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Richard E. Aaron / RedfernsOkay, let me give you some clues.

A band that was big in the ’70s with both female and male members. A female keyboardist. Both male and female lead vocalists. Tumultuous inter-band relationships. Sound familiar? Yep, it’s Fleetwood Mac.

Their Rumours era saw the band at odds with each other constantly, writing songs that were thinly veiled jabs at their fellow bandmates. Off stage, their dynamic was closer to that of enemies than friends, but somehow, one of the ’70s biggest rock albums came out of that melting pot of hatred and resentment.

After a couple more albums, the band split, before reuniting in 1997 for a concert called ‘The Dance’. How they created such an iconic album while waging a civil war amongst themselves was a mystery to many, and one that fans never really got an answer to.

When Taylor Jenkins-Reid watched the reunion concert, she couldn’t help but notice the tension in the air, and the way Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham looked at each other during songs. This enduring mystery sparked the idea for Jenkins-Reid’s book, which would replicate Fleetwood Mac’s arc, but give the fans the closure they’d sought for decades. (Collider)

Watch any of the studio scenes in the show and you can see the palpable tension between Daisy, Billy, and the rest of the band. With Daisy and Billy passive-aggressively penning songs for one another to sing and forcing them onto the album, the Amazon Prime show is hugely reminiscent of the way Fleetwood Mac worked together.

When her song “Silver Springs” was removed from the album Rumours, Fleetwood Mac singer Stevie Nicks said: “I started to scream bloody murder and probably said every horrible mean thing that you could possibly say to another human being, and walked back in the studio completely flipped out. I said, ‘well, I’m not gonna sing “I Don’t Want to Know”. I am one-fifth of this band.

And they said. ‘Well, if you don’t like it, you can either (a) take a hike or (b) you better go out there and sing “I Don’t Want to Know” or you’re only gonna have two songs on the record.’ And so, basically, with a gun to my head, I went out and sang ‘I Don’t Want to Know’. And they put ‘Silver Springs’ on the back of ‘Go Your Own Way’.”

Why was Stevie so attached to “Silver Springs”? Well, because she wrote it for bandmate and fellow lead singer, Lindsey. She explained at the reunion that inspired Jenkins-Reid that she wanted Lindsey to know: “I’m so angry with you. You will listen to me on the radio for the rest of your life, and it will bug you. I hope it bugs you.”

“It’s not lyrically based on ‘Silver Springs’ at all, and it wouldn’t sound anything like it,” author Taylor told The Guardian. “But that concept of a woman’s right to be angry is absolutely based on Stevie Nicks singing ‘Silver Springs’ at Lindsey Buckingham during their reunion show, The Dance.”

This whole story could have been written about Daisy and Billy, so the inspiration is clearly seen throughout the show.

Co-producer Lauren Neustadter said lip-syncing was never on the table, and that the band needed to really be a band. Reese, who sang her own vocals in her Oscar-winning role as June Carter Cash in Walk The Line, “knew what a challenge it would be, but also knew exactly what was possible”.

Talking about the cast’s musical achievements, Reese said: “I’m just their biggest fan. I watched how hard they worked for seven, eight months of rehearsing, learning the instruments and trying to play in sync. They did that and it’s such a huge accomplishment.”  

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Amazon Prime Video / Via youtube.com

Showrunner Scott Neustadter said: “A week before we started shooting, my wife (producer Lauren Neustadter) was like, ‘they’re very comfortable, but they’ve never performed for a group, for a crowd. And I need to know that they can do that. Because if they can do it, they’ll be fine into a camera.’ We wanted to seem as authentic as we could, so we made them do a concert.”  

They invited over 100 people from Prime Video to witness the band perform. The group was given a set list and absolutely no help, but according to Neustadter:  “It was them and the instruments and they had to sing and they had to perform and they killed it.”

Recalling the experience, Sam Claflin said, “It was a strange experience. It was the first time we were all in costume together, and we were on a stage. And at the last minute, they were like, ‘Oh, can you also introduce each song and do some banter between each number?'”

Josh Whitehouse, who plays bassist Eddie in the show, said, “We always had a live feed going out of all of our instruments. So if somebody [did] like a little cool thing and they wanted to keep it, then they could take the audio and mix it into the track.”

She told the Hollywood Reporter: “One prerequisite for every project that we do (at Hello Sunshine) is: would I want to be in it? I desperately wanted to be in this project, but there’s nothing for me to play. I would even play the tambourine in this because I love it so much.”

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Amazon Prime Video / Via youtube.com

Sam Claflin said he auditioned when most of the cast had already been hired and had no idea what it was about or that it was a novel.

While he described himself as a “very competent shower singer,” being thrown into the studio was daunting for Claflin, who said, laughing: “The first time I ever walked into a recording studio was my audition for this, and the way they tell you to make love to a microphone was something that was very brand new to me.”

His cover of “Your Song” may not have been good enough to make the album, but author Taylor Jenkins-Reid said Sam won her over when he performed a scene where Billy refuses to pick up his baby daughter after returning home from rehab.

The author said, “I saw a lot of auditions for Billy over a long period of time. I watched that scene and cried. And that was when I was like, ‘They’ll figure out if you can sing or not.’ I don’t care.”

Talking about his experience learning to not only sing but also convincingly front a ’70s rock band, Claflin said it was a comfort that costar and fellow lead singer Riley Keough had no experience either: “For me, it was nice knowing that I was going on this musical journey with someone who had no musical experience either. She’d never sung before.”

Given her family history (grandad Elvis Presley, mom Lisa Marie and younger brother Benjamin struggled with addiction), Riley said: “Because this is something I’ve experienced in my family, I wanted the moments in which you see Daisy’s addiction to not feel glamorous, to make sure that those moments had weight to them, that we’re seeing the humanity behind the closed doors of what people are perceiving to be glamour.”

Sebastian said, “Warren has a great sense of our problems being luxury and that every issue that we have to deal with is like ‘wow, I’m blessed that I have to have this issue.

Growing up, I had the same kind of thing. My parents are both immigrants from South America, and they grew up in conditions where they couldn’t even imagine the life that I’m living right now. Warren — the way that I put him together as a Columbia dude born in 1950 — couldn’t possibly imagine having any of these luxuries.”

Obviously, Fleetwood Mac was a big inspiration for the band, but strangely enough, the Australian kids’ band the Wiggles also got more popular when they added a red-headed female musician to their line-up!

Author Taylor Jenkins-Reid said: “I did not directly take anything from the Wiggles, but when I started watching the Wiggles with my kid, I got very involved in the drama and how it resembled so many of the other bands I used for inspiration like ABBA, Wings, No Doubt, and Sonic Youth.”

Josh Whitehouse, who plays outspoken bassist Eddie, often clashes horns with frontman Billy. As an inspiration for his character, Josh looked to none other than Scar from The Lion King!

He said: “Every time Billy’s walking out the room, it’s like Billy’s trying to steal the kingdom and take everybody away…it’s like (Eddie)’s trying to take over but in a very sneaky way. And then he’s always being so nice to Billy to his face, as well. To an extent, he’s a villain. But at the same time, I hope that I brought enough life to him that people see the goodness in him as well.”

The show was determined to be as faithful to the era it calls its home, employing a historical drug specialist who came to the set and explained the attitude and awareness of addiction during the ’70s.

Riley Keough said: “I think that (author) Taylor did such a good job at researching what that looked like in that era, and there wasn’t as much awareness of things like addiction during that time. We actually met with a guy who came in and explained what the thoughts were about addiction in the ’70s and how it was and wasn’t thought of, and that was really helpful. So, I think it was fairly accurate in terms of the awareness around addiction at the time.”  

They also had Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth come to the writers’ room once a week as a consultant, with co-showrunner Will Graham saying: “She spoke to what it’s like to be onstage and to have this electricity happen around you.”

Another way to keep the show feeling authentic — though perhaps a less above-board one — was forcing moonshine on Sam Claflin to quell his stage nerves!

“I didn’t even know it was a real drink,” he said.