Why Daisy Jones & the Six only has five band members on the show

Maureen Lee Lenker
·3 min read
Why Daisy Jones & the Six only has five band members on the show

Warning: This article contains spoilers from Daisy Jones & the Six episodes 1-3.

Perhaps one of the biggest differences between Daisy Jones & the Six and the novel it's based on is that the band doesn't quite live up to its name — in the Amazon Prime Video series, the legendary rock band is reduced to only five core members (not counting Daisy Jones, played by Riley Keough).

Originally, the Six is made up of frontman Billy Dunne (Sam Claflin), his brother, guitarist Graham (Will Harrison), keyboardist Karen Sirko (Suki Waterhouse), drummer Warren (Sebastian Chacon), rhythm guitarist Eddie (Josh Whitehouse), and bassist Pete Loving.

But in the series, Pete Loving — who speaks very little in the oral history that comprises the Taylor Jenkins Reid source material — is no more. Now, he's Chuck Loving (Jack Romano), a combination of Chuck Williams and Pete Loving from the novel. While Pete is technically there on the page, he barely speaks, and Chuck dies early in the book after being drafted into the Vietnam War.

In the series, Chuck Loving exits the band to study dentistry as the rest head to Los Angeles in search of a big break. But there's a very practical reason for that change.

"We got rid of Pete immediately," showrunner Scott Neustadter tells EW. "I was always thinking about the Pete Best version of somebody who — when you're really young and you're at the crossroads of your life — you can either take a huge risk and join a rock band and hope that something happens for you, or you can, like, not do that, because how frequently does that work out? Knowing that the band becomes huge, you can have fun watching somebody make the wrong choice."

Daisy Jones & the Six
Daisy Jones & the Six

Lacey Terrell/Prime Video Sam Claflin (Billy), Suki Waterhouse (Karen), Josh Whitehouse (Eddie), Will Harrison (Graham), and Sebastian Chacon (Warren) perform as Daisy Jones & the Six

"That's where that came from," he continues. "He has to still be alive in order to make the wrong choice."

As for keeping the band's name even down a member, well, that was fairly non-negotiable.

"At one point, I did ask Taylor, 'What if we change the name of the band?'" says Neustadter with a laugh. "She and her manager who sent me the book were like, 'Please don't do that.'"

Instead, they found a creative way around it, interjecting Camila (Camila Morrone) more fully into the life of the band from the start. She's not merely Billy's wife and mother of his children, but also a photographer who believes deeply in the band. She's there at recording sessions with her camera, and she moves to L.A. with them from the get-go. In essence, she is the honorary sixth member of the Six.

"The Six was definitely not going anywhere," he says. "So then it was, let's justify it. They are all sitting in a booth and Camila is there, and Camila is the sixth member of the band. I thought that made sense, that Karen would look at that group and go, 'We are six people and we're a family.'"

Daisy Jones & the Six episodes 1-3 are now streaming on Prime Video. Episodes 4-6 drop March 10.

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