Daisy Jones And The Six: Meet the Amazon Prime Video show’s band who were inspired by Fleetwood Mac

Daisy Jones & The Six is ready to blow the roof off on Amazon Prime Video.

The miniseries is set to premiere on the streaming platform on Friday and viewers are already buzzing with anticipation.

The series features a mix of headline-making up-and-comers and fresh faces, including Elvis’s granddaughter herself, Riley Keough.

In addition to the rock ‘n’ roll influence that the cast brings, the characters and show’s storylines were inspired by music’s most famous stars and their chaotic lives. 

The series is based on The New York Times bestseller written by Taylor Jenkins Reid, who has revealed that Fleetwood Mac served as a huge inspiration for the novel.

She specifically wanted to capture the dynamic between lead singers Stevie Nicks and Lindsay Buckingham in her two lead characters, Daisy Jones and Billy Dunne. 

While their incredible chemistry catapulted Fleetwood Mac into the top of the charts, their passionate and at times toxic relationship ultimately lead to the band’s demise.

Jenkins Reid has also drawn inspiration from other rock ‘n’ roll legends like Joni Mitchell, Cher, Stevie Nicks, Linda Ronstadt, Jimi Hendrix and the Eagles in writing the novel.

The series explores solo artist Daisy Jones (Keough) who is matched with the band, The Six. Together, they become a huge hit soon after their formation in the 1970s, but with success comes complications that eventually cause the band to split.

Decades later, members of Daisy Jones & The Six reunite to tell the full story of how the band ‘imploded at the height of its powers.’

Here’s a guide to the cast of Daisy Jones & The Six and the characters they play. 

Rebellious singer Daisy Jones who gets caught up in the rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle is played by Riley Keough

Keough plays the show and band’s frontwoman, Daisy Jones. In the novel, Daisy is a rocker at heart who was brought up with wealthy-yet-distracted parents in the Hollywood Hills.

She first fell in love with music after meeting musician Simone Jackson while sneaking out to a rock concert.

Inspired by the disco star, she writes her own music and soars as a solo artist.

Eventually, music producer Teddy Price matches her with blues-rock band The Six for a collaboration.

While she and the band’s singer-songwriter Billy Dunne butt heads at first, they end up becoming a dream team and form undeniable chemistry. 

However, her rebellious nature and struggles with drug and alcohol abuse eventually cause tension with the group.

Keough addressed Daisy’s wild side and the many layers that went into portraying it. 

‘In the book, she’s messy and she’s unpredictable and she’s wild,’ Keough told TODAY. ‘But I also wanted to figure out who she is underneath all of that.’

Keough has her own connections to the music industry. Her grandfather, Elvis, was the king of rock ‘n’ roll himself. 

She shared that people have ‘asked if she was born to play this role’ due to her famous connection. While she doesn’t consider herself a ‘singer,’ it didn’t cause her to shy away from the role. 

‘Everyone keeps on asking me if I was born to play this role because of my family,’ she told Vanity Fair.

‘And honestly, I was born to play every role that I’ve played so far. I took this role because I’ve been wanting to sing, since I had never sung before. 

‘I worked really hard and put in a lot of hours for a year and a half. It wasn’t an overnight kind of thing.’

Thankfully, she also received plenty of support from her famous family to take on the role of her singer. She received approval from her late mother, Lisa Marie Presley, before she passed away unexpectedly in January.

‘She was so excited. I was worried, and she really supported me,’ Keough told People. ‘There were some really challenging songs, and she helped me focus and believe in myself.’

Keough even admitted that she sees plenty of her mom in her character, Daisy.

‘My mother is certainly an inspiration to me,’ the actress said to People, calling Lisa Marie ‘a very strong, smart woman.’

‘I was raised by somebody who did their own thing and didn’t really care what other people thought. She was definitely inspirational to me,’ she continued.

‘I think just women who were liberated were inspiring to me,’ she added.

Her character has also drawn comparisons to the lead singer of Fleetwood Mac, Stevie Nicks.

Like Nicks, Daisy joined an already-formed band and helped it climb the charts. 

According to executive producer Reese Witherspoon, she has nailed the rock star legend persona. 

‘She’s very quiet and soft-spoken in real life, and she really transformed herself and brought such rock star energy’ to the series, Witherspoon said. 

‘She utterly transforms when she gets on the stage. It’s like watching a butterfly emerge from a chrysalis.’

Wild child-turned-family man Billy Dunne who co-created The Six is played by Sam Claflin 

Sam Claflin plays The Six’s OG frontman, Billy Dunne. Billy initially formed the band with this brother, Graham, who is the lead guitarist.

In the novel, the singer-songwriter had a less glamorous upbringing than Daisy and was raised in Pittsburgh by his single mom. 

He has the charm of a rock star but gave up the wild lifestyle of drugs after marrying Camila and having their first child, Julia.

At the point that Daisy joins the band, he and Camila have three children. However,  his stage chemistry and complicated relationship with Daisy has Camila questioning his fidelity. 

Jenkins Reid has explained that the nature of their relationship was inspired by a moment she witnessed between Fleetwood members Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham as they performed. 

She explained during an interview with the TV series’ production company, Hello Sunshine, that she was watching the band perform Landslide when she witnessed a raw moment between the rock stars. 

‘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.

‘And I thought, “Oh, they’re in love with each other.”

‘I did not think it in any sort of revelatory way. It didn’t even seem like that big of a realization. It just seemed obvious. Like saying, “This water is wet.”

‘He was clearly madly in love with her. And the way she smiled back at him, the way she seemed so comfortable in his gaze, she must love him, too,’ she explained.

However, Jenkins Reid came to learn that while they had dated, they were no longer together during the time of the performance which ‘completely defied logic’ to her. 

That moment is what came to her when she decided to write a novel about the rise and fall of a rock band. 

‘I kept coming back to that moment when Lindsey watched Stevie sing Landslide,’ she revealed. 

‘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.’

Claflin connected to the role of Billy quite easily.

‘I felt like I really understood my character. We went through a lot of the same issues—not through the addiction side, but the struggle of juggling work and family life,’ he told Vanity Fair. 

He continued: ‘His fear of failure is something that I can relate to. He’s human, and I just want to make sure that people understand him.’ 

Claflin, however, had another music icon in mind when it came to playing Billy: Bruce Springsteen. 

‘I don’t know that I can sort of say I channeled him much on stage but I did my best,’ he told TODAY. 

While he connected to the role emotionally, there were physical obstacles that he had to overcome.

‘This is the most petrified I’ve ever been about a role, and I think it’s partly because I knew how far I had to come,’ Claflin told InStyle. 

‘I was so out of depth.’

For instance, he had never played the guitar before playing this role and the British actor had to work on developing an American accent.

‘I’d wake up in the morning, go straight to the studio and learn guitar for an hour, then I’d go for a costume fitting,’ Claflin said of his daily schedule.

‘I’d have an accent lesson with a speech and dialect coach, then I would probably record a bit or go and practice,’ he added, which he claims left him ‘absolutely knackered.’

‘I’m shocked that they saw something in me, honestly,’ he admitted, referencing the first vocal tapes he had sent the creative team. 

‘I think the one thing I will say is that I’ll forever be grateful for the belief the producers and the music team had within me,’ he added.

Revolutionary keyboardist Karen Sirko who was one of the first female rockers is played by Suki Waterhouse

Suki Waterhouse plays Karen, the keyboardist of The Six. 

Karen was seen as a revolutionary for being one of the first female rockers in a time where women were only beginning to seek opportunities outside of the traditional gender norms.

She is staunchly against having a family and the notion of being trapped into the housewife lifestyle, which was a bold stance to take during that time. 

She’s in a relationship with Billy’s brother and the band’s co-founder Graham, but they choose to keep their dating status under wraps.

‘She has a lot of internal struggle. She’s very determined to not have a family,’ Waterhouse told Us Weekly of Karen’s decision to keep her relationship with Graham private.

‘And those things are very acceptable to say now, but in that time period you’d be up against that and fight against society even more,’ she explained.

Waterhouse had no experience playing the keyboard so she had to work extra to land the role and she describes the experience as ‘the hardest I’ve ever tried to get something in my life.’

‘I wore a wig in my apartment, got a really shaky keyboard from the local Target or whatever. I spent the whole of Christmas learning, learning, learning. I had two weeks before I had to go to L.A. and do an actual performance,’ she said.

‘I crammed it in over Christmas. And for the audition, I really went for it. It took a couple of auditions. That was the hardest I’ve ever tried to get something in my life.’ 

If Karen were to be compared to any members of Fleetwood Mac, it would be Christine McVie, who also played the keyboard and accordion.

For Waterhouse, she saw Joan Jett as the rock ‘n’ roll inspiration for her character. 

‘Karen is just the coolest. And I love that she kind of has that Joan Jett vibe,’ she told the outlet.

Waterhouse was so inspired by her character, Karen, that it encouraged her to record her own music and go on tour.

‘I really wanted that project, and maybe subconsciously it was something to do with my own desire to make a record,’ she told Insider.

Mother of three Camila Dunne who stood by husband Billy during his escapades played by Camila Morrone

Camila Morrone plays Camila, Billy’s wife and mother to his three children.

According to Deadline, throughout the course of the series, she ‘follows the love of her life in his pursuit of rock stardom only to discover her own potential along the way.’

She first met the rocker when he was performing at a wedding. 

In the novel, their relationship moved quickly and they got engaged after The Six signed their first record deal. 

They ultimately tied the knot when Camila got pregnant during the band’s first tour.

In the early stages of their relationship, Billy is unfaithful to Camila and abuses drugs.

Eventually, Camila encourages him to become sober before the birth of their first child. 

While he proved his dedication to her by quitting his drug habit, she still is forced to question their connection when Daisy enters the picture and the chemistry between the two bandmates is undeniable.

In the trailer, she challenges his connection with Daisy, stating: ‘I used to be the first one you played things for.’

He insists that the connection between him and Daisy is just an act, but Camila doesn’t seem convinced.

She later reaches her breaking point, telling him: ‘If you love her… that is why this ends.’ 

Even though Camila is a very vulnerable character, Morrone realizes the strength within that.

‘Relentless hope and unconditional loyalty and love but not just for her partner but herself. I think that’s an unwavering quality that she has,’ she said on Where’s The Buzz.

‘She has a very clear understanding of what she wants and nothing is going to get in her way. Not Billy. Not Daisy,’ she added.

The Six’s co-creator and Billy’s brother, Graham Dunne, is played by Will Harrison

Will Harrison plays Billy’s brother and The Six’s co-creator, Graham Dunne. He is the one who comes up with the idea of the band and inspires them to take the big leap of becoming one of the decade’s top bands.

He plays guitar for the band and also writes songs, which leads to him butting heads with Billy.

While he is very much in love with his bandmate, Karen, he is also frustrated about having to keep their relationship a secret. 

Funnily enough, he initially didn’t read for the role of Graham. He had read for the role of Eddie Roundtree, the bassist, when Keough made the realization that ‘he is Graham.’ 

‘I had auditioned for a few of the roles a lot of of the cast and I was auditioning for Eddie at one point,’ he told TODAY.

He continued: ‘I had done a Zoom callback, I guess Riley had been in the room, and when we finished, they were like, “What do you think?” And I think she said, “Well, he’s not Eddie. He’s Graham.”‘

As far as rock star credentials go, he admitted: ‘I played guitar before this. Certainly not as well as I can now.’

Ultimately, he called working on Daisy Jones & The Six a ‘dream project’ and weighed in on how much his character and the show as a whole can be attributed to Fleetwood Mac.

‘It certainly takes some inspiration [from Fleetwood Mac],’ he told ABC. 

‘But there’s also so many bands of the time period that have all these love triangles, stories of love and breakups that happen within them so it really pulls from a lot of different artists.’ 

Even though it’s still not fully based on the hit 70s band, he still hopes that Stevie Nicks, one of the inspirations behind Daisy Jones, would enjoy. 

‘I hope that [Stevie Nicks] would maybe have some fond memories sparked because it’s a wonderful representation of that time period,’ he told the network.

Laidback drummer Warren Rhodes is played by Sebastian Chacon

Sebastian Chacon plays what Variety describes as ‘the fun-loving, unpretentious back bone of the Six,’ Warren Rhodes. 

While his bandmates tend to clash over their passion and intense nature, he manages to ‘keep perspective and enjoy the ride, never losing sight of his small town roots’ due to his laidback nature.

Chacon had a musical background before taking the role and had even played the drums growing up.

‘I was immersed in music by my parents from a very young age,’ he told Flaunt. ‘I’ve played the piano for as long as I can remember and played the drums since I was in middle school.’

‘My mother and I would sing constantly and there would always be music playing in the house,’ he added. 

However, the music in Daisy Jones & The Six isn’t anything like what he listened to growing up. 

‘I actually never listened to a lot of classic rock as a kid – I grew up on disco, funk, & Latin music,’ he told CONTENTMan.

‘The extra time has really given me the chance to dive into the music that my character would have been influenced by as a rock musician in the 70s,’ he continued.

Like his castmates, he also drew inspiration from some real-life rock stars, including Fleetwood Mac’s drummer Mick Fleetwood. 

‘The show is inspired very clearly by Fleetwood Mac but we also draw from a lot of different sources so it’s not just a fictionalized account of them but more just a new whole new story,’ he told Where is the Buzz.

Some of those other influences are Mitch Mitchell, Ginger Baker, and Jo Jones whom he said helped him to ‘build an identity of who Warren is as a player and as a person.’

Fiery bassist Eddie Roundtree is played by Josh Whitehouse

Josh Whitehouse plays Eddie Roundtree, described by Deadline as a ‘fiery bassist of The Six who can’t seem to shake the chip on his shoulder that comes from being in someone else’s band.’

Eddie is seemingly a combination of two bandmates in from the book, Pete and Eddie Loving, who also happen to be brothers like Billy and Graham. 

Pete is the same role in the band as Eddie Roundtree – the bassist – but ultimately leaves the band to settle down with his girlfriend. 

However, his personality seems more like the other brother and his character’s namesake, Eddie Loving.

Eddie Loving plays the rhythm guitar but clashes with Billy and struggles to work collaboratively much like how Eddie Roundtree is described.

In the series, the two characters may be even more fused since Whitehouse stated the character went from playing guitar to bass.

‘I’m a guitarist in life but in the show I’m playing bass which is similar to my character. He starts as a guitarist and is asked to play bass,’ he told BT. 

He also used the periodic elements of the film to connect to Eddie. 

‘Aesthetically, I find being able to step into new wardrobe and something that’s so far from how I dress, it just immediately informs how I stand, how I behave,’ he explained. 

‘I love when I get to play a character where I’m wearing something so different and so colorful or bright.’

He had a head start in preparing for the character since he grew up playing and pursuing music. 

‘The fact that I get to play a musician again, it cut short a lot of my prep time because I’ve been prepping to be a musician my whole life,’ he told Collider.

He added: ‘I feel like there isn’t so much to learn, in terms of attitude or feeling, or knowing how it feels to want to succeed in music, which gives me a lot more freedom to think about the reasons for my character choices and focus on the script.’