Stevie Nicks: 'When We Walk Into The Room We Have To Float In Like Goddessses'
by ANN POWERS NPR
The true rock legends change the game. Stevie Nicks, as a member of Fleetwood Mac, and later in her solo career, changed the game not only for women, but for what you could do in rock as a songwriter and a singer. While living in the male-dominated world of the very peak of the music industry in the 1970s, she wrote indelible songs that tell real, true stories, often about the bond between women, and about the life of an adventurer.
Nicks has stayed busy. In April, she'll join Fleetwood Mac for a world tour. In 2011, she released an album, In Your Dreams, produced by Dave Stewart of The Eurythmics, which was the basis for a new documentary that Nicks co-directed with Stewart. And at this year's South by Southwest, Nicks joined Dave Grohl on stage to perform as part of his Sound City players, a group of musicians who have all recorded at Los Angeles' famous Sound City Studios and later came together to make a soundtrack to Grohl's documentary about the history of the studio.
Earlier that day, NPR Music's Ann Powers spoke with Stevie Nicks in front of an audience at the Austin Convention Center. Over the course of a nearly hour-long conversation, Nicks talked about what it takes to sing harmonies, a recent movie that sparked both memories of her own complicated romantic history as well as creative inspiration, the three musicians who provided templates for her style on stage, which Fleetwood Mac rarity the band will perform on its upcoming tour and why, when she and Lindsey Buckingham were being courted by Fleetwood Mac, the band placed the ultimate decision in the hands of Christine McVie.
NPR: I want to start by talking about In Your Dreams, the new record. I feel that it's a culmination of the best aspects of your solo work. I know you have said that it's your favorite solo album, in many years at any rate, and it includes at least one song written in the '70s and some that you wrote it right there during the sessions. So for me it really is an apex. And it also shows, I think, the two sides of your songwriting process merged so beautifully. Many people talk about, "Oh Stevie Nicks, she writes about, you know, fairies and witches and all that." But to me you are one of the most realistic songwriters about male/female relationships especially. And about what it's like to be a woman in quote unquote man's world, especially of rock 'n' roll. And I wonder how in your writing process you bring those two sides of you together. The wild dreamy Stevie and the Stevie with so much wisdom?
Stevie Nicks: What a question. You know, I think that the best way to start the answer to that question is to say that, when I first joined Fleetwood Mac and met Christine I was later to find out that it was all up to her whether or not they would accept me into the band or not. They needed a guitar player. Bob Welch had just quit. They did not need another girl. They already had a girl. And what a girl. So we all had dinner at a Mexican restaurant on like the second day of 1975. Mick [Fleetwood] had called us on New Year's Eve night and said, 'Would you like to have dinner with us? We really want to talk to you about joining our band.' And you know, Lindsey wasn't really — and he doesn't get mad at me for telling this, 'cause it's really the truth. He wasn't really all that excited about it. Because we had already started our second Buckingham Nicks record. And we were making it on spec, which means that the studio, Sound City, was giving us free time. So if somebody didn't come in, you know, our producer Keith would call us and say, come down right now. There's five hours of empty time that you can have for free. So he was really excited about this record that we were making. And also, the [first] Buckingham Nicks album was, in its own weird way, starting to simmer back in the South, you know.
After the first show sold out in no time at all... Another screening of Stevie's "In Your Dreams" has been added at The Landmark in Los Angeles on March 31st.
Really great reviews on Stevie's performance last night in Austin
during the Sound City Players gig at Stubb's BBQ.
SXSW 2013: Dave Grohl Leads Sound City Players in Last Show
Stevie Nicks, John Fogerty and Rick Springfield join in
by Eric R. Danton RollingStone
Stevie Nicks was next, and she surrounded a somber new song, "You Can't Fix This," with more familiar fare from her own catalog and Fleetwood Mac's, including a version of "Landslide" with Grohl accompanying her on a 12-string acoustic guitar.
After Nicks finished with "Gold Dust Woman," given added heft by the Foo Fighters, she yielded to Chris Goss from Masters of Reality.
"There's not going to be too many shows where you are going to see these people who are onstage," Grohl told the crowd before bringing out Nicks for a "dream" duet of Stop Draggin' My Heart Around.
Before performing You Can't Fix This, a new song that appears in the documentary and on its soundtrack (both out earlier this week), Nicks dedicated it to a godson who died of an overdose. Grohl & Co. provided tight underpinnings for her performances of Dreams and Landslide and drummer Taylor Hawkins seemingly mustered up his inner Mick Fleetwood for his intense thrashing at the end of Gold Dust Woman.
The three-hour plus show featured several high-proflle artists, such as Stevie Nicks, John Fogerty, Rick Nielsen of Cheap Trick and Rick Springfield, plus Lee Ving of the punk band Fear. During a set by Chris Goss of Masters of Reality, Brad Wilk of Rage Against the Machine and now Black Sabbath sat in on drums,
After an opening set by Alain Johannes, a Queens of the Stone Age collaborator, Nicks took the stage.
She and Grohl launched into "Stop Dragging My Heart Around," with Grohl taking Tom Petty's vocal parts. After that, Nicks introduced a new song she'd written, "You Can't Fix This," a dour ballad that temporarily lost the crowd of about 3,000.
She got it back immediately with a few of her best-known songs: "Dreams"; "Landslide," which featured Grohl on 12-string acoustic guitar and which prompted a heartwarming sing-along throughout the huge venue; and "Gold Dust Woman."
That one ended with a long, raucous instrumental that brought out the beasts in Grohl and Foo Fighter drummer Taylor Hawkins.
After half a dozen songs bashed out with Johannes, Nicks stepped to the mic and proved to be more than up to the task of leading a bashing hard rock band.
Grohl's Sound City Players are a revue of this recording studio's alum, including both big names (John Fogerty, Stevie Nicks and, of course, Grohl and his fellow Foo Fighters), lesser-known talents (Johannes,Fear's Lee Ving and Slipknot's Corey Taylor, sans mask) and one retro favorite (Rick Springfield!). Many of the key players took turns fronting the band, performing generous — in some cases, too generous — sets of songs. Grohl and other musicians (notably, his Foos) backed up the singers.
There was plenty of filler, but also some killer (moments). A number of them came early in the night when Nicks -- whose documentary film, "In Your Dreams: Stevie Nicks," was screened at SXSW earlier in the day -- was onstage.
Nicks' voice wasn't great, but most of the songs sure were. The band delivered fantastic versions of such Fleetwood Mac classics as "Dreams," "Gold Dust Woman" and, especially, "Landslide," which featured pretty much everyone in the house singing harmony.
John Fogerty, Stevie Nicks, Corey Taylor and a pair of Ricks join Dave Grohl in Austin
By Gary Graff Billboard
Alain Johannes' artful variety gave way to Stevie Nicks' parade of Fleetwood Mac hits, including a moving "Landslide" and a powerhouse "Gold Dust Woman." Nicks also won cheers when she said she was so impressed with her first visit to SXSW that she plans to return next year and rent a place for three weeks to hang out.
SXSW 2013: Dave Grohl's Sound City Players go big (before going home)
By Mikael Wood LA Times
"It's my life's greatest gift that I get to call up these people who I consider heroes and have them come onstage and jam with me," Grohl said.
Among those heroes was Stevie Nicks, who sang tunes including "Stop Draggin' My Heart Around," "Landslide" and (a very dreamy) "Dreams." She also did "You Can't Fix This," a strong new song from the "Sound City" soundtrack. But Nicks was best in a muscular rendition of Fleetwood Mac's "Gold Dust Woman," for which she went into her signature whirling-dervish mode, arms outstretched, long blond hair whipping around her.
In an onstage interview earlier Thursday with NPR music critic Ann Powers, Nicks said she'd taken ballet classes early in her career to learn how to use her body while performing. "I can captivate with my hands," she'd said, and she was right.
Shifting the bill a bit, Stevie Nicks, who had been closing shows, performed second, offering up the ‘Sound City’ soundtrack favorite ‘You Can’t Fix This’ alongside the minimal backing of ‘Landslide’ and a stellar set closer in ‘Gold Dust Woman’ with most of the Foo Fighters present.
At 64, age has counterintuitively improved Stevie Nicks' bourbon-and-cigarettes voice, as many of the first-half highlights went to her. The mournful hook of Fleetwood Mac's "Dreams." The first verse of "Landslide," which saw Nicks singing over Grohl's acoustic, 12-string guitar accompaniment, silencing a celebratory Friday night crowd. The extended jam in the middle of "Gold Dust Woman" saw Grohl barely hiding a huge grin throughout. "If there's one person who walks it like she talks it...," said Grohl of Nicks.
In fact, it probably won’t ever happen again. That lineup along with Cheap Trick’s Rick Nielsen, Slipknot singer Corey Taylor, Rage Against The Machine drummer Brad Wilk, Nirvana’s Krist Novoselic and Chris Goss of Masters of Reality all were part of Sound City Players Thursday night.
Dave Grohl, who leads Foo Fighters and played drums in Nirvana, put together the Players for a documentary about a now-defunct Los Angeles recording studio, Sound City, then took the show on the road playing New York, London, Los Angeles and a 3 1/2 hour finale at Stubbs BBQ.
Highlights of the show, which included performers playing their old hits and songs from the documentary soundtrack:
Nicks joining with, essentially, the Foo Fighters for a handful of songs with Grohl unleashing his inner Tom Petty on the duet “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around,” a dreamy version of “Dreams’ and a dynamic “Gold Dust Woman,” a surprising choice for Nicks who was in good voice and full stage-witch persona.
Grohl repeatedly noted how fortunate the crowd to see all these artists together on one stage, and it was tough to argue.
The emotional high point came early, during Nicks’ set, which included “Stop Draggin My Heart Around,” “You Can’t Fix This,” “Dreams,” “Landslide” and “Gold Dust Woman.” If you were sitting around at home you would probably never think to yourself, “You know what would be awesome? Having Stevie Nicks sing Fleetwood Mac songs with the Foo Fighters as her backing band.” But it was.
“Stop Draggin” and “Gold Dust Woman” were amplified into hard arena jam-rock anthems (aided heavily by the Foos’ Taylor Hawkins on drums). Then the band mostly stripped down to Grohl and Nicks for an intimate take on “Landslide.” “To play this song with you…” Grohl started, by way of introduction, then didn’t finish the sentence and fans got the message that there were no words to describe what it meant to him, and Nicks pleased the locals by noting that she was so impressed with Austin she wanted to move there.
What makes Dave so likable--nay, lovable--is the fact that he's as big and dopey a rock fan as anyone you might find in the front row of his concerts. When he introduced the fabled Fleetwood Mac frontgoddess on Thursday, he was grinning the grin of all Cheshire Cat grins as he declared: "We're so lucky, people, that we can invite heroes onstage tonight!" Stevie then sailed out in all her white-magic witchery finery for a mini-set that included a "Stop Draggin' My Heart Around" duet with Dave and Fleetwood's "Dreams," "Gold Dust Woman," and the gorgeous "Landslide," the latter of which had me reaching for the Stubb's quintuple-ply BBQ napkins to dab at my teary eyes. Dave positively raved about Stevie, telling the audience, "When she writes a song, it's 100 percent Stevie. She doesn't care if she going to make you freak out or cry." Honestly, I did a little bit of both at Thursday's show.
Stevie Nicks on 'In Your Dreams,' Fleetwood Mac's Tour and Longevity Secrets At SXSW
By Gary Graff, Austin Billboard
Stevie Nicks was on hand at South By Southwest to screen “In Your Dreams,” the Dave Stewart-directed documentary about the making of her latest album of the same name, and to play a killer set with Dave Grohl’s Sound City Players. But you can never limit the always-engaged Nicks to just one or two things, so when she sat for one of SXSW’s celebrity interviews on Thursday at the Austin Convention Center, she had plenty to say. Here’s five things we learned during the nearly one-hour session:
She’s Still Devoted to Her Band: Nicks recalled that while she was making her first solo album, “Bella Donna,” the other members of Fleetwood Mac “were terrified that I would do that record and then quit. And I said to them, ‘You guys…’ I wanted to go around and hold each one of their hands and say, ‘Listen, loves, I am never going to leave you. I just need another vehicle. I have trunks of songs…that are never going to be heard. But it’s never going to beat Fleetwood Mac.' What I do is the Lear Jet; they’re the 738. I really did convince them I’m not going anywhere. ‘I love you guys and I love my band. I would never break up Fleetwood Mac, ever. I just take their vacations, that’s all.'”
The Mac Is Ready to Get Back (On The Road): “I’m in rehearsals with them now. We go from ‘Go Your Own Way’ to ‘Sara’ to ‘Never Going Back…’ to ‘Landslide.’ This time we’re actually doing ‘Sister of the Moon,’ which we haven’t done since 1979 or 1980. And it’s dark; (sings) ‘Intense silence as you walk in the room,’ and people are like, ‘What does that mean?’ That’s me talking to me, talking to my alter ego and the person that’s having a hard time being a rock star…Twenty-four songs is what we’re doing. I’m sitting there looking at the board going, ‘Oh my God, we’re only halfway through. We have 12 songs to go and we’ve been playing for six hours!’"
Tom Petty’s Ex-Wife Gets an Assist on “Edge Of 17:" “I asked his wife when she met him – his first wife, Jane – and she said in her very Florida, swamp accent, ‘I met him about the age of 17,’ and I thought she said ‘the edge of 17,’ but she said it’s the age of 17. And I went like, ‘Oh Jane, that’s fantastic,’ and I just wrote it right down. And I told her I was going to use that in a song and she said, ’Oh, that’s fantastic. Go write a hit.’ I was really good friends with her, so she dug it.”
She Has a New Song in the Works: “I just saw a movie I was going to write a song about that I was inspired by in a very strange way – ‘Anna Karenina.’ I’m watching this movie and I’m really riveted by the fact that she was happy in her marriage and it was fun…and then she meets this mom who asks her, ‘Have you ever really been in love?’ What a question! And she’s like, ‘What is love, really?’ and thinks about it. Then she meets her son and it happens. I never jumped in front of a train, but what obsessive love can do to people, I’ve seen it in my own life and I saw it in that movie and it really affected me. I’ve been there and I don’t want to be there again. So now I’m just walking around with this in my head, and I’m so ready to go to the grand piano with white candles and (write)."
We’ll Have Her to Kick Around for Many Years to Come: Since finding a vocal coach in 1997, Nicks said she’s in good enough shape to last a lifetime. “Opera singers plan to sing into their 80s. I plan to not be doing 190 shows when I’m 85, but I do plan to be out there singing when I am a seriously older woman, ‘cause I think my voice will still be pretty good because I’m not gonna let it go. The people that can’t sing anymore that had great voices are people that went away for five years and just decided to come back. You can’t just come back. You have to keep singing – or dancing."
Stevie Nicks Sees Women's Rights Slipping, 'And I Hate It' At SXSW talk, she addresses feminist gains and losses, heroes from Janis to Jimi
Photo by KUTXAustin
by Dan Rys RollingStone
March 15, 2013 10:55 AM ET
"The true rock legends truly changed the game," said NPR's Ann Powers by way of introduction Thursday at SXSW Music. "Stevie Nicks definitely changed the game."
Powers conducted a Q&A with the very busy Fleetwood Mac singer – in addition to performing with Dave Grohl's Sound City Players at SXSW, she has a new tour and is set to release a new solo album. The talk ran down the story of Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham joining Fleetwood Mac, her regimen for keeping her voice in shape even at the age of 64 and her myriad performing influences. But it opened and closed with a discussion about feminism – not only in the largely male-dominated world of rock & roll, but in society today.
"We fought very hard for feminism, for women's rights," Nicks said in response to a question from the crowd. "What I'm seeing today is a very opposite thing. I don't know why, but I see women being put back in their place. And I hate it. We're losing all we worked so hard for, and it really bums me out."
Nicks and bandmate Christine McVie were strong female figures in an industry where many male musicians were hero-worshipped by fans across the world, and Nicks said they worked to change the perception of women within the rock & roll circles of the Seventies. "I said to Chris, we can never be treated like second-class citizens," she explained. "When we walk into a room we have to float in like goddesses, because that's how we wanted to be treated. We demanded that from the beginning."
Nicks also recalled her days in San Francisco in the late Sixties and early Seventies, when she and Buckingham opened for headliners from Janis Joplin to Jimi Hendrix. "Flamboyance and attitude from Janis, humbleness and grace from Hendrix, and a little bit of slinky from Grace Slick," she said. "Those were the three people who I emulated when I was on stage."
And while it's been more than 30 years since she took up her place in Fleetwood Mac, her voice – bolstered by a vocal coach she has worked with since 1997 – isn't letting her down yet. "Opera singers sing into their 80s," she said. "I don't plan to be doing [hundreds] of shows when I'm 85, but I do plan to still be out there singing when I'm a seriously older woman."
SXSW Interview: Stevie Nicks
Austin Convention Center, Thursday, March 14
REVIEWED BY ABBY JOHNSTON Austin Chronicle
"I will always be a witch." Sure, she was talking about a Halloween costume, but that statement toward the end of Stevie Nicks' hourlong interview summed up many lingering notions about the Fleetwood Mac songstress. Like her mystery, her flamboyance, and yes, her entanglements with the male libido. NPR's Ann Powers posed questions, but the verbose Nicks needed little prompting. She wound in both her solo career and time with the fabled band, at times erring to a sleepover-style boy dish. Continual jabs at Lindsey Buckingham ("Oh, Lindsey likes to lock himself in a studio and make records no one hears.") and waxing about Dave Stewart seemed to miss the point. For an icon to many women, this kind of quintessential trait might have disappointed, but the fire in her eyes when she ripped off her sunglasses for the first time only came when she talked about the feminist movement. The phrase "woman in a man's world" popped into Powers' questions repeatedly, but it has less to do with Nicks' existence in a music business dominated by men than with the world she created for herself – magical, mystical, and maybe a little narcissistic. And that's the way we like her.
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