The miniseries’ real-life inspiration explained

Amazon’s 2023 miniseries Daisy Jones and the Six transported viewers back to the 1970s with its incredibly authentic documentary style and catchy rock songs – and the show was so believable that many viewers wondered if Daisy Jones & the Six were a real band. Based on the novel of the same name by Taylor Jenkins Reid, Daisy Jones and the Six focused on Riley Keough’s Daisy Jones and her bandmates as they dominated the music scene in Los Angeles, gained global stardom, and ultimately fell apart due to personality conflicts and creative differences during their national tour.

All about Daisy Jones and the Six it felt real. Even though viewers knew the show was filmed in the 2020s and starred contemporary actors like Keough and co-stars Suki Waterhouse, Camila Morrone, Timothy Olyphant and others, the story and the band felt incredibly realistic. Although it appeared that Daisy Jones & the Six could have been a real band from the 1970s, both they and their music were fictional. However, there was a real band that inspired Daisy Jones and the Six, and their story has many similarities to the titular group of the Amazon Prime Video miniseries.

Daisy Jones and the Six are based on Fleetwood Mac

The titular band has direct inspiration from real life

Daisy Jones & the Six weren’t a real band, despite their story appearing authentic in the show. However, There’s one main reason why his story felt so believable and why his music sounded somehow familiar to many viewers – Daisy Jones and the Six is heavily based on the rise and fall of Fleetwood Mac. Daisy Jones and the Six Author Taylor Jenkins Reid, who wrote the novel on which the Amazon Prime Video miniseries is based, has always been open about her inspiration from watching Fleetwood Mac perform.

As the titular group in Daisy Jones and the Six, Fleetwood Mac has had an incredible journey as a band that has seen many ups and downs – although that hasn’t stopped them from becoming known as one of the most influential rock groups of all time. Although Fleetwood Mac’s lineup has changed many times over the years, it is their 1970s lineup that many listeners know them for (and which most closely resemble the titular band in Daisy Jones and the Six). This lineup features Stevie Nicks on vocals, Lindsey Buckingham on guitar and vocals, Christine McVie on keyboards and vocals, John McVie on bass and Mick Fleetwood on drums.

Although not the original lineup, 1970s Fleetwood Mac was responsible for the band’s most successful albums, including the hugely influential “Rumors,” released in 1977, which won the Grammy for Album of the Year in 1978 and remains an of the most influential. best-selling albums in history. Fleetwood Mac went through many lineup changes in the following years and went on a long hiatus. Although they still continued into the 2010s, it was the band during the “Rumours” era that Daisy Jones and the Six is based on.

What Daisy Jones & The Six have in common with Fleetwood Mac

The inspiration is obvious when examined closer

Daisy Jones and the Six is not a direct adaptation of the Fleetwood Mac story. The miniseries is not a biopic – the band is completely fictional and there are many, many differences between the two. Fleetwood Mac wasn’t the only inspiration for the band either, Daisy Jones and the Six, like Taylor Jenkins Reid has also been open about other 1970s groups and musicians (such as Bruce Springsteen and Joni Mitchell) also influencing her creative choices when crafting the story and the fictional band it focuses on.

However, the main inspiration was directly Fleetwood Mac, and this goes not only for the sound and aesthetics of the bad in Daisy Jones and the Six, but also the many interpersonal dramas and relationship consequences that occurred in the plot of the book and miniseries. This is perhaps most evident when we compare Fleetwood Mac’s album “Rumours” and the fictional album released by Daisy Jones & the Six in the miniseries, entitled “Aurora”.

Both “Rumours” and “Aurora” feature songs inspired by affairs and breakups. The most notable examples are Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams” (written by Stevie Nicks about the end of her relationship with Lindsey Buckingham) and “Look At Us Now (Honeycomb)” by Daisy Jones and the Six, a song written by the band, but which is mainly based on Billy Dunne’s (Sam Claflin) experiences with infidelity and addiction.

The band members in Daisy Jones and the Six also parallel members of Fleetwood Mac during the “Rumors” era. Daisy Jones and her incredibly unique vocal style are heavily inspired by Stevie Nicks, for example. Billy Dunne, on the other hand, is clearly based on Fleetwood Mac guitarist and songwriter Lindsey Buckingham. The fictional band’s creative struggles and personality clashes also reflect the real one, especially when it comes to Daisy Jones joining the band late and becoming the main focus, which mirrors the addition of Stevie Nicks to the Fleetwood Mac lineup.

The differences between Fleetwood Mac and Daisy Jones and the six

The miniseries is not a biographical film

While Fleetwood Mac inspired the titular band in Daisy Jones and the Six Of course, given the high level of similarities between the two, there are also many differences. For example, the timelines between the fictional group and the real-life rock icons don’t line up. Daisy Jones and the Six broke up in 1977 after the “Aurora” tour. The show and book imply that they never reconciled and that their split marked the end of a musical era.

On the other hand, Fleetwood Mac continued to tour until 2019. Over the decades, Fleetwood Mac has had many lineup changes, but, with the exception of a hiatus between 1997 and 2003, they continued making and playing music together long after the release of “Rumours.” and the end of what many fans consider its “classic” cast.

What’s more, the rise of Daisy Jones and the Six was much more meteoric. The miniseries’ titular band achieved stardom shortly after its initial formation. The same did not happen with Fleetwood Mac, whose original lineup (which was different from the band members on “Rumours”) began in 1967. What’s more, Fleetwood Mac was formed in London before moving to the U.S. and gaining fame. in Los Angeles.

The fictional band released a real album

The story may not be real, but the music is

While the band in Daisy Jones and the Six It’s not real, there was an album of original songs released for the show. “Aurora” was released by Atlantic Records in 2023, with many of the band’s singles from the miniseries like “Regret Me” and “Look At Us Now (Honeycomb)” included on the album. While the band’s story may have been fictional, the music they played in the show was completely authentic – an even more impressive feat given how well it imitated the unique sound and feel of 1970s groups like Fleetwood Mac.

What’s more, Riley Keough and Sam Claflin perform vocals on the album. The actors in Daisy Jones and the Six are actually singing in the band’s songs. This undoubtedly led many viewers to question whether the miniseries’ story was real, as it significantly increased the documentary-style show’s credibility. “Aurora” seems indistinguishable from many other albums and records by real groups from the 1970sand it’s no surprise that Daisy Jones and the Six it received a Grammy nomination for Best Compilation Soundtrack for Visual Media because of it.