Rolling Stone
September 3, 1981
Issue 351
by Timothy White
With Her New Solo Album, Fleetwood Mac's Good Fairy Tries to Balance Two Careers - and Two Personalities
She would rock on the open porches and look at the sea, marveling over its changefulness. There were sunsets when the water resembled hammered gold under the golden light, or it would be running brass or whitely flowering beneath a white sky. Even the storms entranced her. She wanted to cry in ecstasy. She would sing and her marvelous voice would echo in the wild and tranquil evening silence. Dear God -if there is a God in the world- don't Let her know. Never let her know what the world really is.
- TAYLOR CALDWELL,
Ceremony of the Innocent, Stevie's Favorite Novel It is said that the door to the other side of this existence, to the Spirit Corridor and the Plain of Souls, has no knob on it and can only be opened from the outside. You, on this side of the door, must answer the spectral knock with a beckoning, for the Darkness cannot cross your threshold unless it is invited in. And so, on a cool night not long ago in an ancient chateau outside of Paris, there was no rest for a believer. Fresh from finishing Bella Donna, her first solo album, Stevie Nicks had met up with Fleetwood Mac at Le Chateau, the legendary studio-retreat where Elton John recorded Honky Château and where the Mac were laying down tracks for their next LP. Retiring for the night, Stevie turned off the light in her huge shadowy bedroom. Suddenly, she was startled by the sound of rapidly flapping wings in the blackness. The noise abruptly ceased. Then came a queer whir, and something brushed against her cheek. She froze. The light she had just extinguished sprang on and she was so petrified she could not scream, could not even speak. Ten minutes passed as she cowered in mute terror; then she stumbled down the damp hallway to the room of her secretary, Debbie Alsbury, who calmed and reassured her. She eventually made her way back to her bed and fell into a troubled sleep. The morning found her still frightened, and as she tried to orient herself, the arched French doors across from her bed swung wide with such force that they toppled the desk standing in front of them, sending Stevie's typewriter, a pair of pink vases and a delicate statuettelike candle sailing through the air. "I just sat there and watched as these paned doors, two stories high, flew open" Nicks recalls, breathless. "My glass doors opened on a wrought-iron balcony overlooking a wishing well. It was quite dramatic, and the desk went over like whamp! I went into the kitchen, and the people who worked there said it was the ghost of the chateau. 'He is a good ghost, he will not hurt you, he just wants to make himself known,' they said. 'Nothing was broken, was it?'" It was then that Nicks realized nothing had been damaged, not even her slender jade-colored candle, which would have snapped if it had been dropped even at arm's length. "The place is very old," says Nicks. "You get the sense of what it must have been like to live there hundreds of years ago. It hasn't changed much, and it feels as if it's full of ghosts." She pauses. "If the ghosts are friendly and willing to talk, I am ready to sit down at any time. I would love to." She folds her arms and is gazing confidently at me from the long couch in the grand fiftieth-floor suite of the spooky Helmsley Palace hotel in Manhattan when something makes her jump. Jimmy Iovine, Bella Donna's producer, has just bumped into a table in the vestibule, causing a shaded candelabra to shake eerily. "Sorry about that," he says, walking into view. "Oh, God," says Stevie, "that looked like a host." lovine answers with a bemused "Huh?" Her face grows crimson. "Oh, never mind!" she barks. She loves fairy tales and believes in spirits and will-&-the-wisps and things that go bump in the daytime and the night. She would like to build her own pyramid and live in a little "witch house" on a cliff overlooking a turbulent sea. Halloween is her favorite night of the year, and although she can't explain the coincidences, certain symbols and words constantly crop up in her life. One of those words is Maya, also known as the Shakti goddess Devi, who represents in Hindu the illusory world of the senses. It's the name of her clothes designer's studios and of the cobbler's shop where she has her outmoded platform boots made. The symbols even invade her sleep. In fact, the cover of Bella Donna was the result of one of her somnolent brain storms. It looks like a greeting card from the Good Witch of the North: an ethereal assemblage of crystal ball blue mists, silver tambourines and mystic trinities of white roses, with Stevie and a white bird in the center. "I dreamed that I saw, against a background of blue, a white vertical line, which was me holding a bird," Stevie explains. "At five in the morning I called up Paul Fishkin [her former boyfriend, and founder with Danny Goldberg of her label, Modern Records]. I described to him the image, which became the front cover, and then the one on the back where I've picked up the tambourine and the roses, and I'm looking through the crystal tambourine, which symbolizes a porthole, to see the sorrows of the world. I love the symbolism of the three roses, which is very pyramid, very Maya. The white outfit I'm wearing is the exact opposite of my black outfit on Rumours. Over that it says, Come in from the darkness...The darkness? "The dark side of anyone, the side that isn't optimistic, that isn't strong. I've got to become stronger because I am very sensitive, and everything really touches me. I love the mysterious, the fantastic. I like to look at things otherworldly and say, 'I wonder what goes on in there?' I think I was a monk in another life. I really do. "'Bella Donna' is a term of endearment I use," she continues, "and the tide is about making a lot of decisions in my life, making a change based on the turmoil in my soul. You get to a certain age where you want to slow down, be quieter. The tide song was basically a warning to myself and a question to others. I'm thirty-three years old, and my life has been very up and down in the last six years." To understand Stevie Nicks, it's important to be aware of the yin and yang of her muse. For instance, the original cover for Bella Donna was not quite so ... visionary. Her more grounded nature was in command when she and photographer Herbert Worthington conceived a double-exposure portrait of the two sides of her personality. The photo depicted Stevie's threatening, take-charge yin fiercely scolding the idle, preoccupied yang. Nicks confides that "these two personalities are constantly fighting each other," and adds that she was prejudiced against the first cover because it looked "too heavy, too real." Most of us would like a temporary respite from life's serrated edges, and a few of us have secret gardens of imagination into which we occasionally steal. The difference between Stevie Nicks and the rest of the world is that, given a choice, she usually opts for the never-never land, and she brings along a lunch pail and a pup tent. Stevie says that her favorite fairy tale is Beauty and the Beast. She loved the fable as a child, but when she saw the Jean Cocteau film rendition in later years, her fascination was cemented. She'll recount her version of the yarn at the drop of a hat, claiming that, at the end of the fable, "Beauty became the Beast, and he became the beautiful one." The story line, as Stevie tells it, concerns the plight of a sweet-natured woman named Beauty, the youngest of three otherwise repellent sisters, who volunteers to become a captive angel in the Beast's castle after her father incurs his wrath by plucking one of his prized roses. Beauty rides to her palatial prison on a magic white horse sent by the Beast and settles into a grotesque lifestyle wherein she spurns the affections of her gentlemanly captor, breaking his heart a little more each day with her increasingly cruel taunts in the face of his love. When Beauty learns her father is dying, the Beast allows her to go to him, but warns that if she does not return by the seventh day, he will expire from despair. On the eighth day, she leaves her dead father and venal sisters and rushes back to the castle to find that the Beast is done for. In his last breath, he says that all a beast who loves her can do is die for her. A rather Gothic variation on the Cinderella myth, Beauty and the Beast seems to transcend mere allegory in Stevie's mind. Bewildered by the infinite number of possibilities in life, part of Nicks lets such fairy tales overtake her. (The trappings of this fable entranced Stevie to the extent that while she was at Le Chateau, she rode a borrowed white steed around the phantasmal grounds, her black cape flowing behind her, and almost fell off as the runaway horse threatened to tumble headlong into the crowded parking lot.) Professionally, Nicks now possesses the means to do pretty much as she pleases. Her solo album and the duet single with Tom Petty, "Stop Draggin' My Heart Around," are selling well, and a tour with a not-yet-determined band is planned, probably ending just in time for her to promote the latest LP by Fleetwood Mac. On a personal level, though, she is beginning to realize that the enemy is within, and she is learning from experience that when fantasy doesn’t fit or suddenly falls away to reveal stark truths, the impact on the dreamer can be acute. "I was most frightened when we finished this last one-year Fleetwood Mac world tour," Stevie says, "because when I decided I had to stop living in the world of rock & roll. That had nothing to do with drugs or anything like that; it had to do with the fact that my life was completely and undeniably wrapped up in Fleetwood Mac. You can call in sick to a job, a boyfriend, even a husband, but you cannot call in sick to Fleetwood Mac--ever. If you have that kind of commitment, you can never really have any other plans for your fife. I've had many relationships in the last six, seven years, starting with Lindsey [Buckingham; her latest is with Jimmy Iovine.] A year in Fleetwood Mac can put a knife in the heart of any relationship because there are a lot of egos. And in relationships, I tend to cop out and say, 'I don't have the time! I’m too nervous! I have to get ready for a show!' Men who would like to take me out, I see it in their faces: 'Boy, is this a job!'" Nicks' ascent to stardom was sudden. She was working as a waitress in a Beverly Hills restaurant when Mick Fleetwood and John and Christine McVie invited her and boyfriend Buckingham to join Fleetwood Mac. Among Nicks’ personal contributions to the remarkably successful Fleetwood Mac LP that ensued was "Rhiannon," a surging, mesmerizing rocker about a Welsh witch, which, sparked by Stevie's reedy incantations, became a huge hit single. And Stevie herself quickly evolved into a concert cynosure, drifting spacily across stages in gossamer black chiffon, midnight suede riser boots and top hat. "The princess on-stage is my combination of Natalia Makarova and Greta Garbo and the elegant rock & roll that I love," she says. "It's hard to be a fairy princess fifty percent of the time and just be a nice lady the other half. But I like my real self better. I don't walk around the house in dripping chiffon." (Though throughout out our meetings, she wore chiffon dresses.) Despite Stevie's vow to slow down, the time intended solely for her "real self" is rapidly being consumed by the effort she's putting into a second musical career. There’s a mighty tug of war being waged inside her, but then burning ambition and the pitfalls that accompany it are a family tradition. "Dad was real ambitious," says Christopher Nicks, Stevie’s twenty-seven-year old brother, referring to Jess Seth Nicks, who in his fifty-odd years has been president of General Brewing, executive vice-president of Greyhound and president of Armour Foods. He slowed down for a time in 1975 after undergoing open heart surgery, but he now does concert promotion and is building an addition to his own arena in a large amusement park in Phoenix. "Our father would always be getting promoted and transferred, so we never grew up in any one place," adds Christopher. "We moved from Phoenix to New Mexico to Texas to Utah to Los Angeles to San Francisco. You name it. Just as we were making friends, Dad would come home and say, 'I got promoted!' Stevie had it pretty bum with all the relocation. The move from LA to San Francisco came between her sophomore and junior years. In LA she had just started with her little bands, the first being Changing Times, a four-piece Mamas and Papas thing. They meant a lot to her." While growing up in the Bay Area, Stevie blossomed as a beauty and came out from behind her granny glasses long enough to become first runner-up as homecoming queen in her junior year at Menlo-Atherton, High School. When the family headed for Chicago in 1968, she stayed back to play with Buckingham in a band called Fritz working (for one day) as a dental assistant and then as a hostess in a Bob’s Big Boy. "We learned a lot from our father about being strong and not doing anything half-assed," says Christopher, now the promotion coordinator for Modern Records. "But Stevie isn't hardened, and it hurts her sometimes. Although her intelligence saves her, people still take advantage of her. "But," he cautions, "she’ll never lose herself. And we live by the fact that when all else fails, we have our family." And yet time has begun to erode that fortress. Stevie credits her late grandfather Aaron Jess Nicks with her will to sing. An ardent but failed country crooner, he taught Stevie to sing the female parts of call-and-response country songs like Goldie Hill and Red Sovine's "Are You Mine!" while she was still a toddler. Living out of two trailers in the Arizona mountains, AJ, as he was called, was a bona fide eccentric but also a talented guitarist, fiddler and harmonica player. He took Stevie along with him to gin mills to sing and dance as he played. She was about five when AJ had an argument with her parents, who forbade him from taking their daughter on the road for a small tour, and he stormed out of the house. "He went away for two years and we never saw or heard from him," says Stevie. "I was very upset. I still have a cassette of him and me singing 'Are You Mine'." About a year before he died, in 1973, she wrote a song for him called "The Grandfather Song": My grandfather taught me to sing at four Took me everywhere, had me dancing on bars Paid me fifty cents a week to practice my guitar Told my mother and father I'd be a country star Sing like you mean it Grandfather, put your heart into it Grandfather, always knew you would do it Singing timeless country music. I knew he was going to die," says Stevie, "and I didn't ever play it for him, because there was a line in it that said, 'I can still hear him playing though he'll soon be gone.' I couldn't change that line and I couldn't sing it to him. That was when I decided I would never write another song that I could not play or show to somebody, cause he should have heard that song." (Bella Donna is dedicated to Grandfather Nicks.) But sometimes loved ones do not live long enough to receive the gifts intended for them. Stevie's beloved Uncle Jonathan was dying of cancer of the colon the week she began working on a composition for him. The night she completed it, John Lennon died. The song was called "For John." "It was written," she supposes, "in a premonitory sort of way." Shortly afterward, she began work on "Edge of Seventeen" (title courtesy of Tom Petty's wife, Jane), a song about her feelings toward these tragic deaths. "The line 'And the days go by like a strand in the wind' that's how fast those days were going by during my uncle's illness, and it was so upsetting to me. The part that says 'I went today... maybe I will go again... tomorrow' refers to seeing him the day before he died. He was home and my aunt had some music softly playing, and it was a perfect place for the spirit to go away. The white-winged dove in the song is a spirit that is leaving a body, and I felt a great loss at how both Johns were taken. 'I hear the call of the nightbird singing..... come away ... come away....' "I can't believe that the next life couldn't be better than this. If it isn't, I don't want to know about it. I think that if you're reincarnated, you're probably reincarnated as many times as you want to come back - once you've cleaned up your karma, your office. I think my grandfather is very close right now; I don't think I would have put country songs on my album if he wasn't. I try not to analyze it too much, but I think that for me, in the next life, it will be easier." Stretched wearily on the couch in her hotel room and sipping white wine, Stevie looks as if she’s depending on that. "Sometimes you can't win--for the losing," she says somberly. And when all the veils between her sadness and her non acceptance are parted, and she cannot escape into the looking glass, she sometimes confides "in the unknown God, whoever he or she is. I don't go to church, but I am very religious. I was raised Episcopalian, but I went to Catholic schools here and there. I love Gregorian chants, and I write in chant structures, so I probably have been very religious in my time here during the last 3 million years. I pray when I'm upset about the outcome of my predicaments." Among her many recent tribulations have been the voice problems she faced in the wake of Fleetwood Mac's incessant touring. And what made them especially upsetting were the nasty press notices that followed many of the shows in which her formidable vocals faltered or cut out altogether. Prior to joining-the-road-hungry group she had never had to push her voice. Four-month outings grew into trips triple that duration, and her ravaged vocal chords never had time to heal. "My vocal muscles got so bad I would have to go to a throat specialist, especially before the LA Forum or the Garden. They would give me shots that deswell your chords enough to allow you to sing. But it’s not good to get those shots a lot with your chords in that shape. After two and a half hours of singing, you can shred them, truly blow them right out of your throat. "The first time we played the Forum I went immediately to the doctor for all the preparations, and as I was leaving, he said [solemnly], 'Good luck, my friend.' I said to myself, 'I am in big trouble.' At rehearsal, Lindsey started playing 'Landslide' and I couldn't sing it. I burst into tears." She began to have nightmares in which she would take the stage, open her mouth and nothing would come forth, the huge crowd and the band staring at her in silence. She was near despair when a friend guided her to a Beverly Hills specialist who prescribed a routine of rest between concert stands-three days on, two off-and constantly speaking a bit higher, at a decidedly ungravelly pitch. She got into the habit of hurrying from plane to hotel room, shutting all windows and doors, putting cotton in her ears and napping for as long as possible before the sound check. All was well; her voice became stronger than ever before, but then she learned that a woman in Grand Rapids, Michigan was suing her for the rights to Stevie’s favorite composition, "Sara." The woman claimed she had written it and sent a copy of the lyrics to Warner Bros. in November 1978. The suit raged for months, despite Steve’s numerous witnesses (including, Kenny Loggins) and a demo cut at producer Gordon Perry’s Dallas studio in July 1978. It was only a few months ago that the women’s lawyers finally gave up, stating, says Stevie, "We believe you." "There were some great similarities in the lyrics," Stevie asserts, "and I never said she didn't write the words she wrote. Just don't tell me I didn't write the words I wrote. Most people think that the other party will settle out of court, but she picked the wrong songwriter. To call me a thief about my first love, my songs, that’s going too far." As her legal problems were clearing up, she resolved to do as much with her eyesight. Since childhood, it has been very poor, and when she began to make headway as a performer, she left her unflattering eyeglasses as home. Now she wears semi-permanent contact lenses and the difference is jarring. "I was blind before," she assures with a laugh and a shiver. "I never, ever saw an audience until I recently did the Forum with Tom Petty! I can't see past four rows, even with my contacts. It's neat to see better, but there’s not quite as much to hide behind as with my glasses, and that’s a little scary, cause you can see people's eyes. For most of my life, every light blurred and became a star. I had this incredible light show going on because of the way I saw. Maybe that contributed to my magical outlook on life. "I don't look at anything but in a romantic way," Stevie continues, adding that a song on Bella Donna called "The Highwayman" is about the Eagles, the male members of Fleetwood Mac and other masculine rockers. "They are the Errol Flynns and the Tyrone Powers of our day!" she exults slyly. "So as long as I have to live with them, I try to make them into the most wonderful bunch of guys I can possibly think up!" While most of the other material on Bella Donna was written in recent years (the sorrowful, supportive "Think About It" was done for Christine McVie in 1974 as her seven-year marriage to John was ending), "After the Glitter Fades" came about in 1973 (misdated as 1975 on the sleeve) and therefore provides a rare glimpse of Stevie's attitudes on stardom before she joined Fleetwood Mac. The loneliness of a one-night stand Is hard to take We all chase something And maybe this is the dream The Timeless faces of a rock and roll Woman..while her heart breaks Oh you know...the dream keeps coming Even when you forget to feel The song sounds unusually mournful for someone beginning a career, and I ask Stevie if she was at a personal crossroads during that period. Nicks says that she was merely moving in the direction of an awakening that occurred a little more than a year later, just before she signed with Fleetwood Mac. She received a phone call on a Sunday afternoon from her Uncle Jonathan, who told her to find her brother and to fly immediately to St. Mary’s Hospital in Rochester, Minnesota, where her suddenly ill father was to undergo open-heart surgery the following morning at 6:30. Panicking, she scrambled to locate Christopher, and they eventually caught separate flights. "In the six or seven hours it took to get there, I thought about my dad and the possibility that he might not live through that operation. I can't tell you how I felt." She sets down her wine glass and gazes at the New York skyline, which gleams orange in the summit sunset. "We were running down the hallways of St. Mary's to get to his room. We find my mother sitting there, all by herself, weeping and saying, 'He said to give these Greyhound cuff links to your uncle, and he said I could sell the car he bought me; I don't want it and he knows it.' "Christopher, and I just stood there saying, 'He’s gone? He’s gone? We didn't get to say good-bye to him, just in case?' And then we had to sit in a somber gray corridor for ten hours and wait to be told... we didn't know what. When I went and a saw him, well, my dad’s not a complainer, he’s real strong, and he looked up at me and said, 'I'm in so much pain.' I couldn't do anything, so I went out and looked for lip gloss or something..." Her eyes redden, her shoulders slump and she begins to sob. "From that day onward, I was never, ever the same," she says, trying to wipe away the stream of tears. "I'm sorry," she says with a cough, "this is not something I wanted to do. It was such a horrible thing for me and Chris and my mother; Chris passed out. Nothing else mattered; Lindsey didn't matter, music didn't matter, songs didn't matter, nothing mattered more. I said, 'Dear God, I would give everything up if you would just let me keep him for a little while.' "Since that moment, he’s the one who gets the first albums, the first everything. I think I live on eggshells all the time, waiting to pick up the phone and have them say he’s gone. Every time I write him, I say that line from 'Crystal' I wrote for him: 'I have changed but you remain ageless.' To me, it says that this is what life is all about, because if somebody could take him away from me, they could do anything to me." As Stevie Nicks composes herself, she acts a bit befuddled, as if the unexpected torrent of emotion has displaced her. She appears lost and more than a little forlorn. Despite her many friends and close family ties, she seems to move in her own exclusive sphere, a lonely, space not unlike "the big old house" she sings about in "Blue Lamp," a song of hers on the soundtrack of the science-fiction film Heavy Metal. Echoic, foreboding and sirenlike, it’s the sort of music you'd expect to hear ricocheting off the walls inside a haunted castle on a stormy night, when only a solitary blue lamp beats back the encroaching gloom. If Stevie’s songs really are "the mirror of her heart," as she maintains, then "Blue Lamp" is ominous but also offers some promise as she urgently intones, "I’m no enchantress!" and then advises the resident guardian angel, "If you were wiser, you would get out." Stevie is at yet another crossroads, the significance of which only she can comprehend, but you wonder what turn she’ll take. And if you’re going to probe for answers, it's plain that you must ask for them on her terms. There are, for instance, a lot of ways to look at Beauty and the Beast: you can view it as a tragedy, a morality play, a horror story. As it happens, a wealth of different versions exists. Jean Cocteau’s film ends on an uplifting note, the Beast turning into a handsome prince and living happily ever after with Beauty. But Stevie Nicks doesn't remember it that way. For her, the roles of the two star-crossed principals are transposed, and Beauty recognizes her folly too late, losing the only being besides her parent who truly loves her. Sitting across from Stevie as she dries her eyes and slips back into here and now, I can think of only one appropriate question. "In your version of Beauty and the Beast, Beauty finally understands that there are difficult choices to make in this world. Knowing her fate, if you were her, what would your decision have been?" "I would have chosen the Beast," she says softly. "Absolutely."
Stevie Nicks Chat on SonicNet/Yahoo
April 28, 1998
Yahoo Chat with Stevie Nicks, April 28, 1998 [ Stevie is speaking as SonicNetGuest ] SonicNetGuest says, "I started singin gwhen i was 15. That's wehn i started writing songs." SonicNetMod1 presents the speaker with question #178 from _sk8erchic: what's your favorite band at this time? SonicNetGuest says, "This year... I don't know..." SonicNetGuest says, "In the last year, I haven't been listen ing to that much radio." SonicNetGuest says, "...I usually keep up more, but i've just been so busy." SonicNetMod1 presents the speaker with question #215 from _Stevie_Nicks_Fan_: Who makes your clothing? SonicNetGuest says, "Margie Kent... She's been making my clothing since 1977. She works out of LA>" SonicNetMod1 presents the speaker with question #257 from Mer_p: Hey Stevie... First of all, I think you are a beautiful songwriter! Second, what is your favorite part about what you do? Thanks, by the way, for doing this. SonicNetGuest says, "The live performing is my fave part." SonicNetGuest says, "It staartw with the song writing, thought." SonicNetHost says, "Hi we're here live with Stevie Nicks - 'live" from the rehearsal studio where she is currently rehearsing for her upcoming appearance on Jay Leno" SonicNetMod1 presents the speaker with question #264 from Erin222: Hi Stevie! What do you feel is your greatest achievement in life thus far? SonicNetGuest says, "My greatest acheivment... Managing to be in a rock n rool band for 22 years." SonicNetMod1 presents the speaker with question #275 from Curtis1973: Will you ever record "Forest of the Black Roses" SonicNetGuest says, "I have saved that song b/c it's part of a group of ten songs that I call the reenner songs. .." SonicNetGuest says, "I really have kept those songs together so they'll all be a group." SonicNetMod1 presents the speaker with question #339 from kellyguest_24b938382: are you ever planning to put out a compilation of live performances on video??? we would love it!!! SonicNetGuest says, "I hadne't thought about it. That's a good idea." SonicNetMod1 presents the speaker with question #386 from Mayan3: "Sara" is such a great song. Why have you chosen to no longer perform it on stage? SonicNetGuest says, "Because Sara is the kind of song that is diff. to do on stage..." SonicNetGuest says, "it makes such a great record... you can go a long and add very sudlte thing..." SonicNetGuest says, "which make it work on a record..." SonicNetGuest says, "when you try to do it on stage, you just can't recreat the sara that's on the record." SonicNetGuest says, "i couldn' cut anything out of it. It just has to be the whole thing. May be one day i'll find a way to do it on stage." SonicNetMod1 presents the speaker with question #439 from Mikieray: Hi Stevie, What do you see yourself doing in 25 years? Is there a point you will quit touring and making music? SonicNetGuest says, "I would tend to say I'll never stop making music..." SonicNetGuest says, "In my case, it's reallyl my life. If i stopped, i wouldn't have a reson to be here." SonicNetGuest says, "... we're not saying when i'm 80 people are really going to care what music i'm making. but i'll be off somewhere writing songs." SonicNetMod1 presents the speaker with question #260 from TMS540i: Stevie: What role did your parents play in your life through its ups and downs. SonicNetGuest says, "My mom and dad have been very supportive my whole life. Before i joined FM, and they were supportive all through the tumoltous times of FM, when they didn't see or hear from me. They never got angry with me," SonicNetGuest says, "So basically they're the only ones who were there before the Mac. they're the only ones who really know me." SonicNetHost says, "We're chatting with Stevie Nicks in celebration of her 3-CD solo box set called "The Enchanted Works Of Stevie Nicks" out on Atlantic Records TODAY! Send in your questions now.." SonicNetMod1 presents the speaker with question #531 from Skylark00: Will you ever release an autobiography? SonicNetGuest says, "I probably will one day. NOt for a long time. The whloe fun of my story... my story isn't a racy story. It's really a great sstory. To change all the names would ruin the story." SonicNetGuest says, "Untill I get to the point where i think everyone would think it was just fun, I could never write it." SonicNetMod1 presents the speaker with question #591 from Jeremygloff: what is your favorite album cover? SonicNetGuest says, "Rumors. The picture of me and Mick." SonicNetMod1 presents the speaker with question #398 from The_Chain82: what advice do you have to give to your younger fans? SonicNetGuest says, "If you're gonna be in music... get into a band. It' smuch easier to do it in a band, than by yourslef." SonicNetGuest says, "Then refine your songwriting..." SonicNetGuest says, "I feel it is ... you have to write your own songs..s." SonicNetGuest says, "if you're gonna be in this biz your whole life, you have to write your own songs." SonicNetGuest says, "You can do it!" SonicNetMod1 presents the speaker with question #730 from Kepli_98: What is it that inspires you when you are writing your music and do you have to be in a special mood to write music? SonicNetGuest says, "Usually, i'm more in a special mood... i'm in a special place." SonicNetGuest says, "Enviroment is very important when it comes to creativity." SonicNetGuest says, "I can have a bad week and come h9ome to pheonix, and go in and start doing music, which i never would of done if i stayed in LA." SonicNetGuest says, "Shanging your enviroment is very importantt to creativity." SonicNetMod1 presents the speaker with question #1397 from Carolguest_1ea039532: Any plans on a tour this summer? SonicNetGuest says, "i am going on tour..." SonicNetGuest says, "my first show is may 27 in hartford." SonicNetGuest says, "then, from the east coast to the west coust... 40 conerts..." SonicNetGuest says, "i'm talking to you from rehersal in LA." SonicNetGuest says, "I am very excited." SonicNetMod1 presents the speaker with question #159 from CaliforniaGirl72: Will any special guests be joining you on your tour? SonicNetGuest says, "Special guests... Boss Skaggs is oopening for me. He is really wonderful." SonicNetMod1 presents the speaker with question #598 from DJFLASHYFLASH1: How has the music business changed from your start until now? SonicNetGuest says, "20 years ago, you just knew ever;yone. you were more involved with them. the companies are so big now..." SonicNetGuest says, "you're not best friends with the ceo of some record company. 20 years ago you were." SonicNetGuest says, "it's not as crazy... as electric." SonicNetGuest says, "sometimes i thingk it's not so much about the music as it is about the money." SonicNetGuest says, "...and i'm sure people would argue and say it was always about the money, but i dont' know it that's true." SonicNetMod1 presents the speaker with question #1344 from Sysco24: What song you wrote means the most to you??? SonicNetGuest says, "that 's not possible to answerr.... when i'm writing a song, that is the most special song." SonicNetGuest says, "i can't go back and choose one. if they got on to an album, they were a favorite. there arre 2000 others that never made it." SonicNetMod1 presents the speaker with question #1348 from HermesApollo: Do you still get nervous on stage? SonicNetGuest says, "very much..." SonicNetGuest says, "i have terrible stage fright...." SonicNetGuest says, "if we're doing 4 shows a week, it gets' less, you get used to it... but" SonicNetGuest says, "things like the the grammys, hall of fame.... i start getting nervous 3 days before... thsoe things are hard for me." SonicNetMod1 presents the speaker with question #1903 from STONER_SMURF1: What was it like working with Tom Petty? SonicNetGuest says, "He's my best frind. He has been my dearest friend for many many years." SonicNetGuest says, "I haven't spoken w/ him in several months... i've been gone." SonicNetGuest says, "H'e fininfhsing up a new recors and i'm more excited about that than anything." SonicNetMod1 presents the speaker with question #1933 from Bandit75792: Hi Stevie I love your voice how do you take care of it? SonicNetGuest says, "on the last tour we did 45 shows.. i had a vocal lesson every afternoon for 35 minutes... it completely paid off..." SonicNetGuest says, "i hade no problems at all... i'" SonicNetGuest says, "the idea of being a grreat singer is very excinting... if you study, you can work into it." SonicNetMod1 presents the speaker with question #1956 from Bernie_08251: Did you enjoy the reunion with the rest of the group? SonicNetGuest says, "Very much. It was like a wild ride. It was a lot of fun, very creative. we got along great...." SonicNetGuest says, "it was a dream come true. and too bad it's over." SonicNetMod1 presents the speaker with question #1457 from Ragged_Tiger_262: When will you start working on your next album? SonicNetGuest says, "when i come home from this tour (summer) i have half of it written already. i have the other half to write." SonicNetMod1 presents the speaker with question #1428 from StacyB77: Do you plat the guitar any on this album? SonicNetGuest says, "i very well might." SonicNetGuest says, "and i also think i'll play some piano.." SonicNetGuest says, "but that does no tmean i will do that on stage... i'll be too nervous." SonicNetMod1 presents the speaker with question #1462 from Heart576: Stevie whats the best part aboutdoing your own album? SonicNetGuest says, "the best think is that i get more songs... that is the only reason that i went away from FM in the first place..." SonicNetGuest says, "as a writer, 3 songs every year is just not enough." SonicNetMod1 presents the speaker with question #1984 from PatsyEdina_30: Hi Stevie, I'm 19 Years old and a huge fan, Is it strange to have fans of your music that weren't around when it originally released? SonicNetGuest says, "It is surprising. However..." SonicNetGuest says, "I believe that my poetry is really meant for everyone no matter what age you are. the feeling i writee about are not unique to any one age, it's timeless" SonicNetGuest says, "i try to write stuff that will be for everybody. i did that when i was 20 and i try to do that now." SonicNetMod1 presents the speaker with question #2794 from kathyguest_08d40445: have you heard the "modern" Smashing Pumpkins version of "landslide"? if so, what do you think? SonicNetGuest says, "i was very honored to have billy corgan pick out that song on his own.." SonicNetGuest says, "there's nothing more pleasign to a song writier than doing one of there songs..." SonicNetGuest says, "it also led ot me being friend swith billy corgan... and the possibbility that we'll work togeether..." SonicNetGuest says, "overr this song, there's been this incredible connection.. he reached out." SonicNetHost says, "We're chatting with the "enchanted" one from Fleetwood Mac - Stevie Nicks. Ask her about her upcoming solo tour to accompany the release of her 3 CD solo box set out on Atlantic Records today." SonicNetMod1 presents the speaker with question #2244 from N1ghtb1rd_02: Do you like it on the road or in the studio? SonicNetGuest says, "i really like both, however, i like to be in teh studio for 3 and 6 moths..." SonicNetGuest says, "that's thperfect ammount of time.." SonicNetGuest says, "the first fm record was done in 3 months..." SonicNetGuest says, "the fires st recored in 3 months..." SonicNetGuest says, "all others took a year." SonicNetGuest says, "the studio after 6 months starts to become really tedious, like you are going to a real jog." SonicNetGuest says, "the best is to record of 6 months, then go on teh road of 6 mohts." SonicNetGuest says, "beck said he as on the road for a year..." SonicNetGuest says, "that is too long for me..." SonicNetGuest says, "you have to not spedn too much time a t each, and kind of split them down the middle, then you don't get tired of either." SonicNetMod1 presents the speaker with question #2625 from Fleetwood_macca: do you like getting presents from the fans? SonicNetGuest says, "i like getting them, if they feel like doing it..." SonicNetGuest says, "it's very sweet... if they send it it must mean something. i get everything and totally appreciate it." SonicNetGuest says, "My fans have exquisite taste!" SonicNetMod1 presents the speaker with question #1982 from TheCaterpillarGirl: Stevie, I hear you're going on tour this summer. What kind of stuff will you be playing? SonicNetGuest says, "The obvious songs i'll do. Stand back, edge of 17,k gold dust.. four songs off the box set, that i personlly love..." SonicNetGuest says, "have never been played before... it will be a very different set." SonicNetGuest says, "i'm having fun puttin git together." SonicNetMod1 presents the speaker with question #3509 from KTguest_1b940248: Is it difficult to show new songs to people for the first time? - SonicNetMod1 presents the speaker with question #3611 from TopTenLinks: What is your favorite part of the country? SonicNetGuest says, "i 've travel so much, i don't have a favorit.e i 've never lived on teh east coast." SonicNetGuest says, "i've always lived in cali, arizon..." SonicNetGuest says, "i've never lived in ny so i dont' know..." SonicNetMod1 presents the speaker with question #3643 from bobbyguest_35a041134: I want to know what do you like to do in your off time? SonicNetGuest says, "i don't have very much spare time...." SonicNetGuest says, "when i do, i try to rest." SonicNetGuest says, "FM when we came home on dec. 1, i started on box set dec 2..." SonicNetGuest says, "i worked with the art director, my brother on the booklet right awayl..." SonicNetGuest says, "i still don't have a break... i'm in rehersal right now." SonicNetMod1 presents the speaker with question #3690 from STONER_SMURF1: Who did you listen to as a child? SonicNetGuest says, "country... my granpfather was country singer so he played me lots of county music..." SonicNetGuest says, "and he also played the guitar and sang..." SonicNetGuest says, "my mom and dads played gospel hymns on the weekends.. so that was it... couyntry and gospe.." SonicNetGuest says, "until i was old enough to listen to the radio, then i was on my own musical quest." SonicNetMod1 presents the speaker with question #3558 from Gregguest_68d40670: Stevie, will you ever complete your children's story "A goldfish and a Ladybug" or is that something that you have put away or forgotten? SonicNetGuest says, "it has not been put away, i have had some drawing done of my lady bug and my gold fish that are ooo precious." SonicNetGuest says, "i wrote this song when i was a teenager, when the right time comes' along for it... it will absolutely happen." SonicNetMod1 presents the speaker with question #3909 from TheBellaLuna: Stevie, what made you decide to do a box set of your B-sides? SonicNetGuest says, "when songs are on a b side they are very seldom heard..." SonicNetGuest says, "there aare a lot that never got to be heard, so tthis was the perfect op to give them a bit of listening time." SonicNetHost says, "Stevie Nicks is here chatting about preparing for her upcoming solo tour & reflecting on putting together all the best tracks from her past solo records for this new release. Ask her about what special unreleased tracks might be on it!" SonicNetMod1 presents the speaker with question #3901 from Slvrsprgguest_2a041451: Stevie, if you were an animal, what animal would you be? SonicNetGuest says, "A yorkshire terriior, and come bakc and live with someone fabulous... like me. I have a terri." SonicNetGuest says, "She's little crasy.. not a traveling dog. I wouldn' take her on tour.\" SonicNetMod1 presents the speaker with question #3914 from St8farm: Do you feel the PBS special reeawqakened the public at large to your music? SonicNetGuest says, "The special.. Absolutely. Probably the video fo the show wass the best thing to do to show people that you can still p0lay and are still rocking. I don't think y9ou can explain that." SonicNetGuest says, "The great hing was that it was the whole 2 1/2 show!" SonicNetMod1 presents the speaker with question #3912 from VintonScot: hey stevie how was it playing at the white house SonicNetGuest says, "I didn't play at the white house, it was at the inaugaration... at a huge venue." SonicNetMod1 presents the speaker with question #3900 from Mickynicks: You love art. Do you have a favorite artist/ SonicNetGuest says, "Fave artist... a german lady artist... Sulamath Wolfing." SonicNetMod1 presents the speaker with question #2724 from Aracuna98: how do you keep yourself looking so great , what kinda diet do you have? SonicNetGuest says, "Two years a go i wnet on the atkins diet.." SonicNetGuest says, "and i lost 25 poulds... i still do a very low carb diet. Don't eat a lot of them, if you want to loss weight." SonicNetGuest says, "It only took 3 months." SonicNetGuest says, "When i want somthing good, i do. I haven't put on a pould, and i stopped smoking." SonicNetGuest says, "If you don't eat a lot of bread and cerial, you won't ." SonicNetMod2 presents the speaker with question #4480 from guest_1b8d40653: Stevie, do you and Lindsey have any projects planned together? SonicNetGuest says, "At this point, no." SonicNetMod1 presents the speaker with question #4589 from Clara_2000: Have any plans for your birthday? SonicNetGuest says, "I'm gonna be in hartford on the 26. Wwe'll be in rehersal." SonicNetGuest says, "my 50 birthday wwill be with the band, and the people in hartford." SonicNetMod1 presents the speaker with question #4583 from Stud21guest_298d41812: What was the absolute highlight of your career? SonicNetGuest says, "honestly, i don't think the highlight aas happened yet." SonicNetMod1 presents the speaker with question #4578 from Mrsoul69: Is it true you were a waitress before the music thing started? SonicNetGuest says, "yes, it's true. and not a very good waitress either." SonicNetMod1 presents the speaker with question #4602 from Ericguest_6b939917: What was your secret to quitting smoking? SonicNetGuest says, "my secret was... i quit on jan. 1" SonicNetGuest says, "on nov 1st i started telling myself that at some point i would be told that i would get cancer..." SonicNetGuest says, "i opened myself up to the fear of that..." SonicNetGuest says, "when a gross smoking commercial comae on i woulld turn it up... and believe it...\" SonicNetGuest says, "neww years eve night... couple glasses of champage, so by the time i went to bed, i felt so terrible..." SonicNetGuest says, "i have told myself about the horror ss of smoking for so long, that i felt so terrible, and when i woke up..." SonicNetGuest says, "ig ot myself a patch on my arm, and never smoked again. and i smoked 3 pack of kools /day..." SonicNetGuest says, "i have not suffered... and i don't miss it." SonicNetGuest says, "i mean that from the bottom of my hears." SonicNetHost says, "Send in your questions to Fleetwood Mac muse, Stevie Nicks who is preparing for her solo tour. Ask her about her upcoming appearance on Jay Leno..." SonicNetMod1 presents the speaker with question #4869 from Xhefer: What did you think of Hole's cover of Gold Dust Woman? SonicNetGuest says, "I loved it. The fact that Courtney found it herself..." SonicNetGuest says, "when someone wants to interpret something you wrote and bring it to a whole new generation of people.." SonicNetGuest says, "it'" SonicNetGuest says, "s great." SonicNetMod1 presents the speaker with question #4993 from EMTWILLIAMS: Do you feel that the band is more cohesive and more musically sound than it was 20 years ago? SonicNetGuest says, "i think the band is playing better than we ever played." SonicNetGuest says, "... and that's the best part." SonicNetMod1 presents the speaker with question #5241 from BigNixFan: what are you going to sing on Leno? and are you going to sit with Jay for an interview? SonicNetGuest says, "i don't know, but i will do stand back" SonicNetMod1 presents the speaker with question #2772 from Stevie_Nicks_ROX: I am a singer, I sing in public alot I was wondering, Do you have any Tips On Stage Presentation? SonicNetGuest says, "believe in yourself when you walk out on that stage..." SonicNetGuest says, "if you believe in yourself you can make everyone else believe in you." SonicNetMod1 presents the speaker with question #3058 from KILNHOUSE: Ms. Nicks - what is the first song you ever wrote? SonicNetGuest says, "a song that was never recored called i loved and i lost and i wrote it on my 16 birthday." SonicNetMod1 presents the speaker with question #2304 from Kentgirl24: Do you and FM ever plan to tour again? SonicNetGuest says, "if i didn't feel that fm would ever paly again, i would be very sad, and i don't feel sad..." SonicNetGuest says, "so absolutely we'll play again!" SonicNetMod1 presents the speaker with question #5238 from majorettguest_30a040497: Have you seen Titanic ? SonicNetGuest says, "i have..." SonicNetGuest says, "the very end really killed me..." SonicNetGuest says, "what stunned me the most was the end..." SonicNetGuest says, "i've been in a few close scrapes where i thought we weren't gonna get et out it..." SonicNetGuest says, "but i love that he made her survive." SonicNetMod2 presents the speaker with question #4527 from Lynda75: What is your favorite book or author? SonicNetGuest says, "of fiction is tailor caldwell" SonicNetMod1 presents the speaker with question #2823 from Sexmexmama: Hi Stevie how is Sara Belladona? SonicNetGuest says, "The yorkie? She's fine. NOt happy that we're all on tour." SonicNetMod1 presents the speaker with question #3092 from Joea64: Have you seen the various Web sites dedicated to you? What do you think of them? SonicNetGuest says, "I don't have a computer." SonicNetGuest says, "That's the whole answer..." SonicNetGuest says, "The thing that scares me is that i'll be replaced.." SonicNetGuest says, "like drummers adn musicians... it's very scary." SonicNetGuest says, "i love that we can talk like this, but i hate the idea that i can be sampled. I'm still alive!" SonicNetMod1 presents the speaker with question #2742 from Boywonderhere: What do you think of the younger generation, today? SonicNetGuest says, "I thing it's great. Every generation is great. There" SonicNetGuest says, "are a lot of problems..." SonicNetGuest says, "that's why i do what i do, to make people happy..." SonicNetGuest says, "to make them smile." SonicNetHost says, "Stevie Nicks has released a total of six records in her remarkable solo career. Her 3 CD Box set - "Enchanted" is chock full of tracks - 46 of them highlighted by a number of previously unreleased tracks, studio demos & live cuts including some movie t..." SonicNetMod1 presents the speaker with question #5702 from mojo357guest_12b942185: what is your most memorable performance? SonicNetGuest says, "Memorable performace as of today, is a perf i did last week..." SonicNetGuest says, "a benefit for don henely..." SonicNetGuest says, "i sang and old blues song called at last and it was the most f un i've had in a long time." SonicNetMod1 presents the speaker with question #3794 from The_Triple_Goddess_ Macha: _[0;32mwhat do you have to say to the rumors that say you are a witch and pagan? SonicNetGuest says, "i have no idea what precipitated those rumor..." SonicNetGuest says, "i am not a witch. get a life!" SonicNetMod1 presents the speaker with question #3402 from Gypsy_Rhiannon: How was your experience working with Kenny G on "The Other Side of the Mirror"? SonicNetGuest says, "i loved workign with kenny..." SonicNetGuest says, "i think y ou would have to spend a fe w hours watching him play to understand it." SonicNetGuest says, "he is just so good." SonicNetMod1 presents the speaker with question #3403 from Cowgirl9_5: when did you know that you wanted to be a singer? SonicNetGuest says, "i think i knew by the time i was in the 4th grade..." SonicNetGuest says, "i was seriously singing along to the radio then!" SonicNetMod1 presents the speaker with question #3429 from Tom_Crick: Stevie, just picked up the new boxed set...it's great. Are you releasing a single? SonicNetGuest says, "reconsider me." SonicNetMod1 presents the speaker with question #3510 from Maolani: why do you tie the chiffon to your microphone? SonicNetGuest says, "someone else just started tying ribbons many years ago, just to dress it up..." SonicNetGuest says, "and once you've had a mic with chiffon, and empty mic s a drag!" SonicNetMod1 presents the speaker with question #3767 from BeckyHalter: Did I hear a rumor that you will be touring in a bus and not flying? SonicNetGuest says, "that is true. i had my choice, and i picked the bus." SonicNetMod1 presents the speaker with question #5689 from RACECHASE: DEAR STEVIE, IS IT STILL COOL TO HAVE PEOPLE RECOGNIZE YOU WHEN YOU ARE OUT IN PUBLIC SonicNetGuest says, "it's fine..." SonicNetGuest says, "i have very wonderful and understanign fans...." SonicNetGuest says, "they leave me alone... i go and shop and do what i want , and they let me do that." SonicNetMod1 presents the speaker with question #5473 from Cwithington: Do you see yourself as a role model for younger people SonicNetGuest says, "well, i would like to think that there is a part of me that's a good role model.." SonicNetGuest says, "i've had hard time,s and managed to survive, do maybe people can learn somehting from that..." SonicNetMod1 presents the speaker with question #3573 from Gypsy_27320: Are you surprised at the response to the reunion tour SonicNetGuest says, "honestly, no i wasn't that surprised..." SonicNetGuest says, "the first day of rehersal... i was very impressed..." SonicNetGuest says, "it started out so goo, there was no way it would be anything but great." SonicNetMod1 presents the speaker with question #2648 from guest_3ea040523: What song do you feel you will be remembered SonicNetGuest says, "probably rhiannon..." SonicNetGuest says, "it seems to be the one song that is always performed..." SonicNetGuest says, "it follows me arouns." SonicNetGuest says, "around" SonicNetGuest says, "Thank you everyone for taking the time to speak with me today..." SonicNetGuest says, "I loved it...." SonicNetGuest says, "I'm not really a comp person, but this an incredible opp to talk with everyone." SonicNetGuest says, "I'll see you soon, on the road. We're in rehersal, and everything is going great. I can't wait for it to begin." SonicNetHost says, "Upcoming SonicNet/Yahoo! Chats ... Cherry Poppin Daddies on Thursday, April 30..." SonicNetHost says, "Thanks for chatting with SonicNet on Yahoo!" Thanks to CL Moon for sending this chat log to The Nicks Fix.
Playboy
July, 1982
Vol. 29, No. 7
20 Questions: Stevie Nicks playboypic.jpgplayboypic.jpgLadies and gentlemen, the reigning queen of rock - on recklessness, relationships and reincarnation Contributing Editor David Rensin met with Stevie Nicks (whose album "Bella Donna" has sold more than 1,000,000 copies) just after the last show of her successful solo tour. Rensin reports: "We talked in the bathroom of her West Los Angeles hotel suite while her make-up was being applied for a television appearance. She looked great before. She looked great afterward. And she does her own lipstick." PLAYBOY: You're part of the hugely popular Fleetwood Mac, as well as the proud mother of a number-one solo album. Do you still find you've had to work twice as hard because you're a women trying to win at a man's game? NICKS: I never tried to beat men; that's why I managed to do it. I tried to learn from them and be their friend and stuff. I didn’t want to be too pushy - no one likes pushy people, least of all guys who are in famous bands. It's much easier to worm your way in with kindness. PLAYBOY: Magazine articles have mentioned your belief in ghosts and reincarnation; your being in a "magic kingdom"-the whole Rhiannon Welsh witch thing. Have people had difficulty taking you seriously? NICKS: At this point, people believe it's me. I just couldn't go on making this trip up if it weren't true. I love Halloween and fairy tales. I get wonderful letters: Kids say they love the songs and "Go right ahead and live in your fairy princess castle, because we need somebody to live there and make us happy, to take away some of the everyday horribleness that goes on." PLAYBOY: What were some of your past lives? NICKS: I think I spent a lot of time in old churches, like a monk. I'm very comfortable around that kind of music, with that kind of creeping around, with being very quiet. My ballet teacher believes that my head was cut off in another life, too. I totally give with my body except for my neck. Even if I go to the beauty salon, I can't put my head back. They have to hold it or it will drop. The same thing happens when I dance or get a massage. It’s very weird. PLAYBOY: How do you maintain your cosmic connection considering the pressures of fame and wealth? And how do you handle the abusive lifestyle-the drugs, the drinking, the long hours-of being the reigning queen of rock 'n' roll? NICKS: It's not easy. But I can't do what I do if I don't retain some innocence and spirituality. You'd see a definite change in my lyrics if I became hardened. I'm not interested in existing on that critical level most people live on. As I get older, the abusive side is coming to a close. I'm slowing down. Besides, I have bronchial, spasmodic asthma now. And everything that I do is wrapped up in my lungs. I'm scared now. This sure is the fast lane, but I don't particularly want to die in the fast lane. I want to get there gracefully. I need rest real bad. I also need some exercise. I don't want to be this romantically fragile character everyone thinks I am. The image is fine for an image, but it's not too fine if you have to go to the hospital for it. For my asthma, I have to take these miserable pills that make you feel like someone put something weird in your Perrier. PLAYBOY: Do you want to marry eventually and have a family? NICKS: If I had a family, I'd probably love it. Right now, I have my dog Sarah, two cats and a baby Doberman. But I wish I had a little girl. Even a little boy. Getting married would, of course, depend on the man; also on whether I cared enough. If I fell that deeply in love with someone, I'd have no idea of what to do. But I'd be willing to make whatever compromises were necessary. PLAYBOY: What compromises? NICKS: My interest in the music and everything else would have to drop off a little bit. But I don't fall in love that often, because it's sad when you fall in love and it doesn't work out. I know it’s better to have loved, because otherwise I wouldn’t have anything to write about. And there are different kinds of love. But if it were the bib love, I’d drop everything. I’d still have my job, of course, but I’d get in my car and drive across town in the middle of the night-which I will not do under other circumstances, because I don’t have a license. I’d go crazy, I suppose. It’s probably the most wonderful feeling in the world. PLAYBOY: It sounds as if Your job Would get in the way. NICKS: It invades it. You can call up your boyfriend and say, "I'm sick; I can't go to dinner." But you cannot call in sick to Fleetwood Mac. So a certain number of my relationships are ruined, not because of the people involved but because of my other commitments. And so, every time, I'm just a little less interested in starting something up, because what has happened before is probably going to happen again. It's not a lack of interest on my part; it's a lack of time to be interested. So maybe it's good that I haven't fallen deeply enough in love to give up a good half of what I do. I wouldn't want to be a bad mother. And how could I be a good one when I don't even have time to go to the dentist? So forget the child. And forget the boyfriend. I have so many commitments that he would have to come fourth-and I don't like making anybody feel he's fourth. PLAYBOY: Yet love obviously means a lot to you. In Sara, you wrote, "Drowning in the sea of love, where everyone would love to drown." NICKS: Yeah, but I'm at the point where I realize that if my job is what I want to be doing, I'd just better stay out of the sea. I’ve been going with someone since I was 18 years old. I think I had a month between Lindsey [Buckingham] and Don [Henley, of The Eagles]. There has always been someone in my life. And I want my freedom at this point, because I really need to get to know Stevie again. I need to be able to paint all night without making someone feel horrible because he's waiting for me to come to bed. Yet I know intimacy is something we all need. When you want to get back to the fireplace with someone you care about or watch a little TV, it's important that you like the person a lot, that he makes you laugh and that he's fun. I'm as envious of that as can be. PLAYBOY: What kind of man would make you happy? NICKS: [Laughs] You were thinkin maybe a nice doctor or something, Maybe an eye-ear-nose-and-throat specialist? Maybe an analyst? A musical artist? I've certainly had that experience. It wouldn't be easy for me to deal with a guy who was as busy as I am. When I'm home one night, I definitely don't want to be alone. I'm not amused if he's busy. I'm no different, you know. If I met a guy who was able to put up with it, he'd have to be just as famous, have more money and be terribly secure within himself. Frankly, I have contemplated being single the rest of my life. But I said that in a radio interview once, and when I heard it back, it really freaked me out. PLAYBOY: Do you ever encounter fans more spiritual or spaced out than you? NICKS: Yes. I came out the stage door the other night and a girl was crying, hysterically. I can never walk away from someone in tears, so I asked what was wrong. She said, "Will you sign my arm?" I did. The next night, she was back-with her other arm tattooed with my name! I grabbed her and told her, "Don't ever do that again. Don't ever have someone take a knife and cut into your arm with my name. It's not funny. It's stupid and I'm not happy about it." Her reaction was more tears. Another night, one of her friends asked me to sign her arm. I said, "I did that the other day and the girl went out and had her arm tat-" "Oh, she's my best friend," the girl said. So I told her, "I'm not touching your arm. And if I ever find out that you got my name tattooed on you anyway, I'll sue. Don't put that on me. That's pain. I'm not here to bring pain. I'm here to bring you out of pain." It bummed me out. I felt like I should have gone back inside, like I'd come out the wrong door. PLAYBOY: What else upsets you? NICKS: Waiting. [Long pause and a smile] And I'm always late. It's the Gemini in me. Otherwise, just wrong things said at the wrong time. Like, "Oh, you gained a little weight around the chin." You know, right before a photo session. Some people have incredible tact and an intuitive feel for your feelings. Others don't. Some people can wake me up in the morning-they know how. Others, if I had a BB gun, they'd be on the wall. PLAYBOY: Were you nervous going on the road as a solo act? NICKS: Are you kidding? Terribly. I hadn't been on-stage alone before. It's a whole different can of beans to realize that if you're not out there-if you have to run to the wings for some powder or to get your hair brushed or because you're dripping wet-there is no one on-stage who'll talk to the audience. But we had some truly spectacular moments, when the band and I were blown away at the response. At the last Los Angeles show, I must have looked like the bag lady of Bella Donna: I was bent over, because I had so many roses to carry. I was crying. Another great thing is that no one in the audience ever yelled out, "Where's Don? Where's Tom Petty? Where's Lindsey? Where's Fleetwood Mac?" PLAYBOY: Were you offended by reviewers of Bella Donna who questioned your intelligence or who argued that the album was not a significant departure from your work with Fleetwood Mac? NICKS: You mean when reviewers asked, "Is she incredibly hip or incredibly silly," It didn't bother me. They said a couple of rhymes were stupid, but I know those words aren't stupid, so it doesn't hurt me. I think the bit about not being a departure from Fleetwood Mac is also ridiculous. Bella Donna is in no way like Fleetwood Mac records. They didn't even play on the record. On Bella Donna, Jimmy Iovine, the producer left the songs as close to the demos as possible, so it was really just me-which is what I've always wanted. Sometimes I don't mind my songs being changed around; sometimes it makes them better. But often, I would rather they stayed real simple, like Leather and Lace. PLAYBOY: Do you think you're sexy? NICKS: I can be. I do not normally try to be. In fact, there have been some reviews-which I’ve loved-that said I didn't try to sell my show on sex, that I sang my show. On the other hand, I know I'm cute. I can dance. I don't have a bad figure. I know exactly what I am. I'm certainly no great beauty. I know exactly how far I can go. PLAYBOY: Have you ever considered acting, as many of your rock-'n'-roll peers have done? NICKS: I wouldn't like to be in movies. Movie people are strange. They live a different life than musicians do. They get up early and work in the day. And I really think they're much wilder than we are. One time, four movie guys walked up to me at a party after a show. I was looking good. And they took me apart with their eyes. I was so completely insulted that I never forgot it. They were so slick and smooth and suited up- it looked like they all had had face lifts with perfectly tanned faces. I'm just a hippie. I wouldn't fit very well into that world. Those guys gave me the creeps. The hair on my arms stood up. PLAYBOY: Do you support activist musicians who give anti-nuke concerts or participate in demonstrations? NICKS: That's why I write. We need music very badly. The world is in pretty bad shape and it scares me. But I'm not one of those people, like Jackson Browne, who went up to the Diablo Canyon nuclear protest. I said to him, "But they could have broken your fingers-your beautiful fingers that write all those beautiful songs. Are you crazy? We need you to write songs. We don't need you to be in jail." He said it "had occurred" to him. I said it should have. I think it scared him. I'm not a martyr. I would much rather be around to write the story than die for it and leave nothing behind. I believe you should put your talent where your talent is and stay out of the rest of it. PLAYBOY: You are very close to your father. What has he taught you that you've applied to your career? NICKS: My dad said, "If you're going to do it, be the best, write the best, sing the best and believe in it and yourself." And as long as I didn't give up on that, it would be OK. It was great to have supportive parents, though I'm sure they really would have been much happier at one point if I'd done something else, because they didn't think I was strong enough. I was always sick and Lindsey and I had no money and whenever they'd see me, I'd be really down. My relationship with Lindsey was tumultuous and passionate and wild and we were always fighting, so I was never happy. But my parents would hear me go into my room and sit there for eight hours with two little cassette players and sing and write and leave papers everywhere. I think they realized that I might not have been strong, but it was the only thing I wanted. My dad knew me well enough to know that I was just like him. So he told me that I should be what I want to be and not complain about it. PLAYBOY: What should men know about women that they don't? NICKS: That we are stronger than they know. And maybe if they fed that a little bit, all of this women's liberation would go away and everybody would be happy. If men gave us just a little more credit and an extra hug and said, "Good job," that would solve a lot of it. Women want to be beautiful, sweet, feminine and loving. But they also want to be thought of as intelligent and necessary. And even if your woman is not all those things, you should want her to feel good about herself, to believe in herself. PLAYBOY: Your immediate entourage all seem to be beautiful young women. Do you and the girls ever go out together? NICKS: We can't go anywhere. It's fine for all the guys, but if we go, like, down to Le Dome for a drink or to the Rainbow for spaghetti, we're immediately going to be classified as loose, roaming women. Me and some of the other female singing stars, like Ann and Nancy Wilson and Pat Benatar, can't just go out boogying with our girlfriends. Anyway, I wouldn't be allowed out. I'd have to sneak out. I'm way too recognizable. I've been securitied up to my neck for the past seven years, so I'd also be severely scared. I once tried to sneak out to a disco in Chicago with my girlfriend Christie, but we got caught. So the guys went with us. It was a bummer. Nobody in the disco would even come up to us. But people say it's for my safety. Women are getting raped all the time. And I don't need to get raped, because I'd never get over it. That's when my songs would stop. That’s when my belief in the world would die. I know it happens, but its happening to me is another story. It tends to take away one's spontaneity. PLAYBOY: Do you often think about death-especially since you believe in reincarnation? NICKS: I'm not afraid of it at all. But I try to get as much done as I can, because you don't know how long you're going to be here. That's why it's important that I type a page or two every night-even if that's at 11 A.M. See, I think you live on earth a certain number of times until you finish what it is that you were meant to do here. And then you go on. I don't think I'll be back. I think I'm done.