As members of the fictional band Daisy Jones & The Six continue to come together to create the massively successful group at the center of the Prime Video series from Taylor Jenkins Reid's novel of the same name, the actors behind the characters underwent an intense band camp and extensive rehearsal to learn how to play their instruments and sing live, bringing authenticity to their performances.
"All of us were actually, like, pretty nervous and being pretty silly, to be honest," Suki Waterhouse says of the cast coming together as they underwent the transformation process from being mere actors with various musical chops to becoming credible musicians who can also act.
She recalls that in the beginning, "we were collectively being really bad over and over again until we finally, you know, actually got good."
While speaking to ET, the series' stars, Waterhouse (Karen Sirko), Riley Keough (Daisy Jones), Sam Caflin (Billy Dunne) and Josh Whitehouse (Eddie Roundtree), as well as members of the creative team talk about how the actors effectively became a real-life group of their own and if they'll ever go on tour, performing the songs for Daisy Jones & The Six's hit album, Aurora.
"So much went into the preparation of us being able to pull this off and perform together," Whitehouse says, revealing that they dedicated at least six months to band camp in addition to "practicing through the pandemic."
Adding to that, Keough says, as a group, "we had months of jam sessions, we had months of rehearsals, so we were basically in band practice for, I don't know, a year."
"We were blessed with a lot of time," Caflin says, while commending "the amount of people involved in making this a reality, from the coaches to the producers." He adds that "everyone was so supportive. I think they had more belief in me than I had in myself."
While Nabiyah Be has her own rehearsals, learning to embody disco pioneer Simone Jackson, she occasionally went to the group's rehearsals. "I was invited to their band camp. So, I was there as the audience sometimes to give support or just learn the songs for my own pleasure," she says.
Looking back on those rehearsals, Keough's favorite memory is "when we started being able to play together," she recalls. "Because there was a long time where we were working on our instruments and things alone. And then once we were good enough, they put us together in the same room and that was really exciting because we all got to work together and run through the songs."
After everything eventually came together, the actors had to perform a live concert for everyone on the team before they could officially start filming. "We actually played a gig together in front of the whole crew," Whitehouse says. "It was nerve racking but, like, a really great experience to be able to get that under our belt before we started."
In the end, the hard work paid off. "I was not just blown away but really, really proud of them because you can tell how hard they worked and you could tell that this is not a show in which it's a bunch of actors pretending these are people that became musicians, they became a rock band," Reid says.
Echoing that sentiment, executive producer Lauren Levy Neustadter says, "They really became a band and… they blew us away."
And if there was anyone who was the most impressed, it was executive producer Reese Witherspoon. "I nearly fell out of my chair, it was just so beautiful that they had taken the time to learn these instruments, to really learn to be in sync with each other," she says.
"It's pretty amazing, you know, we really came from not being able to play anything on a guitar or sing, really to having a full record going out, which is, like, crazy to us," Keough says.
In addition to contributions from the actors -- most notably Keough and Claflin lent their vocals to each track -- that record was helmed by Blake Mills and features co-writing credits from Marcus Mumford, Phoebe Bridgers and Jackson Browne. Additionally, instrumentalists from Rilo Kiley, The Who, Nine Inch Nails, Pearl Jam, David Bowie, Elton John, Jeff Beck, The Wallflowers helped with the overall production.
When asked about working on Aurora, Mumford says it felt like a holiday. "We wrote songs while I was in the studio with Blake, working on my record. And I knew he'd been working on this music for a long time," the singer recalls, before eventually being asked to help out. "It's fun writing for a character rather than writing autobiographically."
For Reid, it's a dream come true to finally know what Daisy Jones & The Six sound like. "I always had this vague idea that I pulled from a lot of different places," she says, revealing that once she heard the final product, she thought, "That's what it always was… They sound great."
Witherspoon adds, "The original songs -- I can't. You're gonna die… There's like two, three songs that you will never be able to shake. They're so good."
Considering all the hard work the actors put into becoming a real-life band and the fact that they have a full album of original music, it remains to be seen if they will ever perform live -- for more than just the crew -- or go on tour.
When asked about it, everyone seems to be on board, especially the show's producers. "We're ready, let's do it," Neustadter says, with Witherspoon adding, "They need to go on tour."
"A hundred percent. All of us are so down for the tour. We're waiting for the call," Waterhouse says, confirming everyone's sentiments.
"We've said this before, but you need to ask Amazon," Keough offers in the end before Waterhouse adds with some promise it may happen: "I just hope the schedules align."
Daisy Jones & The Six is now streaming on Prime Video.
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