FM in May issue of Performing Songwriter....

[Johnny Stew]

Fleetwood Mac is featured in the May issue of Performing Songwriter magazine, and Lindsey & Stevie are on the cover.



The issue features a Q&A with Stevie, and their website features an exclusive segment of that Q&A:

More From Stevie Nicks

Tell me about your musical influences.

If I go back to when I was little, my grandad was a country-western singer, so he brought a lot of music to my house. Everly Brothers, a lot of rockabilly stuff, a lot of country rock stuff. Not super country stuff, but crossover stuff, that even then in the ‘50s was a little bit country but very rock‘n’roll too. That’s when I started singing harmony, when I started singing along with the Everly Brothers. Which is so wild that Lindsey ended up working with them. They were a huge influence on Lindsey also. A million miles away from each other, we were inspired by the same thing. As I got older, strangely enough, the music that I listened to was R & B. I listened to "Be My Baby" and all those Phil Spector kinds of things, Motown, The Supremes. That’s where I really learned to sing. Then I get into high school, I’m a sophomore in high school and along come The Beatles. I’m very influenced by how good their early songs were. By my senior year, I was standing in front of the mirror with a brush, singing "Take Another Little Piece Of My Heart," frizzing up my hair and wearing the little tunic and the really tight bellbottoms and the high clogs. Then I was going to college and walking through San Jose State like I was already a star. I was Janis Joplin. I was a couple of years younger than her, but I was her too. We lived in San Francisco, so we were very much in that whole scene. We were in a band that played every weekend. We practiced every day for five hours. Nobody else went to school but me. I had to also do college, or my parents wouldn’t send me that thousand dollars a month. So then it was Led Zeppelin, and all the San Francisco bands, and Tower Of Power and Janis and Grace Slick and Buffalo Springfield and Crosby, Stills & Nash and Country Joe & The Fish, Grateful Dead - that whole scene, we were in it. They were famous, we weren’t. But we were opening up for them every weekend. Jimi Hendrix. He was a huge influence on me. Just the way he sang and played and was so soulful but yet was so rock n’ roll. He was such a dichotomy, being a black man and a black musician and being so rock n’ roll. We were so in awe of him. We wanted to be in his band. I can remember walking down the streets hearing Led Zeppelin coming out of every single apartment. And Lindsey’s and my band, we were very hard rock with very intricately worked out parts. Each one of our songs was ten minutes long. A lot of jamming on stage. That’s where I learned to play tambourine and percussion. That’s where I learned to be a rock star. Right there in that band in that three and a half years. that’s where I learned what to do on stage and I watched Janis one time - we opened for her - and that’s the only time I ever saw her. We opened for Jimi Hendrix. I got to stand on the side of the stage and watch him for two hours and then he died. But I got the essence before they left. So that was the most amazing thing. That’s when I really decided that I wanted to be a rock singer and not a country singer, and that I really wanted to concentrate on songwriting. I was not going to be a stupid girl singer. I was going to be way more than that. Lindsey will laugh, but I was not going to carry equipment and not going to have my salary docked because I didn’t. You will pay me as much as you guys get or I quit. So that’s when I gained my strength and my confidence. And that confidence never went away. It became part of me and I have it still today, and I’m very grateful for that.

I couldn’t help noticing that picture of you and George Harrison up on the mantle. Where was it taken?

Isn’t that wild? That is probably in 1977, in Hana on the island of Maui in Hawaii. Me and a couple of my friends had gone over there. I don’t remember exactly how it happened, but we drove up to Hana, where George lived, and we hung out with him for about three days. We stayed in his guest cottage and we sat around and wrote. I don’t think anything really came out of the writing session, but we had a great time, and you can kind of see we were very serious. I took the picture to the studio, so it was on the fireplace for the whole recording of Say You Will. It was very much like he was looking out over us the whole time. I liked George very much. He was really a nice man.

Was he or Lennon & McCartney a strong influence on your songwriting?

Yes, absolutely. More the folky stuff.

More Song Explanations:

Edge of Seventeen

It was written right after John Lennon died. A week later, my uncle died and this was a very close uncle. Between John Lennon and my Uncle Bill, "Edge of Seventeen" came out of that. [sings] "Oh I went searchin’ for an answer / Up the stairs and down the hall / Not to find an answer just to hear the call of a nightbird singing." And the nightbird is the bird of death, really. I can get up on stage and sing "Edge of Seventeen" and still feel just as traumatized today as I did then, when I first sang it at my piano. It’s just so heavy. I use that word "heavy" a lot, and I know that it’s an old hippie word, but it just really seems to be the right word. Some of the songs are so heavy. John Lennon being shot to death in front of his apartment for absolutely no reason, when I was a rock star also, so immediately that transfers to, 'Is somebody going to shoot me? Is somebody going to shoot me because I didn’t write back to a fan?' And that’s why I wrote the song.

Say You Will

Everybody’s experienced it - when you like somebody, it makes you a different person. It changes you and it changes you in a minute. But that song is not just about Lindsey. It’s about a movie I saw about Arturo Sandoval, the trumpet player. I loved this movie, and I just loved the way that through all the pain and separation, they managed to do music and stay happy and keep love alive, and dancing and rhythm and music, how healing it was. That was really my inspiration for that song. The chorus was written first, then I went back to write the verses. It was initially inspired by that movie. But then once you get part of the poem down, you can’t always write all of it about what inspired it initially. You have to go back. You have this great chorus that basically says, "If you dance with me, you won’t be mad at me anymore. We can be in a huge argument, but if we put on some music and start to dance, everything will be great." Then I had to think about what to make the verses about. So I went back over all my relationships with people and think of different ways that I have felt when I wanted basically to burst into song and sing that chorus (laughs). Give me one more chance. That’s what came out of it. It’s funny because, we just did an interview the day before yesterday, and I don’t think any of the band knows that that was the reason I wrote the song.

Running Through The Garden

I wrote that song around 1985. It’s about the story "Rapaccini’s Daughter" by Nathaniel Hawthorne. We didn’t realize it until it was completely recorded. I thought it was a Twilight Zone episode I’d seen on TV fifteen or twenty years ago. But it’s the story of this girl who’s raised in this beautiful Italian villa and her dad is this gardener and he raised all these poisonous plants and he like infused the poisons into her. It’s very hazy what I remember about the story. She became poisonous, so if anybody were to kiss her, they would die. And she could never leave, because she’s addicted to the poison. So everybody’s like, 'Wow, that’s an incredible story.' There’s a picture that Christine did, a drawing, and Chris is an incredible artist, probably twenty years ago, and she gave it to me, and it’s her, it’s the girl in the song. So I went back and forth about maybe calling it "Rapaccini’s Daughter," but I thought I’d have to get publishing rights and all that, so I left it "Running Through The Garden."

[LilyRose]

Wow! How cool! Thank you so very much!

I will have to go out and get this. Does anyone know if they have it at Borders?

I love that Stevie has seen the movie on Arturo Sandoval! Knowing this makes me hear the song in a totally different light
Susie

[nodmod]

Thanx Johnny, nice to see that magazine does ship to the UK when ordered online.

[DownOnRodeo]

Great article snippet - thanks Johnny.

There’s a picture that Christine did, a drawing, and Chris is an incredible artist, probably twenty years ago, and she gave it to me, and it’s her, it’s the girl in the song.

I wish that was in the SYW booklet

[seteca]

Originally posted by nodmod
Thanx Johnny, nice to see that magazine does ship to the UK when ordered online.

I'll definitely be ordering it then, it seems to be the most in depth interview about the songs published yet. It's a shame the website hasn't posted any LB segments.

[Les]

Thanks for posting that, Johnny!

[CarneVaca]

Where does this freakin publication get sold? I've been to four newsstands already.

That's a great photo on the cover.

[Les]

I've seen it at Borders if you've got any of those in your area. You can also order this edition from the magazine's website.

[Livia]

Barnes & Noble carries it - I just called them, they don't have this issue yet. I've been bugging them regularly about the May issue of Uncut magazine also, she told me to check back on Monday.

[Cristian]

Wonderful interview, I wish it was complete. I especially loved the bit about George Harrison. Surprised me a little, even. I didn't know Stevie and George had ever met. My rock god and my rock goddess...

Emotional, to say the least.


Song of the moment - Murrow Turning Over In His Grave

[darklinensuit]

Thanks for sharing this.
Two things do jump out at me.
First, I thought Stevie's uncle was named John.
Second, I think she said more in this Q & A than she's posted in 100 answers combined on the Ask Stevie section of the Nicksfix. Between those short answers & her use of elipses in the TimeSpace liner notes, I forgot that she knew how to elaborate.

- Jake

[nae]

Thank you so much for posting this, I really enjoyed it.

Nae