel over. It made everything she sang complex and interesting and kind of unpredictable. I’ve never had much of a voice myself. You don’t have to have a great voice to be a singer if your songs are good enough. But Daisy had the whole thing going, man.
She was always singing from deep in her belly. It takes people years to learn something like that and Daisy just did it naturally, did it singing in the car next to you, or folding the laundry. I was always trying to get her to sing with me and she always said no until that night at the Ash Grove.
I think she finally agreed to sing in public because of how bad she wanted to be a songwriter. I told her, “The biggest thing your songs have going for them is that you might sing them.” Her biggest asset was that people couldn’t take their eyes off her. I told her to use that.