1989 Interviews
 

Lexington Herald-Leader (KY), August 18, 1989

Section: WEEKENDER

HARSH ENCOUNTER WITH REALITY LEAVES STEVIE NICKS REFLECTIVE

Gary Graff Knight-Ridder News Service

Stevie Nicks has led a charmed life. Dual careers -- both successful -- with Fleetwood Mac and as a solo act. Tunes about mystical love affairs and Welsh witches. All-star duets and collaborations. Fame, fortune and that whole song.

But this summer, reality kicked her in the stomach.

In June, Nicks' mother had open-heart surgery, forcing the singer- songwriter to rush to her Phoenix, Ariz., home at a time when Fleetwood Mac was working on a new album and when she was preparing for a solo tour to promote her fourth album, The Other Side of the Mirror.

For an intense five weeks, Nicks faced "the most emotionally trying period of my life."

Fortunately, Nicks' mom was back to cooking dinner for the family a month after her surgery. But the experience gave the singer poignant pause.

"My mother would kill you if she knew I was telling you about it," Nicks, 40, said recently. "It was such a heavy experience for me. She almost didn't make it.

"It never occurred to me that anything could happen to my mother. It's one of those things that happens to other people, but not to you, and when it does, you're not prepared. I don't think you can ever be prepared.

"I'm sure I'll write about it someday."

Don't think of Nicks as opportunistic. Since she began recording with former boyfriend Lindsey Buckingham 16 years ago, she has crafted songs from the pages of her personal journal and from her experiences. Some are direct. ("Dreams," her 1977 hit for Fleetwood Mac, chronicles her breakup with Buckingham.) Others are couched in vague, impressionistic images, but she insists all of her music comes from true-life occurrences.

"I feel that all the experiences I've had, everyone else has had, too," said Nicks, who joined Fleetwood Mac in 1975 and released her first solo album, Bella Donna, in 1981.

"I also feel that I've survived them, so what I try to say in my songs -- especially the ones that aren't so very happy -- is that you will survive. Sometimes all of us think, 'I'm not going to make it,' so I'm saying, 'We will come through this, no matter how bad it gets.'

"That's what I'm trying to get across. I'm not a preacher, not a politician. What I am is a philosopher. I try to spread a little sparkle dust, I guess. . . . My mission has always been to go out and make people happy, about themselves, about their lives."

It seems she's accomplishing that. Sales are one indicator: Her three previous albums have been million sellers, while The Other Side of the Mirror, now on Billboard's Top 30, seems to be making its way there. But those who have worked with Nicks say the clearer evidence comes from watching the audience when she performs live.

"Her ability to reach that many people with those types of songs is extraordinary," said Little Feat keyboardist Bill Payne, who has toured with Nicks. Perhaps that's why Fleetwood Mac never has given her the boot, choosing to tolerate her erratic schedule to keep her in the band and her songs on Mac albums. "I'm one of those people who were born guilty," Nicks said, "so I've learned to be very good at juggling."

There's been turbulence between Nicks and the group before, particularly during the making of the last group album, 1987's Tango in the Night. Work on Tango coincided with Nicks' last solo tour, and she was out of the studio for long periods. That created delays and caused animosity between her and her band mates. "They're really my second family," she said. "When I feel they're angry at me, that breaks my heart."

Worcester Telegram & Gazette (MA), November 12, 1989

Section: DATEBOOK

STEVIE NICKS RESPONDS TO PRESSURE
Linda Romine

The earthquake that rocked San Francisco had at least one rock singer shaken up.

Stevie Nicks, on her first solo tour in three years, was underground in a northern California amphitheater when it hit.

"The ground actually started to move back and forth under my feet like a skateboard," she said. "A few minutes later, our tour manager came in and yelled, "Everybody out!' He grabbed me and we and about 30 people went running up two flights of stairs."

Although no major damage was reported in the city of Concord, her concert there that night was canceled for fear of aftershocks, she said. As she watched the news story unfold that night on television, her thoughts turned morbid: Her brother, she said, had been on the Bay Bridge three hours before a section of it collapsed.

'Pretty Shook Up'

"It's got me pretty shook up," Nicks said during a lengthy phone call to her home town from Mountain View, Calif. "It makes you stop and take stock of your life.

"I drove up and down that shore freeway too many times. That's when Lindsey (Buckingham) and I were first starting out. I went to college in San Mateo, and all of these memories come flooding back to me."

The mystical blond singer, whose razor-edged alto has defined the sound of the supergroup Fleetwood Mac for the past 14 years, is touring in support of her latest solo album, "The Other Side of the Mirror." Since August she has been on the road - only occasionally making it back to "my beautiful desert" and home in Arizona.

'Serious Pressure'

She talked openly about the stresses and pressures of the music business, and of the story behind one of her album's most heart-breaking songs, "I'm Doing the Best That I Can."

"I was having a lot of serious pressure on me where I was having to go into my bedroom, lock my door, sit on my bed, close my eyes and think," she said. "That happens a lot. I just go away into my own little space."

The constant demands are multiplied with Nicks, who juggles her entire life to keep a solo career as well as her role with Fleetwood Mac intact. "I never thought at 27 years old when I started this business that I'd still be going on with two careers, having thousands of people depending on me," she said. "I've got thousands of people on my solo career side depending on me, thousands of people on the Fleetwood Mac side.

"What am I gonna do - quit?"

Millions of Records

The gypsylike singer plans to do just that - at least temporarily - a year from now. After completion of her current solo tour, the recording of Fleetwood Mac's next album (due out next spring) and a subsequent Australian tour, she is coming home for 12 months of rest and relaxation in Phoenix.

"It's been a long time in coming," she said with a sigh.

In the past 14 years, Nicks' distinctive, vibrato-rich voice has sold millions of records worldwide, from solo and duet efforts such as "Edge of Seventeen," "Stand Back," "Leather and Lace," "Stop Draggin' My Heart Around" and the recent "Rooms on Fire," to Fleetwood Mac-backed blockbusters including "Rhiannon," "Dreams," "Sara" and "Gypsy."

Still, the success most younger singers would envy has come at great personal sacrifice, the 41-year-old entertainer said.

"The hardest thing is to have given up having children," she explained soberly. "You have to kind of accept the fact.

"I have no social life, no time to myself. Not that I haven't had lots and lots of wonderful relationships. But they always say: "I can't deal with your life. You're always leaving. You're always going off with Fleetwood Mac or going on tour. I'm lonely, and this isn't working.' "

The singer made no mention of Buckingham, her former love, who left Fleetwood Mac after recording "Tango in the Night" with the band more than two years ago.

Woman Pioneers

At the time Nicks entered the business in 1975, the only prominent women pioneers previously in rock were Grace Slick and Janis Joplin, two singers she said she admires. And if today's flock of young new female pop singers is looking up to Nicks, she has plenty to say. "Bless 'em for trying. This is not easy," she said. "They'll learn real fast. They'll learn this is a hard and heavy life and what they'll be giving up is a lot more than they could possibly dream."

[Well, this isn't 1989, but I thought I'd throw it in while I was uploading]

Cleveland Plain Dealer, July 31, 1991

Section: ARTS & LIVING


NICKS ENCHANTS BLOSSOM TONIGHT
JANE SCOTT PLAIN DEALER ROCK REPORTER

THE PLAIN DEALER

"The Voice" is back.

Song enchantress Stevie Nicks will be back at Blossom Music Center tonight with three new songs, her special black suitcase and will be the thinnest she has been in years.

The former co-lead singer of Fleetwood Mac is 43 and proud of it.

"People know that I joined Mac when I was 27, so there is no use hiding my age. Actually I love my age," she said in a telephone interview.

What she didn't like was her growing weight, up to 142 pounds a few years ago. "Some people can carry a lot of pounds, but I'm only 5 feet 1. I have a little heart valve that is slightly off. It doesn't close perfectly. So I couldn't use weight-loss systems."

That's where the little black bag comes in. She calls it her kitchen suitcase.

"Anyone can do this," she said. "I pack a tea kettle and herbal teas and instant oatmeal. All I eat otherwise during the day is chicken and asparagus and salad with dietetic Italian dressing."

Nicks has been working for months on her upcoming album, "Timespace," the first collection of her best solo work over the past 10 years. The album is due in stores next Tuesday.

Then she got two unexpected song offers, by Jon Bon Jovi and Bret Michaels of Poison. Bon Jovi's song, "Sometimes It's a Bitch," wound up as the single.

"I wasn't too keen on adding a new song, and I never would have used that one word," Nicks said. "And how could he write about what I had experienced in the past 15 years?. But when I heard the song, some of the sensitive lines got to me."

For instance, there's the line "I've laid down with love and woke up with lies."

"That's a perfect comment on relationships with people and with the record industry," she said. Back in 1972, a record label gave her and guitarist Lindsey Buckingham studio time and a big time producer, but later dropped the album.

She wouldn't have accepted Michael's "Love's a Hard Game to Play" if it had been heavy metal, but it was a pretty song, she said. "And I've got a special one on the album for the troops, `Desert Angel.'

It has been 10 months since Nicks and co-singer Christine McVie left Fleetwood Mac, at one time the top rock band in the world.

"Yes, it was a wrench," Nicks said. "Think what it would be like if you had been in an office with six people for 15 years and then left."

No, she said, drummer/leader Mick Fleetwood's recent gossipy autobiography detailing personal relationships within the band had nothing to do with her departure.

"Because I haven't read it," she said. "Why should I? I've been there. And it would just have made me upset when we were onstage."

What really determined her departure was a serious argument with Fleetwood, she said. "He wouldn't let me have a song I had written, `Silver Springs,' for my `Timespace' album. That song had come out on the flip side of `Go Your Own Way' in 1976. So I said, `Then I guess we have nothing more to say to each other,' she reported.

Arizona-born Nicks was the one who brought the struggling British group Fleetwood Mac into the limelight with her mystical song, "Rhiannon." Critics still write about the magic and enchantment of that song with a gold moon lit suddenly on the back of the Coliseum stage and the limbs of a dark tree silhouetted against it. Nicks appeared in layers of chiffon and black velvet, her voice almost a whisper at times. "Rhiannon" is based on an old Welsh myth.

"Actually I wrote it in Colorado on the piano, in about five minutes," said Nicks, who lives in Phoenix. She brought Fleetwood Mac its only No.1 song, "Dreams," in 1977.

Tonight she will bring bassist Mark Andes of Heart on stage as well as guitarist Les Dudek, percussionist Peter Michael (brother of Sheila E.) drummer Scott Craigo, guitarist Michael Lennon and two keyboard players, Cat Grey and Eddie M.

Her future? "I want to write; I want to paint, and I do photography. In another 10 years I may gracefully slip into serious writing," she said. "If I write a book it won't be about who goes with whom. It won't hurt anybody."

These are awesome interviews!!
I never read these before!
Thanks:blob1: :thumbsup:

Well. That's something about Mama that I didn't know. I'm surprised it hasn't been repaired by now. It usually gets worse with age.

^^^

There was an article somewhere /sometime where she stated she had a mitral valve prolapse. I think it was where she was mentioning both her mother and father's past heart surgeries.

I don't think I knew Stevie did photography. We've seen some of her drawings, her art, but have we seen any of her photography before? I think I saw one picture that she may have taken of herself in the mirror, but that's all I can remember.

Michele

There are probably untold hundreds... thousands of reels of film that Stevie has taken of herself in the can.

At least they aren't reels Stevie has taken of herself on the can.

Michele

It's where she says she wrote the songs - the famous one - the ones you hear on the radio - I am sooooo seeing John Goodman as Linda Tripp sitting on the toilet eating a huge bag of greasy chips while on the phone to Monica saying she's eating a leaf of lettuce :eek:

I could just imagine a typical afternoon in the Nicks master bathroom suite: "KAREN, can you get another roll of TP for Mama... and another pack of Polaroids too!"

Stop-you're killing me!!!:laugh:

You guys are too much.

I have a question for the Stevie-ites. How come you never gripe that these positive reviews are "biased" or "unfair" & that these reviewers are "hacks"?

Because.

Capice :cool:

A year or two ago Stevie said she wanted to become a better photographer. You know, she could ask Kristen for tips... oh, nevermind she's doing interior decorating now...
:wavey: