STEVIE NICKS IS GOING HER OWN WAY - Sunday Express Oct. 18, 2009
 

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Sunday October 18,2009

IN A frank interview, the Fleetwood Mac star tells CHARLOTTE HEATHCOTE about sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll and how, despite being battered by all three, she's emerged stronger than ever.

Fleetwood Mac are as famed for their in-fighting, feuds and messy, almost incestuous inter-band romances as for Go Your Own Way, Don’t Stop, Everywhere, The Chain and countless other adult-oriented rock songs that have seen them shift more than 100million records.

Stevie Nicks, however, makes absolutely no attempt to put a shiny PR gloss on the legendary tensions.

“We did our first tour and we were p***** off with each other then. We made another record [Rumours] and we were all angry with each other afterwards. We did Tusk and that was 13 months of anger. We did an 18-month tour and by the time that was done everyone was really not speaking...”

She’s half-weary, half-wry. “It’s really nothing new. It’s been happening since time began but if this was a bland, boring band we’d definitely not still be together.”

Stevie and her then-boyfriend Lindsey Buckingham brought a stability of sorts to the shape-shifting line-up of Fleetwood Mac in 1975, joining Mick Fleetwood, John and Christine McVie.

Christine left 11 years ago, ground down by relentless touring, and Stevie misses her ally “every day”.

The other four remain a unit, on the whole, which is especially miraculous when you consider that Stevie and Buckingham’s six-year relationship foundered during the recording of the drug-fuelled Rumours in 1976 (the McVies were splitting at the same time) and, shortly after the Rumours tour, Stevie fell for Fleetwood. They separated for the sake of the band.

By the time of Fleetwood Mac’s last tour, 2003’s Say You Will, Stevie’s relationship with Buckingham had become so fraught that, unless he treated her better this time around, she threatened to walk away “so fast that palm tree tops will fall on his head”.

Now, she says the underlying problem was how much she hated the Say You Will album.

“It was five years ago now so I can say I didn’t like it at all; I didn’t like making it, I didn’t like the songs, so that tour was very hard for me.”

On a Greatest Hits tour, however, there is no new material to quibble over.

“Doing all the very famous material is actually more fun,” insists this born entertainer. “It’s been a breath of fresh air for us to not have to worry about trying to sell [new] songs.”

With five platinum-selling solo records to her name, Stevie is easily the most successful member of Fleetwood Mac. Wasn’t she tempted to walk away during Say You Will?

“Well, I’m a peacemaker and I didn’t want us to break up because the music didn’t go my way. If I’ve learned nothing else in my 61 years it is that four years down the line you’re over it.” She sees the remaining foursome touring for another seven or eight years.

“I’m a performer and an entertainer, that’s what I live for. I would be dancing on tables in bars if I wasn’t in Fleetwood Mac, doing small shows all over the world, driving my van.”

Stevie’s passion for entertaining runs so deep, however, that she admits she has sacrificed all of her romantic relationships for the band but with no regrets.

“My love affair is with my work. I’ve had many wonderful relationships but I could never give up what I do for a relationship; in all of my relationships, at some point, that [prioritising] came up.

“Am I sad about the fact that I don’t have a relationship? No. I’m going to Europe to stay in the best hotels, to play huge shows, playing my music, to meet lots of interesting people. So I really don’t care.”

To Stevie’s amusement, her 81-year-old mother reckons she still hasn’t met Mr Right. She’s all too happy for her mother to be proved right but, to date, the love of her life is a member of the Eagles and not the one you’d expect.

After her split with Buckingham she spent 18 months with Don Henley but, of his bandmate Joe Walsh, she says: “He was the great love of my life. I fell in love with Joe in the same way that Lindsey fell in love with me.”

As their cocaine addiction spiralled out of control in the early Eighties, though, Walsh reluctantly left her for both of their sakes. Now she muses: “Maybe the people you can live best with aren’t the great love of your life; the men you love deeply, the calmer, more loving, more solid people but who you weren’t super passionately crazy in love with. The ones to marry aren’t the ones as crazy as you are.”

Her romance with Walsh was not the only fall-out of her drug addiction. Cocaine has left a hole in her septum, leaving her wishing her generation had not been told that cocaine was “safe, recreational and not a bigger deal than smoking pot or cigarettes”.

A bigger regret is that, after successful treatment for cocaine addiction, her friends persuaded her to see a psychiatrist, hoping this would ensure she avoided a relapse. The doctor prescribed the tranquilliser Klonopin.

“That took eight years out of my life,” she says.

“Those were my prime years, my 40s, when a lot of my heavy, creative activity was really happening. Klonopin grabbed hold of you and made you sit down on your couch and not get up.

“I just watched TV for eight years in a daze. I’m sorry I didn’t have a car crash on the way to seeing that doctor.”

So when Stevie finally got herself back on track, she needed to make up for lost time. “I made a decision a long time ago to follow my artistry. I decided that my mission here on this earth was to write songs for people and make them happy.”

● The UK leg of Fleetwood Mac’s Unleashed tour starts on Thursday and the double CD The Very Best of Fleetwood Mac is out tomorrow.

More times than less I pretty much chalk up Stevie's comments to her just being Stevie-ish, but when she says things like this there is an air of arrogance that I just don't like about her. It's enough to hear her criticize and complain about an album/tour that she seemed to have a completely different story about AT THE TIME, but now she has to bring LB into something that's her biz and rub his nose in it. Whatevs. I'd feel the same way about him if he did that, or anyone...I just dislike it.

But other than that, she is totally entitled to her opinion of the SYW album. I'll be honest, none of her songs-save three- move me and I've hated Peacekeeper since I heard Lindsey's original version. But I do love the rest and I guess those who went to see FM on the SYW tour can tell me whether it was any good.

Perhaps if I didn't read the same ol' thing all the time it would be much easier to swallow. I really like Stevie and think she's capable of so much more than rehashing her past horrors over and over...I'd even prefer a song-by-song explanation to this.

Dreams unwind, love's a state of mind.

This upsets me so much. SYW is the best American album of the 00s. Stevie's songs are, by far, her best collection of songs since Tusk.

I understand the album was, ultimately, compromised, and I am glad she's being honest (if she is being honest) but I don't think it gives the album its due. Kinda like Elvis Costello always badmouthing the very interesting (sometimes SUBLIME) Goodbye Cruel World -- especially since it was his last good album. sheesh.

Now, I realize that Lindsey wrote Peacekeeper about her.


Ah well. Lindsey obviously loved her very deeply and has never gotten over her. He cannot stop talking about her and has struggled to find a life for himself without her. It's very sad that she never reciprocated his feelings. How it must have hurt him to see her move on with Joe Walsh, when he never could:rolleyes:.

Michele

I love you. :thumbsup:

By the way, if I have to read that mess about Joe Walsh one more time I will puke. Seriously, someone needs to stop these "interviews" - there's no point to them and she just ends up looking more and more ridiculous.

I think they should just STOP doing interviews altogether. I can't take Stevie's anymore because she sounds like a bitter old hag half the time, and Lindsey sounds like his brain is hooked up to a robotic device and he's simply repeating whatever has been programmed, over and over again.

Maybe John can become their spokesperson. Imagine how short all the new articles would be. All that time...preserved. I could take up a new hobby.

You make some great points. I'm just tired of hearing all the 'same' crap from Stevie. Ok so you don't like this & you don't like that.....whatever.....the drama is so old anymore. To the point I really don't care. She just sounds like she's whinning all the time. If you don't like it get out.....but of course she wouldn't cause the $$ is all good right now. Thats the bottom line not the music or making anything new or heck releasing anything old......I think that works just too hard anymore or its what she really doesn't want to do or so it seems.....anyway, that IMO.....no offence. I still like Stevie but the 'record' that she keeps playing in these interviews is so old.......she be better off not doing an interview........anyway........it is what it is.......:shrug::nod:

Also, Lindsey is not stupid enough or humble enough to believe her when she says stuff like that. So, it's not like hearing this would cut him to the quick, as I'm sure she hopes it will.

I'm sure she did love Joe Walsh madly, but at this point in time, I don't think he's the one man she never got over.

Michele

Exactly. Which is part of why she sounds so ridiculous!

You're right about Lindsey though. I'm sure he snickers if he ever reads it or gets wind of it... (like when she calls him on the phone and quotes it to him verbatim) ... ;)

:thumbsup::nod: Could not be summed up better. That, ladies and gentlemen, is the story in one clear sentence.

This makes me think of that thread we had talking about whether Mick and Stevie went to Lindsey together to tell him about their affair. Can you just see them knocking on his door and explaining, then when he didn't break down in tears, Stevie decides to act it out for him. "I never wanted you to know, but then I reached up to Mick like this . . . " demonstrating with one eye on Mick and the other eye gauging Lindsey's response.

Michele

:lol: :lol: And, then Lindsey went for the razor...

I just love how, during whatever interview, she could be talking about the yearly precipitation in Arizona, the economic downfall in this past year alone, the resurgence of distressed denim on everyone, no matter what LINDSEY BUCKINGHAM always ends up becoming part of the topic of conversation. "Oh, when Lindsey and I were in Arizona..." or "Lindsey hasn't been hit as hard as us with this economic situation because he's frugal..." or "Speaking of distressed denim, I'm remembering when I used to sew things on Lindsey's jeans..."

I mean, if the man disgusts you that much WHY is he always brought up. I avoid people I can't stand. But people I love...I can't stop thinking/talking/dreaming about them. I'm sure if I was a songwriter, well...;)

You're absolutely right. Lindsey and I never would have done drugs, if we hadn't come to Los Angeles. Lindsey and I invested our money. She always speaks in terms of being paired with him and they were only a couple for a short period of time. I mean, they've known each other for over 40 years now, but they were living together for less than 20% of that time. So, there's no reason to talk about him the way she does.

Michele