‘Daisy Jones & The Six’s’ Riley Keough, Sam Claflin On Transforming From Beginners To Rockers

Riley Keough and Sam Claflin are opening up about how they went from actors with little musical experience to ’70s rockers for “Daisy Jones & the Six.”

In an interview with Variety, Keough and Claflin, who play the lead singers of a world-famous 1970s rock band in the Amazon Prime limited series, said that they both had no professional singing experience when they were cast and that there had been concern that they wouldn’t be able to perform the 25 original songs written for the show.

However, the pair said they turned down suggestions of having vocal doubles sing on the tracks. Instead, the two, along with their co-stars and bandmates Suki Waterhouse, Will Harrison, Josh Whitehouse and Sebastian Chacon, took on the challenge of learning to play their designated instruments and perform the music.

Keough and Claflin shared that they were able to hone their singing and playing skills due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which delayed production for a year and a half to September 2021.

“In all honesty, one of the best things to ever happen to this production was the fact that we had a delay,” Claflin told the outlet. “That meant that we could all get up to speed and get to the same page.”

Keough and Claflin said a big part of their training was focusing on their vocal chemistry, as almost all the songs in the series are duets.

“We met once, and then we walked into this room and had to sing ‘Aurora’ together, which is a pretty hard song to sing,” Keough shared. “They wanted us to work on our singing chemistry very early on, from day one. So we just kind of met and then were put face-to-face and they were like, ‘Sing at each other!'”

“Be in love!” Claflin added. “In that moment, the pressure also got lifted a bit. It was like, ‘OK, it’s not just all on my shoulders. It’s not me miles behind everyone else.’ Like, we’ve got this together.”

The cast attended an intensive three-month band camp led by music supervisor Frankie Pine and several musical coaches before rehearsals were moved to Zoom during the lockdown.

According to Keough, there were weeks during band camp when she knew songs better than Claflin and weeks when the latter was better than her.

“We pushed each other to get better,” Claflin said. “I don’t know, it was like a team effort.”

By the time training ended, Claflin, Keough and their castmates could perform live well enough to convince everyone that they were “a real band,” according to Pine.

Claflin and Keough’s efforts apparently paid off as a number of viewers and social media users have praised their performance in the new drama series.

“I cannot believe Riley Keough and Sam Claflin were hiding all that musical talent from us,” one tweeted.

Another agreed, commenting: “And the fact that they sound incredible together.”

“Riley Keough and Sam Claflin’s voices are incredible. They compliment each other so much… [Daisy Jones & the Six’s 11-track debut album] ‘Aurora’ for a Grammy, I think, the whole album is incredible!” a third fan wrote.

Music industry veteran Tony Berg, who provided additional production and served as chief music consultant on the show, also complimented the pair for stepping up for their roles.

“What we wanted to do was find their real voices, and let them sing as they would if they were the singers in the biggest rock band in the world,” Berg told Variety of the duo. “And to Riley and Sam’s credit, they stepped up.”

Claflin and Keough teased that they are open to going on a real Daisy Jones & the Six tour.

“I think that we’d all love to, if it was the right moment,” Keough said. “We want a comeback show!”

“And we can,” Claflin added. “That’s the beautiful thing.”

“Daisy Jones & the Six” is now available to stream on Prime Video.