The incomparable Stevie Nicks joins Zane Lowe on Apple Music 1 to discuss her new release "For What It's Worth", her tour and her incredible relationships with artists past and present, including Tom Petty, Prince, Harry Styles, Miley Cyrus, and more.
Stevie Nicks Tells Apple Music About Her Relationship With Harry Styles and Miley Cyrus…
…he’s that kind of a friend. He's a brother, and a son, and maybe we’re best, best friends in another life or something. I don't know. But yes, we're very close. Miley and I, I didn't really know Miley until we went into the Edge of Midnight, Edge of Seventeen thing. And then, we had so many phone conversations. And we're both so loud and so talkative that we just went a million miles during our first phone conversation. And we just hit it off. And we went back and forth with Andrew Watt, her producer, therefore my producer also. And then Jimmy Iovine got involved and sent them all the Edge of Seventeen sticks, whatever that means. The sticks, where everything lives, on the sticks. And so, they had all the original vocals and everything that was important on Edge of Seventeen. And it was super fun. And when it was done, I thought it was really excellent. And had it not been for COVID, she wanted me to come to New York and do this New Year's Eve thing, but I couldn't go.
Stevie Nicks Tells Apple Music About Her Close Friendship with the Late Tom Petty…
Tom was one of my best friends in the world. I met him in 1979, the end of 1979. He gave me ‘Stop Draggin' My Heart Around’ and had already recorded it and sang it with me. And I didn't even know him. So he and I were really, really dear friends until he passed away. I'm also doing ‘Free Fallin' at the end of the show. We also did that in Fleetwood Mac three years ago at the end of our show. And it's just one of my favorite TP songs. And then when we come off, we play Learning to Fly. It's like I don't know, I think I just want to keep him with me. I just want to keep him here as long as I can. Sometimes I'm in tears, sometimes I can smile with a little bit of the remembrance of the hysterical person he was. And he was a real music connoisseur and there's so many different sides of Tom. I mean it's like this really sweet Tom and the Tom that would just say, "You better do that again and do it right." He had so many different personalities. But I mean his ex-wife, Jane Petty, said, "Besides me, Stevie, I think that you're the best friend that Tom ever had." And I thought that was the nicest thing that anybody in Tom's world ever said about me because I think so. I agree. I was a really close friend of his. It's hard for me every day and probably always will be.
Stevie Nicks Tells Apple Music About Her Close Friendship and Connection with Prince…
Prince and I were good friends. It's like he and I inspired each other back and forth. I wrote Stand Back inspired by Little Red Corvette. I sang along to Little Red Corvette on the radio, and I wrote the song, I had a piece of paper and pencil, and I wrote the song in the car. And then, I went back to Los Angeles and recorded it, but I had to call him. So, I finally got a number, and I just said, "So, Prince, this is Stevie Nicks. And, I wrote a song to your track, Little Red Corvette, and I would like for you... I don't know if you're in town or not, but I'm at Sunset Sound, and... Are you here?" And, he goes like, "Yeah, I'm here." And, I said, "Well, could you come down?" And he goes, "Yeah, yeah. Sure. Sunset Sound?" And, he walked in 15 minutes later. And so, he did play on it… he played keyboards on it, and then he played some guitar on the middle part. And, if you really listen to it, you'll find it in there. So anyway, I gave him half the song, and everybody's happy, and then from that day onward, he worried about me and my drug addiction. And, he would be always, somewhat loved me, and somewhat was so worried about me, he couldn't hardly stand it. So, we had long, long conversations about it on the phone. So, our relationship went on from about whenever Stand Back came out, until he died. It wasn't an in person relationship all the time, but we talked a lot. And, when I got all better in 1995, after my last rehab, he was so thrilled and happy. So, yes, also ‘Edge of Seventeen’ he loved. And so, that inspired him to write ‘When Doves Cry’. And, it is said that the raspberry beret was somewhat inspired by me, not the part about walking around with nothing but the beret on, but the fact that I had a raspberry velvet beret, and he had seen it and liked it. So, it's little things that we both did inspired us. The connections are all there, and very real, and very alive today, as they always were. So, losing Tom and Prince, in the same time, was... I mean, very close to each other, was very weird.
Stevie Nicks Tells Apple Music About The Varied Backgrounds of The Various Members of Fleetwood Mac…
Christine's a certain kind of writer. She's our pop star and our single writer, mostly, over the years since 1975. Lindsey's our rock and roll, I don't want to say country really, but say rockabilly writer, because his brother brought him all these rockabilly records when he was really little kid. He was just entranced, I think, in all of the 1950s music. That's where he came up through, and then he's flipped over to The Kingston Trio. He had a whole bunch of influences that I really didn't have. You put Christine, blues Christine in London going... Stevie Winwood and Eric Clapton were her friends when she was in school, and they hung out. And we're like, "Oh my God. That's so fantastic.” And then there's me, who moves around with her parents, whose dad works for a beer company and moves every two or three years from when she's in the third grade all the way up to when she doesn't move with them at the beginning of her third year in college. All of our backgrounds are very, very different. But then there was one. There was me. Then there was me and Lindsey. Then there was me and Lindsey and Chris. Then it was a trio. It was a duo. Then it was a trio. It was just you, and then it was a duo. Lindsey and I had to stop being a duo the day we joined Fleetwood Mac. No more duo, just a trio, which was hard, since we'd been a duo since 1968. And it was now 1975. But you know what? It was super fun.
Stevie Nicks Tells Apple Music About Her Friendship with Christine McVie…
Christine, I adored from the minute I met her at dinner at a Mexican food restaurant in Los Angeles. I thought, "She's going to be... She doesn't know it. She's five years older than me. She's going to be my best friend. And she doesn't know this yet, but she is.” And she was. We had the best time. We really enjoyed all of those amazing adventures together. And it was like having your best friend in a band with you, which is unheard of. It's usually, you just don't get two girls and a guy, two girl writers and a guy. You just usually don't get that. So we were really lucky. That started us off on such a great foot that we just were able to just put on our high heel boots and go straight up the ladder.
Stevie Nicks Tells Apple Music About Touring With Mike Campbell and Neil Finn…
I was really good friends with Mike Campbell, because I've known him since, again, with Tom, 1979. And Mike has sent me a million tracks, and I almost always do one or two or three of Mike's tracks whenever I'm writing. So I knew Michael really, really well, very close friends. I think I had met Neil, but I didn't really know him well. Michael was a pretty easy fix because it was like, "You need a job. So how would you like to do this?" And Mike was like, "Well, I don't know. Let me think about that for a day." And I'm like, "Okay. You think about it.” And then we went to Maui, and we got on everybody else's computers, and we looked at every possible singing, guitar-playing guy. Mick knew Neil Finn. At the end of a week, he said, "Well, what about Crowded House's Neil Finn?" And we're like, "Well, he's got a beautiful voice.”
Stevie Nicks on Fleetwood Mac Being Famous For Getting New Guitar Players...
I think that what everybody would say, as far as the breakup of Fleetwood Mac, Fleetwood Mac was famous for getting new guitar players. We were the new guitar player - not me - but Lindsey was the new guitar player that came in at '75, when Bob Welch left. And before that, there was herds of guitar players. Whenever something happened, they got new guitar players.
Stevie Nicks Tells Apple Music About Working With Damon Albarn and The Gorillaz...
Well, I have to tell you, it was really great. Because when I got the song... Because Greg Kurstin sent it to me. Evidently Elton John said to him... Well, I think he might have asked Elton to do something. And Elton said, "Well, I can't really sing with you. You don't write your words in the right place.""It's really, I think, choppy. And you sing... Well, I just don't know how you even sing. I don't think I can do it." Anyway, and I was laughing so hard. Because I had just done a song with Elton, and Elton, I adore. But I had to learn how to sing with Elton. I really had to practice for weeks to be able to sing this song called Stolen Car. And I did it, and I was right there with Elton, but it was hard. So anyway, so Greg tells me this. And I go, "Send me the song." He sends me the song, and I play it for everybody in my dorm house. I call Greg back, and I go, "Oh, I think this is now our new favorite song," and I haven't even sung on it yet. But yes, I would love to do this, and I'm going to... Listen, I'm going to prove him wrong. I'm going to sing exactly perfect with him.So I learned that song as if I had written that song and as if I was a Englishman, with that accent. And I love it so much. But this is the only thing I asked for. I said, "I'm not asking for anything except the 50 bucks I'd probably charge you. If you make a video of this..." Because that's how I know about the Gorillaz, is because of all their crazy cartoon videos. I'm going, "I want to be in the oil video." I want to be a Gorilla, and I want to have big, false eyelashes, and I want to have blond hair, right?So, that's what I said. I said, "This is my one demand that I will make." And so, they're doing it as we speak. And the whole song is... I think that song is somewhere between love and war. Because when it's... (singing) And then there's... (singing) My favorite part. But anyway, whatever it is, I can't wait till it comes out because I'm so proud of it. Now, I was an honorary Heartbreaker. I was an honorary Foo Fighter. And now, I'm an honorary Gorilla. I'm so happy.
Stevie Nicks Tells Apple Music About Her History With Stephen Stills’ Song “For What It’s Worth”...
So, I'll tell you why I used it. Since 1966, when it was first written, I was a big Buffalo Springfield fan. So then, we moved quickly towards the future, and say 1968 is probably when I really started listening to Crosby, Stills & Nash. So, what happened was, is that then I really became a big fan of that song. And, even in those early days, that was right when I joined the band with Lindsey, it was 1968 in San Francisco. And, in my little head, thinking that, "Yes, of course this is going to work out." I said, "I'm going to record that song someday.”
Stevie Nicks Tells Apple Music Why She Decided To Release The Cover Now...
…it took a whole long time to do it, but the reason that I recorded it was because a week after the Uvalde shooting, I recorded it. I just said... It just came into my head. Sometimes you're just sitting on the couch, and sometimes it'll just come into your head, and you didn't even look for it, and it just comes. So, I thought, okay, I'm going to record it. And, I called my favorite producer, Greg Kurstin, and I said, "I would like to record this." And, he goes like, "Okay, great." He recorded it, he played everything except the lead guitar solo by Waddy Watchel. And, I went in and sang it, and with this whole COVID thing, it's not all so easy to just do that, but we did it, and we wanted to put it through a record company, because it was early in the summer. And so, that of course then takes a while, and then I had to go back on the road. So, it was not ever a protest song. Stephen Stills wrote it about the kids on the Sunset Strip getting together to go to the Roxy, and Troubadour, and everything. And then, the police said, "Well, you can't be keeping everybody in the Hills awake. So, you have to be gone by 10 o'clock." And, of course, I don't go to bed till eight in the morning. So, just imagine. It's like, you have to be off the streets at 10 o'clock, and they're like, "Are you serious? That's not going to happen." So, it turned into riots. I mean, they were like, "You're not going to tell us when we have to go to bed. So, we're not going to leave." So, that's really what he wrote it about. I had no idea, but it is. That's the truth.
Stevie Nicks Tells Apple Music How She Approached Covering The Song and What She Hopes Fans Get Out Of Listening To It...
So, everybody has their own meaning for that song, but I just think that somewhere in Stephen Still's amazing songwriting, visionary, whatever you want to say, for what it's worth, he managed, in that song, to cover everything. To cover everything that everybody's complaining about, and fighting against, in the entire world. He managed, in that song, to touch on everything so subtly… you could have said, "Okay, is that song about gun violence? Is that song about women's rights? Is it about immigration?" You wouldn't have had any idea exactly what it was about, but you could take it all in to be about anything that you personally wanted it to be about. But, I know, if I'm going to sing some really famous rockstar guy’s song, I better sing it well, or I'm going to get totally panned. So, I put everything I have into doing an interpretation of a song written by a man and sung by a man...especially such a famous man and songwriter as Stephen Stills. So I really did try to stay as within Stephen's realm as I could. And that's really, basically what I tell the audience is, "This is a song I long wanted to record. This seemed to be the right time. And I hope that you, whatever you're..." I don't know if I ever said whatever your views on anything are, I hope that you can rise above that and take it for what it is. And also, I just hope you like the song.
Stevie Nicks on Avoiding Covid…
I still have not got COVID, and I'm not getting it. That's my mantra. And I said, "Well, I'm not having it because I'm not having the long haul after effects of it." I barely made it to 74-years-old. I am not going to drop dead of a stroke in two years because I got COVID. So anyway, that's why out here, we are being so careful.
Stevie Nicks Tells Apple Music About Returning To Touring After Three Years...
We haven't been on tour in three years, so it's like, "Wow, let's see, what do we do now," kind of thing . We went out in the very beginning of the summer and we did three shows. We went into rehearsal for two weeks, then we did three shows. Then we came home for almost four weeks. Then we did five shows and then we came home for two months. That was the bulk of the really hot part of the summer. And then we just went back out and I mean we've done three shows I guess. So I have to tell you, I mean after being at home watching miniseries and not leaving the house hardly ever and being in a small bubble of... We had a sorority house bubble, and then just bang, into rehearsal and bang, right back on the road
Stevie Nicks Tells Apple Music Why She Avoids Outdoor Shows…
I swore off outdoor shows about 10 years ago because heat is not my friend. And if you dress and you have outfits and I'm wearing... My choice of outfit is a black velvet jacket that's very from the past that I love, but it's a black velvet jacket. But anyway, it's really hot. So I'd prefer to be indoors because for me, it's more dressy. It's more sophisticated. The sound is way, way better for me. I don't know how it is out there because I'm not out there, but how it is for me in my ear monitors is much better. You know what the sound is going to be because a big building doesn't change all that much, but outdoor venues change at every single venue. One will be great, the next one will just be awful and there's nothing you can do. It's the weather.
Stevie Nicks Tells Apple Music About the Carefree Nature of Tour Life as a Young Artist…
you have to remember between 1975 when I joined Fleetwood Mac, I was 28. I was just about 28, not quite. I was older than people would've probably thought because I looked really young so I was deceiving. But when you're really young and you're really in a brand new, big, huge band for that first 10 years, really nothing bothers you. The sound doesn't even bother you. Nothing bothers you because you're having such a good time and it's a free for all. It's just great. And you're not worried... It's not your problem if it doesn't sound good out front because you're not out front and you don't have ear monitors stuck in your head, blowing your head off and giving you ear problems, you're just getting your head blown off from a set of monitors that are at your feet that are so loud that can't tell if it sounds good or not. You're just on a wing and a prayer. So as long as you're just on a wing and a prayer, then who cares? It's like whatever, bring it on.
