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By Chris Azzopardi
Pridesource.com
Ten years have passed since Stevie Nicks released her last solo album, but she's still the same gay-loved goddess of earthy rock she built her legend on. The new release, "In Your Dreams," is exactly how the gypsy queen left us - with that uniform sense of mystical otherworldliness that's made Nicks a go-her-own-way virtuoso since her days with Fleetwood Mac. White horses, vampire tales and ethereal love parables all seep into this set, Nick's first all-new studio project after reuniting with Fleetwood Mac for 2003's "Say You Will."
Nicks recently spoke with us about taking a trip to "the magical world of fairies and angels," the dress drag queens love, and how her own music motivated her to lose a dozen pounds.
Why did it take so long to release another solo album?
Even though I haven't made another solo record in 10 years, I've been making music solid since "Trouble in Shangri-La." I came off the road from 135 shows in 2005 with Fleetwood Mac and was going to make a record, and the business people around me said, "We don't think you should do it because the music business is in chaos" - you know, with Internet piracy, which was really hitting us in the face in 2005 - "and it's just going to be a really emotional pull on you. We don't think you should do it. Tour while you can, do big shows and sell lots of tickets, that's what you can do." And I just was stupid enough to kind of go, "OK."
When did you wise up?
At the end of the Fleetwood Mac tour in 2009. We were in Australia, and I wrote the "Moonlight" song (from "In Your Dreams") there, and when I got done with that song - I started it in Melbourne and I finished it in Brisbane - there was a piano. I stood up and I said to my assistant, "I'm ready to make a record now."
What was it like recording "In Your Dreams"?
The whole year of recording this record was like this magical mystery tour that we did at my house. We recorded the whole thing at my house and (the Eurythmics') Dave Stewart, and his entourage were there every day, and my girls and everybody were there every day. It was just a fantastic experience. We started in February and ended in December, and when it was over I was heartbroken. I didn't want it to ever end.
The concept of the video for the first single, "Secret Love," is intriguing - it merges your older self with your younger self. How do you feel now versus then?
That's why the little girl that's in the video, Kelly, is wearing the green outfit that was my first colored outfit made in 1976, 1977 - that's when my designer, Margi Kent, started making my clothes. But my outfits were black, and that's one of the only colored ones she made; it's a kind of tie-dyed green outfit. The little girl that's playing me, she's 15 and she's one of my goddaughters, she, like, fits into this and we're looking at her going, "Oh my god, we were that tiny!"
But anyway, that's what I wanted. I wanted Kelly to be the 25-year-old Stevie, and then there's the older Stevie. That song was written in 1975, so I wanted the spirits to blend. That's why you see her leaving the white horse and then you see me leaving the white horse and then we're both together, because in my dreams as a little girl that white horse was very important.
That horse was so beautiful. (While shooting the video) we looked down out of my bedroom window and saw this horse - and there was a fog machine on and the actual sun was coming through all the evergreens in my backyard - and I was like, "That can't possibly be real." If that horse had a horn you would've thought, "OK, I've died and gone to fairyland," because it was so, so mystical and so real in its magicness. This horse was like Guinevere.
