Toward the end of "In Your Dreams," Stevie Nicks and Dave Stewart's documentary about the making of their album of the same name which opened at Toronto's TIFF Bell Lightbox last night, Stewart muses about the magic that he experienced in that year of writing and recording with the rock 'n' roll legend and his hopes that a piece of that comes across in the film.
"I hope it brought you a little closer to Stevie's heart," he says in his closing narration.
The film certainly lives up to Stewart's expectations. The result of the producer and former Eurythmics member's almost obsessive need to film and document everything in his life, "In Your Dreams" takes viewers deep into the year-long creative process behind Nicks's 2011 album -- her first solo release in over a decade -- and just as deep into the heart of its co-writer and co-director.
With his omnipresent camera essentially becoming part of the gang, Stewart documents almost every detail of what happened from the time that Nicks asked him to produce her new album to the assembly of her band and crew (including superstar producer Glen Ballard and her Fleetwood Mac bandmates Mick Fleetwood and Lindsey Buckingham) to the videos the crew made to accompany each song on the disc.
Obviously comfortable with her creative partner, Nicks opens up about almost everything. Her family, her early music history, her sometimes rocky history with Buckingham, and her current inspirations are all covered. She even waxes poetically on her love of the "Twilight" films, which were the inspiration for the song "Moonlight (A Vampire's Dream).
"I was taken with this movie because what happened to Bella absolutely happened to me," she says about Bella's post-Edward heartbreak in "New Moon."
The result of this intimate and open atmosphere is a documentary that actually does make you feel like you're part of the action, as cliched as that phrase may be. And, as it turns out, the film was only really the opening act for people who attended one of the two screenings and Stevie Nicks Q&As last night. In the flesh, the rock star was even more personable and charming.
Clad in one of her trademark flowing outfits, Nicks amiably sauntered on stage after the screening, settled into her seat and started regaling the sold out crowd with a story about the genesis of the "In Your Dreams" film, and how her own personal insecurities almost destroyed the project before it even began.
Stewart, she explained, original brought up the idea of filming the whole process when he first agreed to produce the album for her. Nicks wasn't big on the idea, as it stood in the way of all of dreams of recording and home and dressing as a complete slob.
"That means serious hair, makeup and clothes," she said, in mock horror.
In the end, though, it was "Running Down a Dream," the 2007 Tom Petty documentary, that convinced her to give the camera a shot.
"I remember the footage from Tom Petty's very, very long four-hour documentary, which I personally loved, every minute of it," she said. "But there was a part on the Traveling Wilburys that was so brilliant and it really showed the five of those guys like they were in the James Gang or something. And we got to see them for a half-hour really be who they were and just looking so handsome and playing this amazing music and then, within minutes, it seemed, two of them died. And if they hadn't have done that, what a shame that would have been."
Singer Stevie Nicks walked the red carpet in Toronto on Monday for the Canadian premiere of her new documentary In Your Dreams. CBC Arts and Entertainment
With Fleetwood Mac bandmates Mick Fleetwood and John McVie in the audience in advance of a concert by the band Tuesday, Nicks answered questions about making the documentary.
She produced and co-directed In Your Dreams with Dave Stewart (of Eurythmics fame), welcoming cameras into her California home for nearly a year while they wrote and recorded the 2011 album of the same name.
She told CBC News having creative control over the documentary allowed her the freedom to relax, despite the constant presence of cameras.
“The camera was this close and you wouldn’t care because it was Dave, because you know he promised you that he would never use anything unless you liked it,” she said.
A rock ‘n roll survivor, she describes Fleetwood Mac’s rise to fame and its off-on history since the 1970s. But the bulk of film is devoted to the creative process, as she and Stewart work on new songs and hash out how to shape the sound.
The cameras captured “the writing of seven of the songs. Nobody ever gets that,” Nicks said in an interview with CBC’s Zulekha Nathoo.
She toured for two years in support of the solo album, but Nicks said she sold only 300,000 copies, a disappointment after the stardom she enjoyed with Fleetwood Mac's 1977 album Rumours.
" It's awesome if you're an unknown artist and you have a hit single but it's not really that awesome if you're Stevie Nicks," she said.
"It's such a different age now."
Nicks also mentioned an idea Stewart has been trying to get her to embrace – a one-woman stage show along the lines of Barbra Streisand’s My Name is Barbra.
"He wants me to have video screens, like a big room of video screens where it's all my whole life (up there). And I (said): 'Dave, I'm not Barbra Streisand'," Nicks said. "But maybe. Maybe someday."
Fleetwood Mac plays Tuesday at the Air Canada Centre in Toronto as part of a 34-city tour. In Your Dreams screens until April 18 in Toronto.
CBC Interview
Stevie Nicks is becoming more personable.
The lead singer of Fleetwood Mac has just released a new documenatry “In Your Dreams” that tells the story of Fleetwood Mac and Stevie Nicks’ inner life. Nicks walked the red carpet at the TIFF Bell Lightbox in Toronto on Monday night. She said this documentary is a little different. Stevie was also asked about the Boston explosions.
Headlines: Stevie Nicks debuts new doc with an intimate Q&A
The scene: A screening of Stevie Nicks’ documentary film, In Your Dreams, followed by an intimate Q&A with the chanteuse. Fangirls and boys—in eager, nervous numbers—sell out two consecutive screenings to be among the first to see the footage and interact with Nicks.
The story: Nicks teamed up with pal Dave Stewart, of Eurythmics fame, to chronicle the recording of her seventh studio album. The duo holed up in Nicks’ empty mansion with a group of musicians, including producer Glenn Ballard, throughout much of 2010 to record the album. The doc offers both insight into the songwriting process and the stories behind each track, which serve as neat divisions in the film’s narrative. There’s also a retrospective of Stevie’s childhood and career, focusing on her rise to fame, the important relationships with bandmates and family that shaped her, as well as glimpses into her intense emotions regarding current events, from 9/11 to Hurricane Katrina.
The takeaway: Nicks, who turns 65 on May 26, feels as young and alive as ever, invigorated by the people in her life and the music she is making. She does it because she wants to “defy” the music business to remind the audience “why [she] loved it back in the day.” In Your Dreams isn’t without its quirks: odd, staged performances of the album’s tracks that feel like one part music video, one part accidental LSD trip. Stevie leading a horse, singing. Stevie holding an owl, singing. Visiting an army hospital. In a ball gown, down the stairs, singing. A vampire playing a piano. Yes, it’s all beautiful and bizarre, yet so wonderfully in tune with her musical majesty.
So what do we learn about Nicks from her self-portrait?
We learn the track “Moonlight (A Vampire’s Dream)” was inspired by Twilight: New Moon, which Nicks saw in Australia and immediately related to Bella so deeply that she “just started to cry from the deepest part of [her] heart.” We learn Reese Witherspoon would play her in a movie and inspired/named the song “Cheaper Than Free,” one of Nicks’ all-time favourites. We learned that Stevie doesn’t “like to be told what to do.” Naturally. Nicks’ Q&A, then, is the epilogue to In Your Dreams, as both a film and an album, as she discusses her ambitious promotional schedule—because the “record company won’t help”—and about her desire to introduce loyal audiences to new material. Her responses are heavy-handed, with details so crisp and clear, spoken like a true poet. Nicks articulates exactly what she wants you to feel, and illustrates the internal journeys that bring her to her realizations. She speaks her brand of carefully-crafted wisdom.
Best outfit: A tie! Nicks, in all black, with fingerless leather gloves and a crescent moon necklace. Or her mini-me fan from the future, in a floral crown, peasant top, and flowing cotton skirt.
Number of times the audience howls and claps after Nicks answers a question: 4
Number of times an audience member screams “I love you”: 1
Number of audience members who cried on the mic: 1, after Nicks shares an intimate confession on the regret of not knowing enough about her mother’s life before she passed away at the end of 2011.
Number of chiffon blouses Nicks claims to own: “About 300”
On making In Your Dreams, the documentary: “If you would had asked us then if we were making a movie, we would have started giggling, ‘Are you crazy? We’re not making a movie.’ We were just filming because Dave [Stewart] likes to film.”
On recording In Your Dreams, the album: “It was like this amazing old English party every single day, and, on top of that, we were making amazing music.”
On being inspired by the four-hour-long documentary, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers: Runnin’ Down a Dream, and vanity: “It seemed like within minutes [of Dream], two of the guys died. And if they hadn’t [made that movie], what a shame that would have been. So that’s what came into my head: What a shame would it be if you, Ms. Vanity, said no to this because you don’t want to spend half an hour doing makeup and picking a uniform.”
Her mom’s advice: “Don’t forget the journey. Don’t forget to appreciate that journey because many people don’t have a brilliant, brilliant journey like you have had. So don’t forget that.”
Her dad’s advice: “Stevie, go where the work is.”
On recording Rumours: “Well, it wasn’t really a pleasant experience. Lindsey and I had just broken up. None of the couples were happy. On one hand, this really lends to the creative process…it was not a lot of fun. But I would like to remind people, and myself, that it was a very, very romantic time. We were young and we were totally rich. Love was in the air, even if we weren’t particularly in love, it was still in the air. It was grand. Would you call it the happiest year of your life? No. But would you call it an extremely interesting, weird, passionate, crazy year? Yes.”
On selling records, then and now: “For a big act…like moi…I didn’t sell a lot of records [of In Your Dreams].
Worldwide, I probably only sold 300,000 records [estimates report 500,000]. It’s awesome if you’re an unknown artist and you have a hit single. But it’s not really awesome if you’re Stevie Nicks and [1981's solo debut] Bella Donna sold three million copies in the first month and went straight to number one on Billboard. It’s not awesome in that way, but you can’t look at it like that anymore. Records don’t sell like that. If we had done Rumours now, and then [the follow-up] Tusk, the double album, Warner Brothers would tell us to get out—and take your African tusks with you.” [Audience laughs] “Seriously.”
Comparing the vibe of her solo shows to those of Fleetwood Mac: “In my show, I talk a lot. In Fleetwood Mac, I don’t talk a lot because [that show] is much more sophisticated and grown-up. My show is just a big, like, slumber party in an auditorium.”
On Girl Power: “When I joined Fleetwood Mac, Christine [McVie] and had many talks. I said to her, “You and me together are a force of nature. We’re pretty tough by ourselves, but together we can’t be beat. I just want to let you know that I don’t ever want you and I to ever be treated like second class citizens. We will never be pushed aside in a group of British and American rock stars that are men. We will never be treated like that. And we weren’t. Had we not demanded it, we wouldn’t have gotten that kind of treatment.”
On her new life mantra: “I’m not going to worry about record sales anymore, I’m not going to worry about what people think. What really matters is what I think. If I’m thinking good, then what I do is going to turn around make you feel happy. I throw the dreams out there and you throw them back. That’s how this works. It happens because we’re a team. You’re my team.”
The experience in 140 characters or less: “I can die now. #stevienicksforever”
Stevie Nicks was in Toronto this week ahead of Fleetwood Mac’s show Tuesday night at the Air Canada Centre
by Erin Criger Citynews
The singer was promoting her new documentary In Your Dreams. The movie, filmed with Eurythmics’ Dave Stewart, follows Nicks as she makes her 2011 album, also called In Your Dreams.
The Canadian premiere was held at the TIFF Bell Lightbox on Monday night.
“We got stuff that nobody ever gets. We got the actual writing of the songs – nobody ever gets that, because you usually don’t let anybody in while you’re doing it,” Nicks told CityNews at the Lightbox.
“Everybody got a camera. There were like 12 people there with a camera,” Nicks said.
Nicks said Stewart persuaded her to make the documentary and to film it in her house. At first, she said, they were only going to record the album at her home.
When he proposed the idea, she said, “Are you serious? Are you kidding? You mean I have to put makeup on every day?”
She said Stewart promised that if she didn’t like the footage, they wouldn’t use it.
“It was a promise made between the caterpillar and Alice. And I knew it was true,” Nicks said.
In Your Dreams will play at the Lightbox until April 18.
Stevie Nicks promotes ‘In Your Dreams’ documentary in Toronto
Words and Photos by Ryan Emberley - Check out more at CDaily
The doors of the TIFF Bell Lightbox open and in saunters the gypsy queen of rock & roll herself: Stevie Nicks.
Flanked by bodyguards, media pit at the ready-- it was a picture-perfect moment. Nicks, 64, still does Margi Kent proud; garbed in black, fingerless leather gloves, and killer platform boots.
It was a whirlwind tour of Toronto for Nicks, who was in town Monday evening for the Canadian premiere of her new documentary, Stevie Nicks: In Your Dreams, and later, the Toronto leg of Fleetwood Mac’s world tour.
Bandmates Mick Fleetwood and John McVie also turned up for the premiere – arriving late and sneaking quietly into their seats.
The film, directed by Nicks and Dave Stewart, is a 112 minute song-by-song telling of the creative process behind the making of Nicks’ most recent album, also titled In Your Dreams.
It is, perhaps, mislabeled as a documentary. Verging on indulgent at times, the film is a great window into Nicks’ magical world for superfans, but perhaps a bit too long, and self-serving for the average film viewer expecting a classic documentary.
That said, there’s a lot for the casual fan to love. Reese Witherspoon makes a cameo and helps Nicks pen a song. And there’s a lot of humour – something not often seen from a rocktar of Nicks’ caliber.
Nicks comes off as a motley cocktail of self-awareness – equally humble and vain. In one breath, she shows an awe-inspiring empathic ability to connect and relate. In another, she unabashedly trumpets her own rock & roll legacy.
“You wouldn’t say that to Dylan,” she says… more than once (usually when someone challenges a creative decision she’s made). For most, comparing one’s self to Bob Dylan would be a faux pas, but for Nicks… it’s just awesome.
Off screen, the gamut of Nicks’ personality was also on display as she indulged the crowd with a duo of post-screening Q&A sessions. Nicks chatted earnestly about her career, the future of the music business, and her creative process as a writer.
What an opportunity it is, even for a fleeting hour or two, to enter the world of a woman who has danced across the stages of the world. She’s a feminist, she’s a lover, she’s an artist, and now, entering what might be the last stage of a storied career, she’s a mentor.
“Your journey is much more important than what you come out with,” says Nicks, tearing up as she relays advice she received just before her mother’s passing. “You’re just making memories. It’s all you’re doing.”
Stevie Nicks: In Your Dreams – Canada Premiere Movie Review - Q&A VIDEO COMING SOON
by Terry Makedon Tmakworld.com
Verdict 4 out or 5 – The ultimate voyeuristic trip into the world of a bonafide rock star. This is not a biography of Nicks that focuses on her epic stardom years but simply a window in one year of her life in her 60′s. The movie works for me as I am a Fleetwood Mac fan and thus by default a Stevie Nicks fan. I value having the opportunity to have insight into the life of rock icon and as far as rock star legacy goes Nicks is as good as it gets. Very compelling insight regardless of whether you are a die hard Nicks fan or not!
Fleetwood Mac star Stevie Nicks says making her 2011 solo album In Your Dreams and the 2013 behind-the-scenes documentary of the same name was almost beside the point because the process was “so much fun.”
“I lost my mom a year and a half ago,” said the 64-year-old Nicks getting choked up during one of two Q&A’s following screenings of the documentary on Tuesday night at TIFF Bell Lightbox in Toronto.
“And every since I lost my mother I really realized how important what you do is, and your journeys are much, much more important than what you come out with. And I look back on this year now and I think it’s so true. That’s all we were doing was making memories. There was no harsh words. There was no arugments. There was no friction ever. …I knew that we would never forget this year.”
Nicks told a packed crowd, which had included Fleetwood Mac bandmates drummer Mick Fleetwood and bassist John McVie before they exited pre Q&A, that documentary director and album co-producer-co-writer Dave Stewart (Eurythmics) talked her into filming on the second day of recording by reassuring her.
“Darling, if you don’t like it, we won’t use it, and that’s a promise,” Nicks said Stewart told her. “From that moment onward, I wasn’t worried anymore and the whole thing began with little flip cameras.”
The routine was that Stewart would come to Nicks home every day between 2:00 p.m to 8:30 p.m. (they moved his martini time from 4 p.m to 8;30 p.m.) and Nicks had to get up 4 hours earlier than usual to drink coffee in bed from 9 to noon, have a bath and do avocal lesson, and down a quick breakfast before Stewart arrived.
Naturally, filming meant a little bit more “girlie work’ for Nicks.
“I had this one blouse I liked and I just stuck with it,” explained Nicks. “‘Cause if I had to think about what I was wearing every day then that would really make the filming thing very uncomfortable for me. So i didn’t. So then I had to spend a half-hour putting on makeup and I had to blow out this really long hair 2 or 3 times a week instead of once a week. So it was more work definitely but after about the first two weeks I got used to it.”
The documentary had its Canadian debut in Toronto before moving its way across the country as Fleetwood Mac also makes Canadian stops at arenas. (In the case of Toronto at the Air Canada Centre on April 16.)
Nicks told media on the red carpet the current Fleetwood Mac show is “a big show. It’s different. I said to (guitarist) Lindsey (Buckingham), it’s disturbingly big. Because you’re in there putting on your shoes and then all of the sudden you’re out there on stage in front of 16,000 people. You have to kind of get used to that.”
Otherwise, she told the Q&A she was unaccustomed to holding a microphone as she took questions.
“Thirty-five, 40 years ago Lindsey said to me, ‘Oh, how very Las Vegas of you!’ And I never took the mic off the stand again. So when I hold the mic I feel like an idiot.”
Fleetwood Mac's Stevie Nicks recounts dark days of 'Rumours'
Cassandra Szklarski, The Canadian Press
TORONTO - Fleetwood Mac songstress Stevie Nicks is tantalizing fans with a bold idea: a one-woman show.
Could something along the lines of "My Name is Stevie" (in the vein of Barbra Streisand's "My Name is Barbra") or "Stevie With an I-E" (in the spirit of Liza Minelli's "Liza With a Z") be in the tarot cards?
The raspy-voiced veteran says it's an idea her pal Dave Stewart has been trying to get her to embrace.
Nicks made the comments while appearing at the Canadian premiere of her documentary "In Your Dreams," which follows her and the Eurythmics hitmaker as they write and record her 2011 album of the same name.
She says Stewart's plan would involve massive video screens revealing images from Nicks' storied life. But the "Landslide" crooner is laughing off the idea, noting: "I'm not Barbra Streisand."
Nicks' creative bond with Stewart is traced in an affectionate documentary that reveals the veteran rockers nit-picking over melodies and brainstorming lyrics at her home recording studio in California. The film plays in Toronto through Thursday before heading to other cities.
After the film, Nicks told a movie theatre full of fans that Stewart sees a new chapter in her career.
"He wants me to have video screens, like a big room of video screens where it's all my whole life (up there). And I (said): 'Dave, I'm not Barbra Streisand'," Nicks said smiling. "But maybe. Maybe someday."
She notes that her solo shows already feature a lot of talking, as opposed to the hit-laden concerts with her band Fleetwood Mac.
"It's very different. Fleetwood Mac's much more sophisticated and grownup and my show is just like a big slumber party in an auditorium. And I tell everybody the meanings of all these new songs. Because that's how I draw people in," says Nicks, who turns 65 on May 26.
After the movie, Nicks took questions from audience members, recounting the origins of her steadfast determination to be a star and dark days surrounding the recording of "Rumours."
"It wasn't really a pleasant experience," she says.
"Lindsey (Buckingham) and I had pretty much just really broken up, and we'd kind of broken up off and on for a year before that. So this is 1977. None of the couples were happy... which, on one hand, really lends to the creative process."
The film includes interviews with Nicks about Fleetwood Mac's rise to fame, current sources of inspiration, childhood memories and her surprising passion for the "Twilight" franchise.
She notes that promoting the album "In Your Dreams" involved a gruelling two years of touring and promotion. In the end, it didn't amount to much.
"I didn't sell a lot of records, you guys. For me, for a big act like moi, I didn't. Worldwide I probably sold 300,000 records. It's awesome if you're an unknown artist and you have a hit single but it's not really that awesome if you're Stevie Nicks," she said.
"It's such a different age now."
"In Your Dreams" heads to Ottawa on Friday and Saturday. It reaches Winnipeg on May 2, May 3 and May 5; Saskatoon on May 13; Edmonton on May 14; Calgary on May 16; Vancouver on May 18 and 23; and Montreal from June 14 to 17.
Fleetwood Mac performs at the Air Canada Centre on Tuesday. They head to Ottawa on April 23, Winnipeg on May 12, Saskatoon on May 14, Edmonton on May 15, Calgary on May 17 and Vancouver on May 19.
A week of documentary screenings and a Fleetwood Mac show at the ACC prove that classic rock is still king Toronto Standard
Tonight, Stevie Nicks made an appearance at two gala screenings of her In Your Dreams documentary at the TIFF Bell Lightbox to answer fans’ questions about the film and her decades-long music career. The film follows the production of her first solo album in a decade, produced by the Eurythmics’ Dave Stewart in Nicks’ home studio in 2010.
Stewart and Nicks directed the film which gives fans an inside look at Nicks’ creative process. For instance, before this album, she had never written with another person, and has no formal musical training, instead tapping away at a keyboard to figure out melodies. While tonight’s gala screenings were sold out, the documentary will continue to screen Tuesday through Thursday at TIFF, minus the post-show Q&A with Nicks.
The screenings come part and parcel of Nicks’ visit to Toronto as part of Fleetwood Mac’s current world tour. They play the Air Canada Centre tomorrow night. The popularity of the screenings and concert show the endurance of Nick’s and Fleetwood Mac’s music, nearly 50 years since the group’s inception, and continues the trend of classic rock reunion shows that have become the norm over the past few years.
Stevie Nicks stirs up fandemonium in Toronto ON SCREEN / Singer is in town promoting her new documentary
Dave Stewart: Co-director, Stevie Nicks: In Your Dreams
By SUSAN G. COLE Now Toronto
Dave Stewart put on every one of his musical hats – producer, guitarist, songwriter – for Stevie Nicks’s 2011 disc, In Your Dreams. He adds feature film co-director to his artistic resumé with this documentary tracking the album’s creative process and probing Nicks’s personal history and inspirations. He talked with NOW about that collaboration and why it worked. Stevie Nicks: In Your Dreams screens at the TIFF Bell Lightbox April 15 to 18.
Given your history with Annie Lennox, it’s obvious you like to work with strong women.
It’s my favourite thing. It’s much more rewarding than working with dumb women. I like working with strong men, too – Tom Petty, Bob Dylan, Mick Jagger. They’re very vibrant thinkers. They have inquisitive minds so have much more to add to the process.
What makes you a good collaborator?
People have different ways of getting things done. Some people can be very controlling and not end up with what they want. But my way of working is to be not controlling and end up getting what I want. The smart thing to do is choose to work to with brilliant people. There’s less to do.
What surprised you about Stevie Nicks once you started creating together?
Her loyalty. She’s incredibly loyal to her fans and the people she’s worked with for years and years – her two backup singers in particular, her friends and her family. She’s kept all that private.
Then there’s her incredible work ethic – it’s unbelievable how hard she works. Most people wouldn’t think that about her. They remember her wild periods or imagine her as a kind of ethereal, floating figure. And then you get into the workplace with her and she’s running the ship.
She’s more erudite than I expected, talking about Keats and Edgar Allan Poe....
But fans know Stevie is that character who’s walked out of an Edgar Allan Poe poem. She talks about how when she was a little girl she was sure that everyone had this thing about Poe, and still to this day she thinks that, when really, no, probably not. She’s always had this side of her – romantic but wandering to the dark side, a kind of Gothic world of writing. She also has a huge connection to something mystical and otherworldly, and when you’re with her and she talks about it, she makes it convincing because she doesn’t talk about it in an airy-fairy way.
How did the film project come about?
When we first started making the movie, Stevie didn’t realize it could be a movie. She thought we were documenting stuff in case we forgot it. But then I did some editing, and when I showed her some of the stuff and suggested it could be part documentary, part something bigger, a snapshot of what happened but also a snapshot of how her mind works, she started to get more intrigued.
You recorded the disc in the living room of Nicks’s mansion – hard enough. But it must have been just as hard to shoot there.
I had a few people miked up, and some ambient microphones. There weren’t that many cameras, and the camera operators worked discreetly. We used those Canon cameras that use very little lighåt, because there’s nothing worse for an artist than trying to work with a bright light shining in your face.
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