Interview 6/12/08: Hello St. Louis!
 

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Stevie Nicks will sing songs people want to hear


Stevie Nicks vows to stick with fan favorites for her show hereBy Kevin C. Johnson

When Stevie Nicks comes to Chaifetz Arena this weekend, her fans won't have to worry about her dropping "Gold Dust Woman," "Rhiannon," "Landslide" or other staples to make room for new material.

First of all, Nicks, 60, hasn't released new music since 2001's "Trouble in Shangri-La"; her latest release is last year's "Crystal Visions — The Very Best of Stevie Nicks."

Second, Nicks just isn't into deleting hits from her set.

"People aren't happy with you for doing that, and we've all tried," she says. "The Eagles tried it, Fleetwood Mac tried it, I've tried it. We try to do it because we want to do something different. But then when you do it, you find your audience going to the bathroom or going to buy a T-shirt.

"They've leaving because they're not familiar with what you're doing and don't care. So all we can do is take the nine or 10 songs they're coming to hear, build a set around those songs, add four or five songs, and mix it around, change the sequencing. Then it appears to be different to everybody."

Nicks, who will rejoin Fleetwood Mac for a tour next year, says her show has changed since the last time fans saw her.

She put "Beauty and the Beast," "Has Anyone Ever Written Anything for You" and "Outside the Rain" back into her show, and added songs by Bob Seger and Dave Matthews Band.

"Has Anyone Ever Written Anything for You" is performed in front of a video montage of American soldiers in noncombat situations.

"It's great, but I couldn't look back at the video," says Nicks, who believes she'd lose it if she did. "It's beautiful and poignant. It had everyone in tears."

Nicks, who filmed a PBS "Soundstage" episode to air this summer, had more to say about her music and tour.

http://images.stltoday.com/stltoday/...s460june12.jpg
Herbert Worthington

Q. When you look over your solo repertoire with a collection like "Crystal Visions — The Very Best of Stevie Nicks," are there any regrets?

A. I have no regrets. I did everything pretty right. The only thing was in 1986, with the tranquilizers (she says it was Alonpin). I got through the pot and the cocaine and the Kool menthols and still worked. But the tranquilizers stole my soul. It was a very sad time. I curled up and didn't do anything. I could have made one or two more Fleetwood Mac records, and my own repertoire would've been 30 to 40 percent bigger.

Q. You released "Timespace — the Best of Stevie Nicks" in 1991. What makes "Crystal Visions — the Very Best of Stevie Nicks," the very best?

A. Some of it is live, some of it is hot new mixes, some of it is video with me sitting and doing commentary over each video and telling people what the song is about and what was happening in my life when the song was being made. That's interesting and fun to me because it's not just greatest hits.

Q. Dixie Chicks and Billy Corgan both covered "Landslide." What's the preferred version?

A. I love the Dixie Chicks, and I love Billy Corgan's version, crazy as it was. I'm friends with the Dixie Chicks and I got to sing it with them in a four-part harmony, and they brought it back in a huge way. Now the version I do is different, and the Dixie Chicks made that possible.

Q. Your songs have been heavily remixed by dance-music technicians, including the Deep Dish remix of "Dreams" on "Crystal Visions." How do you feel about your material getting this treatment?

A. I love them. I work out to all these dance remixes. With Deep Dish, they asked whether they should use my old vocal, or another singer, or if I could sing it over. I said I'll be there in an hour. It was a thrill to put a brand-new vocal on it, though it sounds similar to the old (one). My voice doesn't change.

Q. Destiny's Child used "Edge of Seventeen" for its hit "Bootylicious." What was your thought on that?

A. I know Beyoncé fairly well, and she's a doll. She asked me if she could do it, then she called and asked me to be in the video. As a writer, 50 percent of that song is mine. Every time that song is played, Beyoncé and I make the same money.

Q. When can we expect the next Stevie Nicks studio project?

A. I don't know. That's why I'm doing more greatest hits and going back in the vaults and finding cool stuff that might bring people out to Borders and Starbucks to buy a record. I can do a solo record, but what will happen is 1,000 hard-core fans will buy it and push the send button and send it to 5 million others. That makes me wonder, why bother? People are stealing our songs.


[email protected]

She underestimates the size of her hard-core fans! Look how many bought Crystal Visions... Twice that many would buy a new release!

Thanks for the article.

Oh dear, she's crazy.

Well, there are four writers listed for that song: Stevie, Beyonce, Rob Fusari, and Faltone Moore. So Stevie and Beyonce can not BOTH get 50 percent.

Major cop-out. First of all, TISL sold about six times what Crystal Visions sold, so you can't use a sales argument for why you are doing "more greatest hits" instead of original music. What happened to the Stevie who wanted to seclude herself on a mountain with a typewriter?

That vocal is pretty much spot on and very, very close to the original.

Beyonce may get 50 and then split that 50 in some way with the others.

I tend to agree. However, I wonder how much it would cost her to produce the records and then what level of sales would be needed to sustain that production level.

Stevie is so fragmented with her answers. In Q magazine in May, when the reporter asked her if she was working on a new album she said "Yes, I've been writing continually." and she handed the reporter "The Soldier's Angel"...and now a month later she doesn't know when she's going to have out a new record because her loyal fans are going to send her music to everyone they know!? How could she change her mind so rapidly in a month's time, that's just ludicrious! Well, at least "I don't know" is better than "never". But i'm just so angry that between interviews she did a complete 180.

http://jimwinters.com/illustration/images/Gemini.jpg

Evil Gemini.


:shrug:

Let's see I"m a Gemini and with ADHD on top of that and even I'm not crazy enough to believe that a new Stevie Nicks album would sell 5 million copies in this day and age which is what she is implying by saying 5 million people who otherwise would have purchased it would "steal" it instead..I think more likely she is creatively bankrupt and really who would want to admit that?

She does her cardio to the plethora of remixes! How cool is that?

(Of course, it's my opinion that exercise is the only thing thumpy club mixes are good for.)

Personally, I don't feel that Stevie is creatively bankrupt.

Stevie's choice of numbers (1,000 hardcore fans in relation to 5 million illegal downloaders) is an obvious exaggeration on her part to make a point.

Hummm...Stevie seems to forget that she had many hits that people ARE familiar with and DO want to hear that she just doesn't do. I think when it comes down to it, she does the songs she wants to do. Period. I don't think anyone really comes to her shows to hear her do "Sorcerer" or "Fall From Grace", yet she continues to perform them. Why? Neither were hits and I did recently witness quite a few people take breaks during these two songs. If she was consistent in what she says in interviews, she would drop those two songs and replace them with two songs that were equally as popular as Dreams, Rhiannon and Stand Back. Same with the covers. I really enjoyed them but again, most people aren't coming to see her perform three songs that aren't her own. I adore Stevie but I think that sometimes what she says and what she does are two different things.

I do enjoy reading these articles on Stevie and Fleetwood Mac. But the more I read, the more confused I become. From Stevie not touring with Fleetwood Mac unless Chrisitine McVie is involved, to Sheryl Crow joining Fleetwood Mac and then not, and now proposing to use a female "back up" singer to flesh out the Fleetwood Mac sound? One day Stevie is writing as if she is getting ready to put out an album and then the next her sentiment is "why bother, we're getting ripped off?" Talk about mood swings?! I'll just have to say that I'll believe it when I see/hear it.

Other than creative bankruptcy I can't think of an explanati0n why that a woman who alway's said" my first love is my songs ..I gave up everything to do this "..and endlessly laments the lost years of creativity from the Klonopin would esstentially do nothing but "oldies" tours for the last 5 years now..after the SYW tour ended she had plans to start work the very next month on a new album ..and so far not a single new song.:shrug:

That's KLONOPIN.

Again, I wonder if she is having difficulty getting the producers and musicians she wants. For her to produce a record the way she wants to produce it would cost at least a million. And, I am unsure she can be produced on a smaller budget in that her songs require a great deal of work based on the final products of the demos I have heard. But, she allegedly was recording something in Nashville. So, we'll see. In the end, she is 60 and likely wants to take it a little easier, esp. with a FM record and tour coming up (hopefully).

Id be interested to know what Bella Donna would cost now adjusted for inflation.Most of that album was done in one or two takes ..I bet it would only be around 250,000 for the production of the album itself.I can't really believe that they would expect to have a new FM album done for a 2009 tour that they have not even begun recording.

She will? You mean she's going to do 'Blue Lamp', 'Straight Back' and 'The Dealer'?
Wow, I am SO there this year.

We needed an interview to tell us this...

That's bullcrap. If she were adventerous and playing a club gig and really shook up the set and played nuggets for 500 real fans, no one would be making a Diet Coke run.


Different to who???

Well now that she's off the Alonpin (LOL) when is she going to catch up for the lost years? She's still dragging our hearts around, far as I'm concerned...

:shocked:

Christopher Nicks suddenly slinks guiltily from the room...

^^^^^^

I do not know. To get Iovine now would be hugely expensive. But, she had expensive talent then. So, assuming dollar for dollar in 1980's cost and adjusting only for inflation, $250,000 would be a little over $651,000 http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl

LMAO!!!!
:laugh:

Count me in too!!!

Chris only steals the stuff that hasn't been commercially released. It's her 1000 harcore fans who steal the rest.

Actually, she must have only 333 hard core fans, because most of the hardcore ones that I know buy at least 3 copies of everything. One for the car, one for the house, one for work, one to keep in its original wrapping, one that's shipped with a "personal" greeting from Stevie . . .

Michele

I know, right??? And one for a friend, with a note "don't play it until I fly out to SLC to visit, and we'll listen together and I'll explain it all to you..!"

(true story, BTW)

I am not disapointed with the interview. Let's face it everyone....she is 60 years old... I mean how much further can you expect an artist to go on? I would be exausted.
I can understand why she would want to wait to put out a new solo record. I understand about the downloading, and stealing of music. It costs record companies thousands of dollars to make a record, get the product out there, and sell it. There is so much involved in making a record, that it has nothing to do with some artist being broke, it has to do with the fact that society today has too many things going on that the last thing that anyone ever thinks about is buying a new record. Music today is all downloads, and that's why the cost of cd's are up is because no one is buying them any more. I can completely understand the "artists'" point of view on all of it. {And yes, that bothers me when people want to get up to go to the bathroom in the middle of a song. Take a pee before the show! That bothers me too. I am a hippie in a way and music has been a big part of my life too, but when I go to a concert I want to sit and listen to great music and not have some drunk people being a pain in the ass when I spent good money on a show that I would like to see. } Sorry, had to get that part off of my chest. But anyway, I don't really think we should pay attention to every single little detail that this woman does in her life. we should all go to the show and have a great time. Take pictures, have fun, enjoy great rock and roll, and most importantly, just smile. Please let's just enjoy her company when she comes into our town, and welcome her with open arms and just smile. Hey look on the bright side, at least Sheryl Crow won't be singing with Fleetwood Mac....LOL!

See that? That thing flying out the window there?
That was my hope for a new album.

but aren't they still friends, dontcha think he could throw her a bone?~ & here one to us?~ i would love to hear new music, but if she would just record some of the demos we all know & love that would be fine w/me too~ i just want to hear something new!!!~

Absolutely. How out of touch is she?

It really pisses me off that essentially she's saying that her career these days is dictated by casual fans. They want to hear the hits when they come to shows so she won't change the set list, they won't buy a new album they'll steal it, so she won't record or release one. I really appreciate that she thinks so little of us.

And the idea that non-hits make people rush to the t-shirt stands is rubbish because last time she tried that was with Beautiful Child, at Lindsey's urging I must add, and it was so successful she carried it over into her solo shows. Plus if it did make people run to buy a t-shirt she should be happy. That's where most artists make their money from these days anyway.

Plus, her choice of cover songs recently would make me rush to the t-shirt stand. Apparently covering Dave Matthews or whoever makes more sense than trying out Nightbird or I Don't Wanna Know or whatever, because when people go to a Stevie show obviously they want to hear her play other people's hits.

Also, it seems to me that many artists who used to sell millions of records still manage to release albums somewhat regularly and manage pretty well without matching their glory days. But Stevie's reason for making music appears to completely based on sales, according to what she's been saying recently. And if Stevie really can't produce an album unless it costs millions of dollars maybe she really is as untalented as some people have accused her of.

Yup! it ain't happening.

As a wise old man once said...

Oh Well. :rolleyes:

This is why she needs to give me a call. I would be more than willing to help her out.:laugh:

Seriously though, I am just glad that she is still touring. I remember a couple of years ago, the question was asked if we felt like we'd ever see another Stevie solo tour, and then we get both Crystal Visions 2007 and 2008. I know from personal experience that doing stuff with a band is difficult, so if she wants to take her time, I understand.

I think that we should be thankful that she is still with us, and enjoy whatever she wants to put out there. I thought that the Alpharetta show was amazing, and for a 60 year old to do that.....Pretty remakable.

Oy, oy, and oy.

I hate to say it, but her powers of reasoning aren't that great, either (although this might not surprise anyone). It isn't only new studio albums that are downloaded illegally or traded around illegally. It's also all those "best of" & "very best of" CDs that Stevie & Fleetwood keep putting out.

A long time ago, it occurred to me that Fleetwood Mac (as a unit) didn't distinguish, in any aspect of its outlook, between "audience" (anyone present at the concert or any album purchaser) & "fan." The club idea that fans have always mentioned as a legitimate way out of the problem Stevie cites is excellent, but Stevie must not consider it viable or desirable. She has played enough clubs in her lifetime -- even touring clubs in 1999 & 2000 -- to have decided for or against the idea of taking her act out of the impersonal arenas, where she feels she has to please 10,000 people for two hours, & she has apparently decided against it.

Yep, yep & yep. I was going to say, Why should she be so preoccupied with that (which happens at every rock concert regardless of what's played)? What does it matter to Stevie's bottom line? Admission is already bought in every case.

Exactly. I have to emphasize that it's not just the covers that bother me (and they bother me a LOT), it's also the choice. I haven't heard this Bob Seger one, so I won't judge, but her renditions of Circle Dance, Rock and Roll and Crash are beyond uninteresting. I'll forgive Circle Dance, because it may have been chosen because she realized her father would not be with her very long. So, she gets a pass there.

I don't think her casual fans know Sorcerer or How Still My Love, but she knows she is on fire on those songs. She knows the audience doesn't run to make pit stops during those songs. She can't think of any others in her own repertoire that she can knock out the ball park like that? Well, that's says she has a rather sad view of her own career. Michele

:laugh: Thank you! LOLOL..Oh, and also remember.. we go to Amazon and do the "Pre-ordered" ones too... so that we will get them, the day stuff comes out! LOLOL- So, for some of us.. that's 4 copies! :laugh: SHEESH.. Get it right Stevie!

All these years, all these interviews... I wish Stevie would 'own' her addiction to Klonopin and stop behaving as if she was a victim there. I've taken it for years for anxiety. You can only abuse it if you abuse it. Lump it in with the cocaine and other junk and stop making it a seperate issue that you did, in fact, abuse Klonopin. I love her, but she really should do that after all these years.

As far as the other stuff? I wonder who she's listening to that's advising her on setlists and new albums? Who says 1000 hardcore fans are stealing music? And who, by this time, does not know every song on every album she's put out? How could she put out a different setlist and have people NOT know the songs? They've been out there forever. And if it's a bootleg I haven't heard then that would make me stay and want to hear this new thing.

Geez, I don't go to the bathroom during a Stevie concert. It's before and after. I get my t-shirt before too. Stevie used to be a lot more in touch it seems with her fans. Maybe playing in casinos is not the best venue to be judging your real audience? She's skipped the old Star Lake amp./now Post Gazette Pavillion for the last couple of little tours. Last thing I saw was the TISL concert. Get out of the casinos and come back and visit us little Stevie.

Thank you for saying this. She's doing such a disservice to the millions of people who take Klonopin (or Ativan, or Xanax etc) to manage their anxiety and have no bad effects from it. I myself take Ativan as needed, and the instructions are clearly written on the bottle on how many to take and it wouldn't occur to me to take 6 times the amount- well, unless I was a celebretard and my "doctor" was giving me the Klonopin in plastic baggies by the hundreds for cash.

Read the label Stevie. Ot have Glen or Rebecca read it for you if you're too busy writing reams of new music.

It sounds like standard Seger to me -- straightforward blues rock that no more requires a singer to "interpret" it than it requires a guitarist to "interpret" it. It's one of those songs you just ... play. It would be suitable for stripping down to your underwear, cranking the volume on your dad's expensive sound system, & dancing around in your living room. I saw the video on YouTube from one of Stevie's shows; she & her band just ... play it. :shrug:

I love CIRCLE DANCE, though, & felt a studio recording of it with Bonnie Raitt, its original singer & writer, would have made a big hit on AC radio.

I can do a solo record, but what will happen is 1,000 hard-core fans will buy it and push the send button and send it to 5 million others. That makes me wonder, why bother? People are stealing our songs.

I think its a little insulting to as she puts it, 'hard-core' fans, that we will just buy it and 'send' it on....I think its a cop out, putting out a new album with all the logistics involved is hard work and I don't think she wants to work that hard.....

Actually, they're more likely to buy the music and give it to friends as gifts. Honestly, since you could get a CD with your ticketmaster purchase, I had so many copies of UTS, I could have paved my driveway with them. But as has been noted, Stevie's confusing the behavior of hard core fans with that of casual fans here.

I never leave my seat. Still, it's true that a lot of people did run for the doors during the SYW tour, for Come and Red Rover especially, but it's hard for me to know whether it happened during any of Stevie's new songs because she didn't keep them in the setlist long enough for me to make an assessment.

Michele

I've avoided Youtube because I want to be surprised. Although there's no guarantee that I'll be seeing Stevie any time soon.

As far as Bonnie Raitt goes, anytime Stevie wants to get together with her and do I Can't Make You Love Me, I will be all over it.

Michele

Like a lot of you, I gotta wonder how many fans she thinks she has. It took more than 1000 fans to make her Trouble In Shangri-la album debut at #5. That's a respectable showing for someone who hadn't released a new album since 1994, and that last album wasn't anything, by her own admission, to "crow" about. On the other hand, is Stevie saying out of all the fans she has, maybe 1000 of them are weasels and crooks. I hope Stevie's implying MOST of her fans aren't ripping her off. This is the lady who said she's given up "everything" for her fans. Did the internet totally change her perception of who her fans are?

I don't even think fans share her album in the way she is imagining. "Those evil internet people." I think the internet fans here have more than gone the mile in policing people to NOT share anything commericially released. I don't doubt there are people that burn a copy for a friend. They did it with cassettes too, in the past. But if you are really really a Stevie fan, you want to buy it yourself, have the lyrics, the art work, the pictures. You want to open the cellophane. (Okay, that part is annoying.) You want to read the liner notes. You want to try to figure out who the people are that she's thanked and why. You wonder if you'll find mistakes on the thing.

The people that got a gratis "copy" from a friend would have never bought the album anyhow. :shrug: I'm guessing if you had to "share" an album with someone, it was probably because you were dragging someone against their will to a concert and you wanted to get them up to speed. You more than made up for it by paying the cost of shelling out for your friend's ticket at the show. Besides, you probably only made a sort of "best of" album, incorporating the gems of Fleetwood Mac and her solo career that you figure they are going to hear at the show. You already KNOW the chances of Stevie incorporating any new songs into her act at this point are slim, and she'll drop 'em at the end of the opening show. (WHY do these artists feel that we have to be on our feet and singing along to every song to PROVE that we are listening and enjoying ourself?) Getting back on topic, if your friend liked what they heard from your promo, if they liked what they saw at the show, and you made a fan, you probably stimulated another sale of her work, or at least a coffee mug at the show. Record companies give out gratus "for your listening" promos all the time.

As others have said, her fans buy MULTIPLE copies. I had to laugh reading someone- I think it was michelej 1- who said you need one for the car, one for the house, one for work, and one kept in the wrapper "just in case." I've done that with a couple of my Stevie/Lindsey/Chris or FM albums.

No one is asking Stevie to drop all her basic staples or hits. Don't you just wish you could have a conversation with her? Stevie's die hard fans just want one or two more songs--something that's a surprise. NOT a Dave Matthews song or Bob Seger's stuff. As I read though the comments, we are all saying the same thing. We've all been saying the SAME thing for the past two years. We just can't seem to get the message through to Stevie.

Stevie: It's a rock concert, they sell beer. People have to use the rest room. It's basic physiology. It's not an orchestral setting. If you want that, stop selling beer at your concerts. Do some intimate venues that require shoes, shirts and ties. Play at the Music Box instead of The Event Center at the Borgata. Stevie, do you even know some of venues you select sell popcorn and hot dogs in the stands! You want people "sitting" or "standing" at the front? Then find a way to get the tickets out to your die hard fans without comping them to the casino people. Stop using Ticketmaster. Sell them through "I Love All Access" or some similar control system.

Stevie, use your "official" fan website more to communicate with your fans, and make it a two way exchange. You said that's what you wanted, before you decided the internet was all evil. At least let the fans vote for TWO SONGS they want to hear on the tour. You can give fans a list of the songs you are capable of singing and find out what your fans have to say. They'd go NUTS for something like that. Finally, stop villifying your fan base. We've been supporting you and your band for years. Many of us stood in the whipping winds and in 6 inches of ocean water at Jones Beach just to see you, risking electrical shock and who knows WHAT was floating in the water there. Others have stood in miserable heat in HOTLANTA and in Texas. We've traveled to Arizona to see "your friends" or to Las Vegas, because it was supposed to be something "ultra." Your fans have been there in the lean years and the thick, the drug years and the sober years. We've been ripped off by the fan clubs that have come and gone over the years. And we're still here. This website proves it.

[QUOTE=Tango;758908]http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/ent...A?OpenDocument


Stevie Nicks will sing songs people want to hear


Stevie Nicks vows to stick with fan favorites for her show hereBy Kevin C. Johnson

When Stevie Nicks comes to Chaifetz Arena this weekend, her fans won't have to worry about her dropping "Gold Dust Woman," "Rhiannon," "Landslide" or other staples to make room for new material.

First of all, Nicks, 60, hasn't released new music since 2001's "Trouble in Shangri-La"; her latest release is last year's "Crystal Visions — The Very Best of Stevie Nicks."

Second, Nicks just isn't into deleting hits from her set.

"People aren't happy with you for doing that, and we've all tried," she says. "The Eagles tried it, Fleetwood Mac tried it, I've tried it. We try to do it because we want to do something different. But then when you do it, you find your audience going to the bathroom or going to buy a T-shirt.

"They've leaving because they're not familiar with what you're doing and don't care. So all we can do is take the nine or 10 songs they're coming to hear, build a set around those songs, add four or five songs, and mix it around, change the sequencing. Then it appears to be different to everybody."

To me its still the SOS. I guess she is pandering to those who just want to hear the HITZ and not the esoteric stuff that WE on the Ledge all love. I still dont get her doing a Bob Seger song or a crappy dave Mathews song. Just wait. You'll see at Chicago that everyone who has had a few will be leaving to go to restroom when she plays Crash!! Come on Stevie, dig into the catalog and give us something more than this!!!

Glenn

Guess she didnt get the message???
 

Nicks, who filmed a PBS "Soundstage" episode to air this summer, had more to say about her music and tour.


Obviously, this must have been a Joe Thomas decision or Soundstage decision because we're all hearing the fall; Don't these people speak to each other???