Stevie Nicks is reflecting on her first solo Saturday Night Live appearance

Stevie Nicks reveals sister-in-law saved 1983 SNL set by singing backup: 'Literally right before we went on'

"It was very scary to go on the show," she recalled ahead of her return to "SNL" this weekend.

By Wesley Stenzel 

Entertainment Weekly

Stevie Nicks is reflecting on her first solo Saturday Night Live appearance that almost ended in disaster.

The "Landslide" singer and on-and-off Fleetwood Mac member said a last-minute lineup change in her band nearly tanked her Dec. 10, 1983, performance on the show, she told PEOPLE. "You know, we practiced and practiced, and everything went well," Nicks said. "At the time, I had my friend who wrote 'Stand Back,' and she was gonna do the second song, which was called 'Nightbird' — and she freaked out and had terrible stage fright, so she couldn't do it."

That's when Lori Perry jumped in to save the day. "So one of my singers, who ended up being my sister-in-law Lori, she said, 'I'll do it,' and she's crazy, but she said, 'I'll do it,'" Nicks recalled. "This is literally right before we went on, and so we went on and we did it, and it came out perfect!"

The "Dreams" singer said the last-minute chaos inadvertently added to the performance's power. "It was one of those shows, that even with that horrible wrench that was thrown in the middle of it, it came off beautifully," she said. "I've never been so proud of anything as I was of that night. It was a magical show, and I was thrilled, and it definitely kicked my solo career up."

Nicks noted that her SNL debut came about two and a half years into her solo career. She released her first solo album, Bella Donna, in 1981, spawning her acclaimed solo hit, "Edge of Seventeen." Her second solo album, The Wild Heart, came out in June 1983, about six months before her SNL performance.

Despite her success as a solo artist, Nicks remained anxious about performing on SNL. "It was nerve-wracking because it was not Fleetwood Mac; it was my solo career, so it was very scary to go on the show when you've been in a huge band and now you're going on Saturday Night Live as a solo artist," she said.

Nicks will return as a musical guest for the first time since 1983, and she still sees performing on the NBC show as a tremendous achievement despite seismic shifts in the entertainment landscape. "Performing on Saturday Night Live is now as it was then. It’s just about the biggest thing you can do, bigger than a stadium show because it's going to go out all over the world," she said. "So if you wanna talk about being nervous about something! It doesn't matter how many shows you've done or how much you practice, you're going to be nervous!"

Nicks plans to perform her new track "The Lighthouse," which was written as a response to the Supreme Court's overturning of Roe v. Wade. "I'm really excited to play the new song," she said. "You can never say that Saturday Night Live does not help you to gain lots of new followers, younger people, older people, etc. And so to be asked to do it again... I never thought I would do it again — so to be asked to do it again has thrown me into an absolute nervous frenzy, but I'm really excited."

Stevie Nicks will perform on the third episode of Saturday Night Live's 50th season, hosted by Ariana Grande, on Saturday, Oct. 12.