For Marcus Mumford, getting concerned with the unique music for “Daisy Jones & the Six” was a matter of being in the proper place on the proper time.
The Mumford & Sons frontman was working at L.A.’s Sound City Studios on his solo document with multi-instrumentalist and producer Blake Mills — who co-wrote and govt produced all 25 songs heard within the Prime Video collection, which chronicles the rise and fall of a ’70s rock band — when Mills requested if he wished to assist write a tune for the present.
“It was a slower day for my document and Blake was like, ‘Look, do you wanna do this factor for Daisy?’” Mumford tells Variety. “And I usually suppose that… writing begets extra writing. If you’re capable of flex an analogous muscle otherwise, then it might probably usually assist the writing you’ve in entrance of you as effectively.”
That thought grew to become “Look at Us Now (Honeycomb),” Daisy Jones & the Six’s first massive hit, which Mumford co-wrote with Mills, Jason Boesel, Stephony Smith and Johnathan Rice. The music, an embodiment of the love-hate relationship between lead singers Daisy Jones (Riley Keough) and Billy Dunne (Sam Claflin), doubles as a feel-good anthem with its hovering harmonies and timeless guitar chords. Mumford was so enamored with the observe that he determined to place his personal twist on it.
“It’s humorous, I texted Riley like, ‘I feel we’ve destroyed your OG model of this music, sorry!’” Mumford says with amusing. “What was difficult about that’s I like the recording they received for the present a lot, and I like Sam and Riley’s vocal a lot, that I used to be a bit like, ‘How can we beat that? I don’t suppose we are able to even attempt to compete with it.’”
Starting out as a easy folk-rock ballad, the practically six-minute authentic “Look at Us Now” builds to a fever pitch with high-voltage instrumentation and an electrifying guitar solo. But Mumford wished to revisit the music with a softer, extra trendy contact.
“It felt like that’s the model you’ll placed on an album within the ’70s,” Mumford says of the unique observe. “I had fairly a transparent thought of how you may edit it, as a result of I hadn’t been there for the recording session and the final I’d performed with the music was in its extra concise model with out the complete band, with out the guitar solos. So I felt like I had entry to that model of the music in my head.”
Since the music is a duet by nature, Mumford knew he wanted a powerhouse companion — and nation singer-songwriter Maren Morris was the primary one that got here to thoughts. Despite operating in related circles, Mumford and Morris had by no means labored collectively, and this appeared like the proper motive.
“She responded actually enthusiastically right away, after which it got here collectively tremendous quick,” Mumford says. “Blake and I labored on the edit after which we referred to as up Abe [Rounds] and Pino [Palladino], who had already performed the music, so it was actually quick to get them to place down a observe. And then Maren got here in, and we sang all of it in sooner or later and received it.”
Mumford says the largest problem was making “Look at Us Now” as “completely different as we might with out shedding the essence of the music.” That required Mumford to catch Morris up on the plot of the collection to get her in character, so to talk.
“She began out singing too properly. She sounded too candy and exquisite and sort,” Mumford says. “And we had been like, ‘No, you’ll want to successfully be giving me a bollocking as your duet companion.’ And so she ended up with this take that is stuffed with chew and it’s actually dope.”
What attracted Morris to the undertaking was the present’s sincere and knowledgeable tackle the music trade.
“Shows depicting the truth of what it takes to grow to be a band or what it’s actually like touring can so usually get it fallacious. One of the elements of ‘Daisy Jones’ is that they selected to floor this fictional universe with actual songwriting,” Morris tells Variety. “The music within the present that Blake Mills created and the unbelievable performances by the actors provides this world a heartbreaking authenticity. I’m so honored to have gotten to sing on ‘Look at Us Now’ with Marcus.”
“She’s like a fucking professional as effectively,” Mumford provides. “I’m over there coughing and splattering and ingesting glowing water and she or he’s all warmed up along with her lozenges, able to go. She actually confirmed me up.”
Listen to Mumford and Morris’ model of “Look at Us Now (Honeycomb)” under.
