Category Archives: Solo Activity

Solo Activity, Stevie Nicks

The Last Word: Stevie Nicks Talks Aging, Addiction, Fleetwood Mac’s Future | Rolling Stone

Leave a comment

By Andy Greene
Rolling Stone

The singer on listening to her heart, turning 70 and why music comes before friendship

Stevie Nicks doesn’t have much sympathy for peers who are aging less gracefully than her. “I see lots of people my age, and lots of people who are younger than me, and I think, ‘Wow, those people look really old,'” she tells Rolling Stone. “I think it’s because they didn’t try.”

At 68, the legendary singer-songwriter is staying as busy as ever. In December, Nicks wrapped an extensive solo tour, and in July, she and her Fleetwood Mac bandmates will co-headline a pair of high-profile classic-rock fests in L.A. and New York. Nicks took some time recently to share her wisdom on drugs, relationships, aging and why her solo career was vital to Fleetwood Mac’s success.
What’s the hardest part of success?
I work very, very hard. I have a piece of typewritten paper here that says, “You keep going and you don’t stop.” You do your vocal lesson. I have a lot of friends from high school and college who want to hang out when I play in their city. I have to rest for my show. It breaks my heart, but what comes first? Don’t endanger my show. That’s been my mantra my whole life: Don’t endanger my show.

Who is your hero?
Michelle Obama, because she has such an optimistic outlook and she was able to move into the White House with kids and do such a beautiful, graceful job. That had to be really hard. After spending two weeks with my family for the holidays, which was long and emotionally difficult, I know that’s super hard. I think she’s wisdom personified.

What advice would you give to your younger self?
How about my early-forties self? That’s when I walked out of Betty Ford after beating coke. I spent two months doing so well. But all my business managers and everyone were urging me to go to this guy who was supposedly­ the darling of the psychiatrists. That was the guy who put me on Klonopin. This is the man who made me go from 123 pounds to almost 170 pounds at five feet two. He stole eight years of my life.

Maybe I would have gotten married, maybe I would have had a baby, maybe I would have made three or four more great albums with Fleetwood Mac. That was the prime of my life, and he stole it. And you know why? Because I went along with what everybody else thought. So what I would tell my 40-year-old self: “Don’t listen to other people. In your heart of hearts, you know what’s best for you.” Continue reading The Last Word: Stevie Nicks Talks Aging, Addiction, Fleetwood Mac’s Future | Rolling Stone →

Solo Activity, Stevie Nicks, Tour Info, UK Articles

Stevie Nicks: ‘I was so sick — I couldn’t shower. I almost died’ | The Times

Leave a comment

Will Hodgkinson
January 21 2017, 12:01am,
The Times

The Fleetwood Mac singer talks about her past lovers, drugs hell — and why, at 68, she’s not too old to get married

Stevie Nicks is coming to Hyde Park for a summer concert
GETTY IMAGES

If you have wondered how Stevie Nicks, at the age of 68, manages to tour the world with Fleetwood Mac, run her solo career and be an inspiration to young female stars including Adele and Florence Welch, here’s the answer. She’s scared that if she stops, she’ll shrink.

“A friend told me that when you retire, you get smaller,” says Nicks, who at 5ft 1in cannot afford to take that chance. “Small means old, so I fight it with a sword. I’ll be on stage, dancing around, thinking, ‘Now, let’s see . . . how old am I again? 110?’ And it blows my mind! But I would be so bored if I wasn’t doing this.”

It is one in the morning, and Nicks is sheltering from a rainstorm in her beachfront apartment in Santa Monica. Announcing that she rarely goes to sleep before the small hours because she is “the Cruella de Vil of the night”, she proves to be fighting the war against age valiantly. Her California gypsy fashion sense, first shared with the world on the cover of Fleetwood Mac’s 1977 divorce-era masterpiece, Rumours, remains unchanged. Her weathered voice, sexy in a stayed-up-till-7am way, is the same as it ever was. And this July she will be sharing a Hyde Park headline slot with Tom Petty, the man who kickstarted her solo career in 1981, when Fleetwood Mac were at their Lear Jethopping height and nobody wanted or expected Nicks to break out on her own.

Stevie Nicks, photographed in 1978 — her California gypsy fashion sense was already established
SAM EMERSON/POLARIS/EYEVINE

“When I started work on [the debut solo album] Bella Donna I wanted it to be like a Tom Petty record, but by a girl. That led me to Tom’s producer, Jimmy Iovine, who did not drink, do drugs, anything,” says Nicks, who at the time was known for her cocaine-centric lifestyle; she even wrote a song, Gold Dust Woman, about it. Continue reading Stevie Nicks: ‘I was so sick — I couldn’t shower. I almost died’ | The Times →

Fleetwood Mac, Release Info, Solo Activity, Stevie Nicks, Tour Info, UK Articles

Stevie Nicks says another Fleetwood Mac album is unlikely: ‘We’re not 40 anymore’ | Standard

Leave a comment

London Evening Standard
By Alistair Foster
Tues 17th Jan, 2017

The music icon says the band are more keen to focus on touring

Stevie Nicks says she does not think Fleetwood Mac will make another album together — because they are “not 40” any more.

The singer, 68, believes the band are more likely to focus on touring and doubts they will ever record a follow-up to 2003’s Say You Will.

She said: “If the five of us were to get together to make a record it would take a year, which is what it always takes us.

“It would be a whole year of recording, then press, then rehearsal, and by the time we got back onto the road, it would be heading towards the second year, and I don’t know whether at this time it’s better for us just to do a big tour.”

Iconic: Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham of Fleetwood Mac perform (Getty)

The band has sold more than 100 million records and reformed with the classic line-up of Nicks, Lindsey Buckingham, John and Christine McVie and Mick Fleetwood for a world tour, which ended in 2015.

Nicks said: “It’s every single penny we make divided by five, so the expense of making a record, which is huge, and then to get back on tour … we are not 40.

“We have to take that into consideration — how long can we do tours that are three-hour shows? Would you rather spend a year in the studio or get back on the road? I think that the band would choose to tour.”

Nicks, who is focusing on her solo career, is also reluctant to make new music.

Christine McVie, Fleetwood Mac, Lindsey Buckingham, Release Info, Solo Activity, UK Articles

Don’t believe the rumours: Christine McVie and Lindsey Buckingham’s duets album is bad news for Fleetwood Mac fans | The Telegraph

Leave a comment

The Telegraph
Neil McCormick
Jan 17th, 2017

Fleetwood Mac are celebrated as one of the great dysfunctional soap operas of rock and roll, a dynastic saga set to music. They are almost as famous for the bed-hopping, powder sniffing, emotional traumas they have inflicted upon one another over the years as for their era-defining monster hits.

So news that two of its most cherished members are making an album together is a cause for intrigue, a sense that there may still be a twist or two ahead in the long running and increasingly convoluted narrative.

It was revealed this week that guitarist, singer and songwriter Lindsey Buckingham has been working on an album of duets with keyboard player, singer and songwriter Christine McVie. It is tentatively scheduled to be released in May, under the name Buckingham McVie. That in itself represents an inescapable reference to Buckingham Nicks, the pre-Fleetwood duo made up of Lindsey and former lover Stevie Nicks.

To add spice to the rumour mill, the rhythm section of drummer Mick Fleetwood and bassist (and Christine’s ex-husband) John McVie appear on the album. So the only one of the famous five missing is the elusive Nicks.

There have been 16 members over Fleetwood Mac’s 50 year career, in a constant shuffling of roles that would leave the scriptwriters for Dallas breathless. Most of the bit part players have been forgotten by now but the five leads who united in the mid-70s to create some of the most glorious pop rock ever heard continue to exert fascination.

Legendary albums such as Rumours and Tusk were created in a whirl of narcotic excess, sexual shenanigans and romantic betrayal that lent an undoubted frisson and emotional subtext to songs of love, longing, loss and reconciliation, in which tough emotions were glossed with glorious melodies and sparkling harmonies.

When the classic line up reunited with Christine McVie in 2015, it was intriguing to note that there were three former couples sharing a stage, taking into account that Mick Fleetwood romanced Nicks behind Buckingham’s back during the making of Tusk. Fleetwood has often described the band’s complicated dynamic as a form of ongoing “group therapy”. Continue reading Don’t believe the rumours: Christine McVie and Lindsey Buckingham’s duets album is bad news for Fleetwood Mac fans | The Telegraph →

Christine McVie, Fleetwood Mac, Lindsey Buckingham, Release Info, Solo Activity, UK Articles

Fleetwood Mac duet album to be released | The Guardian

Leave a comment

The Guardian Music
Monday 16 January 2017 11.01 GMT

Former members Lindsey Buckingham and Christine McVie return with their duet album in May, which will feature John McVie and Mick Fleetwood

Fleetwood Mac in 1977: (From left) Stevie Nicks, Mick Fleetwood, Christine McVie, John McVie and Lindsey Buckingham. Photograph: Michael Ochs Archives

Fleetwood Mac’s Lindsey Buckingham and Christine McVie are set to record a duet album together under the name Buckingham McVie. The moniker harks back to the cult duo Buckingham Nicks, which Lindsey and Stevie Nicks formed before joining Fleetwood Mac.
The singers told the LA Times that their new record should be released in May, with Buckingham commenting on the particular chemistry between the two: “All these years we’ve had this rapport, but we’d never really thought about doing a duet album before.” he said.

McVie added: “We’ve always written well together, Lindsey and I, and this has just spiralled into something really amazing that we’ve done between us.”

The partnership had been hinted at several months previously when drummer Mick Fleetwood told Rolling Stone that the pair “could probably have a mighty strong duet album if they want.”

However the project is slightly more of a group affair than the title suggests – fellow Mac members bassist John McVie and Fleetwood are set to perform on it. This is despite the fact there is still no sign of the first Fleetwood Mac since 2003’s Say You Will. Fans had hoped that when McVie rejoined the band in 2014 following a 16 year break, there would be a new album – but securing time with Stevie Nicks, who has been concentrating on her solo career, has been the stumbling block.

In October last year, McVie told the Guardian that the album was “half-finished … it’s just seven tracks that we’ve got, and they’re only with guide vocals”. Talking of its “fantastic variety of songs” she said she hoped to finish the album before last Christmas

Christine McVie, Lindsey Buckingham, Release Info, Solo Activity

Fleetwood Mac’s Christine McVie and Lindsey Buckingham talk about making their first duet album | L.A Times

Leave a comment

Los Angeles Times
Randall Roberts
13th Jan 2017

Longtime devotees of the rock band Fleetwood Mac might be forgiven for letting out a gleeful yelp when registering the news that singer-keyboardist Christine McVie shared with The Times in December while sitting next to her band mate — guitarist, singer and producer Lindsey Buckingham.

Christine McVie and Lindsey Buckingham at the Village Studio in December 2016. (Liz O. Baylen / Los Angeles Times)

“I’ve been sending Lindsey demos in their very raw form,” she says, sitting in the Village Studio’s storied Studio D in West Los Angeles, “and he’s been doing his Lindsey magic on them, which I love.”

The product of that magic is tentatively scheduled to come out in May, and the two are at the Village to work on vocals. Working with them are two familiar names: Mick Fleetwood, whose towering drum kit is in the next room, and bassist John McVie.

The album coming out of these sessions, however, won’t bear the Fleetwood Mac imprimatur.

Rather, the release with the working title “Buckingham McVie” will arrive as the first full-length collaboration between the pair.

For hard-core fans, it’s not news that, save band mate Stevie Nicks, Fleetwood Mac’s members have been holed up at the Village. At various intervals over the past few years, the band has acknowledged working on an unspecified project thought to be a new Fleetwood Mac album.

In fact, during a studio visit in 2014, The Times’ Randy Lewis sat down with Christine McVie and Buckingham to discuss her return to touring after 16 years away from the band.

“I thought, I’m really missing out on something — something that’s mine, that I’ve just given up,” she said to Lewis. “I’m not paying respect to my own gift.” Continue reading Fleetwood Mac’s Christine McVie and Lindsey Buckingham talk about making their first duet album | L.A Times →

Solo Activity, Stevie Nicks, Tour Info, UK Articles

Tom Petty and Stevie Nicks announced for British Summer Time festival | The Guardian

Leave a comment

The Guardian (UK)
13th Dec 2016

The American rock band return for their only European show in 2017, bringing the Fleetwood Mac star with them as support

15400503_10211547302664119_268173157196892173_n

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers will celebrate the 40th anniversary of their debut album release with a headline appearance at the British Summer Time Hyde Park series.

At the London event on Sunday 9 July, the American rock band will perform their only European show in 2017. Supporting them on the night will be folk-rock group the Lumineers and Petty’s longtime friend and former collaborator, Fleetwood Mac’s Stevie Nicks. “In 1976, I’d been in Fleetwood Mac for about a year when I heard Tom Petty’s debut,” Nicks told Rolling Stone in 2010. “I became such a fan that if I hadn’t been in a band myself, I would have joined that one.”

Petty’s appearance will be the second visit he and the Heartbreakers have made to the UK in 20 years. Their last was in 2012, when they headlined the Isle of Wight festival and two shows at the Royal Albert Hall.

This year sees the anniversary of Tom Petty’s debut album with the Heartbreakers, a self-titled release which came out in November 1976. Petty has since released 16 albums, a number of hit singles such as Free Fallin’, Don’t Come Around Here No More, You Got Lucky, You Don’t Know How It Feels, I Won’t Back Down, Listen to Her Heart, Don’t Do Me Like That, and has earned 18 Grammy nominations through the years. As well as being part of the Travelling Wilburys with Bob Dylan, George Harrison, Roy Orbison and Jeff Lynne, he and the Heartbreakers toured with Dylan as his backing group in 1986 and 1987. They also played on Nicks’s first two solo records.

James King, senior vice president of the event organisers AEG Live, described the evening as a “one-night-only experience direct from the music gods”.

“Tom Petty’s UK fans will feel blessed to see him and the Heartbreakers in such a rare appearance in this country,” King said. “Celebrating their 40th anniversary with them is their friend and true icon Stevie Nicks. Music does not get better than this.”

Also announced as headliners for the other nights of the series are Kings of Leon, Green Day, Phil Collins and Justin Bieber.

Fleetwood Mac, Release Info, Solo Activity, Stevie Nicks

Stevie Nicks Wants a New Fleetwood Mac Tour, Not a New Fleetwood Mac Album | ABC News Radio

Leave a comment

Stevie Nicks is currently out on her 24 Karat Gold tour, promoting her recent solo album. But as far as recording a new album with Fleetwood Mac, Stevie believes the band shouldn’t waste their time.

Fleetwood-Mac-536890-1

Before Fleetwood Mac launched their most recent tour, they worked on some new tracks without Stevie. While Mick Fleetwood suggested the tracks might be released with just Lindsey Buckingham and Christine McVie singing, Stevie doesn’t buy it. “You can never say never, but I don’t think that will happen,” she tells ABC Radio.

That doesn’t mean Stevie’s ready to join her bandmates in the studio, though.

“The only reason that I don’t really wanna do a record is because I think that, in a year and a half, we’ll probably go out and do another Fleetwood Mac tour, since Christine has come back,” she explains. Christine McVie rejoined Fleetwood Mac in 2014 after a 16-year absence.

Stevie thinks touring is the better plan, simply because of Fleetwood Mac’s dynamics.

“Do we want to go and close ourselves up in a studio for a year, [and] make a record that’s really good but that probably won’t sell, because records don’t really sell that much?” she asks. “And then we’ll have been stuffed together for a year in one room, and…when you come out of that room, we may not want to go on a tour!”

The logical solution, Stevie says, is to skip making a new record, and simply hit the road.

“I think that we should choose the tour over the record,” she tells ABC Radio. “Because touring is much more fun than making a record when you don’t have any idea how that record’s gonna come out.”

Stevie has time to figure out her next move: her tour doesn’t wrap until December 18.

Copyright © 2016, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.

Press Kits, Solo Activity, Stevie Nicks

Stevie Nicks rockin’ 24 Karat Gold Tour adds 20 New Shows in 2017

Leave a comment

STEVIE NICKS ROCKIN’ 24 KARAT GOLD TOUR

WITH SPECIAL GUESTS PRETENDERS ADDS 20 NEW SHOWS IN 2017 BEGINNING FEBRUARY 23 IN RENO, NEVADA

– New Dates Follow 29 Shows in 2016 Which Have Received Rave Reviews –

– Tickets on Sale Monday, December 12 at LiveNation.com –

LOS ANGELES (December 5, 2016) – As Stevie Nicks 24 Karat Gold Tour With Special Guests Pretenders winds down for the year with 8 shows left, Live Nation, the tour’s promoter has announced 20 new shows beginning February 23 in Reno, Nevada. A full list of dates follows this release.

American Express Card Members can purchase tickets before the general public beginning Wednesday, December 7 at 10:00 a.m. through Sunday, December 11 at 10:00 p.m. Tickets go on sale beginning Monday, December 12 at www.livenation.com.

Due to huge ticket demands and stellar reviews for the 24 Karat Gold Tour, the legendary gold dust queen Stevie Nicks, a Rock & Roll Hall of Famer and multi-platinum Grammy Award winning solo artist, has happily agreed to add the new series of shows and continue singing and dancing across the stages of North America performing her classic hits along with longtime fan favorites from throughout her entire career as a solo artist and member of Fleetwood Mac. Nicks has collectively sold over 140 million albums.

“It’s been thrilling to get on stage each night and sing some of my early gems from early in my career along with getting the chance to sing the material from my last two albums, “In Your Dreams” and “24 Karat Gold – Songs From The Vault,” says Stevie Nicks. Rhino Records has also recently released remastered deluxe versions of Nicks’ first two solo albums “Bella Donna” and “Wild Heart”.

RECENT RAVES FROM 24 KARAT GOLD TOUR

“Stevie cast a spell over Houston… Women danced. Men sang along. And Nicks in all her witchy allure proved she still reigns supreme.” – HOUSTON CHRONICLE

“Let’s face it, there’s something downright magical to Stevie Nicks… The sexiest voice on the planet.” – PHOENIX NEW TIMES

“Stevie Nicks enchants faithful fans at the Atlanta show… As women rock stars go, there aren’t much cooler than Stevie Nicks and Chrissie Hynde… A whopping injection of female fused musical power – a love letter to the faithful.” – ATLANTA JOURNAL CONSTITUTION

“Stevie Nicks doesn’t need Fleetwood Mac… I’m so happy she has the Mac but her solo catalogue does fine, filling two hours as she proved to a packed TD Garden. The golden goddess in gossamer has huge instantly recognizable hits… In the ‘80’s she had ten top 40 singles (not including her Mac smashes) but last night proved her “forgotten works have equal force and beauty .” – BOSTON HERALD Continue reading Stevie Nicks rockin’ 24 Karat Gold Tour adds 20 New Shows in 2017 →

Reviews, Solo Activity, Stevie Nicks, Tour Info

The stories behind the songs that Stevie Nicks is singing on her ’24 Karat Gold Tour’ | MLive

Leave a comment

Nicks, who performed at Van Andel Arena on Wed., Nov. 23 and at The Palace on Sun., Nov. 27, 2016, admitted this is not her typical solo tour. She called it a little darker than usual. This slideshow tells the stories behind many of the songs she performed. “It’s something different for me after all these years. I didn’t want to come out here and do the same Stevie Nicks stuff that you’ve seen 5,000 times.”

21605737-standard

Chrissie Hynde and the Pretenders opened for Nicks, performing for one hour. They performed songs from their 10th studio album, “Alone,” and some classics including: I’ll Stand By You,” “Back On The Chain Gang”, “Don’t Get Me Wrong,” and “Brass in Pocket.” Hynde made sure to put a little more emphasis on the line “been driving Detroit leaning” from the song “Brass in Pocket.”

21605755-standard

Story behind “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around”
Nicks brought out Chrissie Hynde of the Pretenders for this duet, originally performed with Tom Petty. The song is from Nicks’ first album, “Bella Donna” from 1981. Nicks says it wasn’t on the album at first, but producer Jimmy Iovine said it needed a hit single.

“Do you want me to go home and write a single? No, I don’t because a friend of ours (Tom Petty) has offered to give you an amazing song. If you don’t take this song and get this single, your record may tank. We have to thank Tom, because without that single, I may not even be standing here tonight.” Continue reading The stories behind the songs that Stevie Nicks is singing on her ’24 Karat Gold Tour’ | MLive →