“Sound City is the place where Mick Fleetwood first heard Lindsey Buckingham play the guitar and has this amazing, storied history,” Neustadter notes. If these walls could sing: Elton John, Nirvana, Tom Petty, Guns N’ Roses, Johnny Cash and Red Hot Chili Peppers all laid down tracks there.
“The space of Sound City has this unpretentious magic,” Graham said. “You can kind of feel the ghosts of everyone who’s recorded there. We wanted the audience to be in these rooms with the characters. So that became a huge part of the show and the writing process. We had the unique experience of getting to watch Blake and Tony make this album and write some pieces of that into the script.”
Honestly, the more I hear about Neustadter and Graham’s process in researching for “Daisy Jones,” the more jealous I get. They talked to Bernie Taupin about his long-standing collaboration with Elton John. Sonic Youth’s Kim Gordon shared stories in the writers’ room about what it’s like being married to your bandmate. Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros’ Nora Kirkpatrick was a writer on the show.
Meanwhile, because of COVID-related production delays, the series’ stars, including Riley Keough and Sam Claflin, became more than just actors pretending to be a band. Daisy Jones & the Six turned into something real, and it’s on repeat in my earbuds.
I never could say the same about “Cop Rock.”
