Stevie Nicks: The men, the music, the menopause
She talks to Craig McLean
The Guardian UK (week end magazine March 26, 2011)
Stevie Nicks, legendary singer-songwriter and hard-living Fleetwood Mac frontwoman, is considering her greatest regret. It is not her "huge cocaine period", the 10 years that elapsed between the making of Fleetwood Mac's 40m-selling 1977 album Rumours and the moment, in 1986, when she finally entered the Betty Ford Center. Nor is it her complicated history with band members: she joined Fleetwood Mac in 1974 with guitarist Lindsey Buckingham, subsequently detailing their split in the hit song Dreams, and went on to have an affair with drummer Mick Fleetwood, which inspired the 1983 solo song Beauty And The Beast.
It is not even the eight years she lost to Klonopin, a prescription tranquilliser to which she became addicted in the late 80s and early 90s, when she was "just a sad girl, sitting in a big, beautiful house, going, 'What the f- hell happened?'"
The regret that has really stayed with her is her marriage, in 1983, to Kim Anderson, widower of her best friend Robin Snyder. Snyder's baby Matthew had been born two days before she died of leukaemia. Three months later, Nicks and Anderson were married.
"It was insanity," the 62-year-old says now. "Everybody was furious. It was a completely ridiculous thing. And it was just because I had this crazy, insane thought that Robin would want me to take care of Matthew. But the fact is, Robin would not have wanted me to be married to a guy I didn't love. And therefore accidentally break that guy's heart, too."
Nicks, now a multimillionaire, may have remarkable recall for details and dates from her four decades in music, but she also betrays the hallmarks of 70s cosmic thinking. She describes how she became aware of Snyder's displeasure: "One day when I walked into Matthew's room, the cradle was not rocking," she says. "I know that sounds crazy, but it was always rocking whenever I'd walk in, and I knew Robin was there. And one day it wasn't rocking and it was very dark and the baby was very quiet. And I said, 'Robin wants this to end – now.' I felt it as strongly as if she'd put her hand on my shoulder."
So it was a sign from beyond the grave?
"It was absolutely a sign."
Nicks had visited Snyder during her cancer treatment. "I was so high on coke. I'd drink half a bottle of brandy on the way there, 'cause I couldn't stand it. She was so sick. And she said to me, 'Don't come back until you're not high – don't come back into this place where everybody is dying.'"
Nicks shrugs. "So that was the Robin who would have said [of the marriage], 'You've lost your mind. What were you thinking?'"
Nicks and Anderson divorced after three months.
Stevie Nicks is holding court in a hotel suite with spectacular views of the ocean off Miami, as her tiny terrier, Sulamith, yaps about in a blue sweater. She is here for the Heart & Soul tour, a month-long series of concerts with Rod Stewart. The tour, billed as "Two legends – one stage", starts three days from now, but Nicks and Stewart have yet to rehearse together.
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Stevie Nicks: The men, the music, the menopause
Stevie Nicks, legendary singer-songwriter and hard-living Fleetwood Mac frontwoman, is considering her greatest regret. It is not her "huge cocaine period", the 10 years that elapsed between the making of Fleetwood Mac's 40m-selling 1977 album Rumours and the moment, in 1986, when she finally entered the Betty Ford Center. Nor is it her complicated history with band members: she joined Fleetwood Mac in 1974 with guitarist Lindsey Buckingham, subsequently detailing their split in the hit song Dreams, and went on to have an affair with drummer Mick Fleetwood, which inspired the 1983 solo song Beauty And The Beast.
The regret that has really stayed with her is her marriage, in 1983, to Kim Anderson, widower of her best friend Robin Snyder. Snyder's baby Matthew had been born two days before she died of leukaemia. Three months later, Nicks and Anderson were married.
Nicks, now a multimillionaire, may have remarkable recall for details and dates from her four decades in music, but she also betrays the hallmarks of 70s cosmic thinking. She describes how she became aware of Snyder's displeasure: "One day when I walked into Matthew's room, the cradle was not rocking," she says. "I know that sounds crazy, but it was always rocking whenever I'd walk in, and I knew Robin was there. And one day it wasn't rocking and it was very dark and the baby was very quiet. And I said, 'Robin wants this to end – now.' I felt it as strongly as if she'd put her hand on my shoulder."
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