By Jon Bream,
The Star Tribune
Tuesday, June 24, 2003

Stevie Nicks rocks on these days in comfortable shoes. Friday night after Fleetwood Mac wrapped up a two-day concert stop at St. Paul’s X, she had on some sensible-looking, thick-soled black platform shoes that looked like they belonged to the ’70s.

“Tennis shoes,” she said when we shared a moment after the show. “They were Reeboks, little high-top ones that are really old, like eight years old. And they will remain on my feet all the way through the show. Just last night did I actually try going into the real boots for ‘Go Your Own Way.’ It’s too hard,” she said. So the sexy boots are being swapped for the tennies. “They are comfortable and I am having them copied . . . in suede.” But of course.

Nicks still has a way to go to rival Mick Fleetwood’s shoes and clothing. Businessman Steve Schussler told me that “everything Mick wears is handmade.” The audience got a good look at Mick’s red shoes and lederhosen when he came out from behind his drum set to bang us into a frenzy on conga drums. It was “Edelweiss” meets “Babaloo.” Backstage — actually down in bowels of the X — Fleetwood changed into a blue pair of the same-style shoes to greet some members of the Schussler group, party of 69.

Not everyone got backstage, but word is that Fleetwood Mac members were highly amused to hear that Schussler was bringing 69 or so to the concert. Nicks said she wished the tour was wrapping here, where she knows so many people. There is a good chance that if you thought Nicks was looking at you, you were standing near someone for whom she has fond feelings. Brandon Anderson, son of Nicks’ former husband, Kim Anderson, the Shussler Creative retail guy, was one of those people. “Did you see me wink at you?” Stevie said to Brandon before adding, “Wicked woman.”

Tina O’s kiss-and-tell Interior designer Tina O, a woman so dedicated to re-inventing herself that I did not recognize her, attended both Fleetwood Mac shows. “Last night’s [concert] was two-and-a-half kisses,” Tina O said. “Tonight’s [Friday’s concert] was four kisses, and I think the reason is Stevie Nicks was so hot tonight ’cause some of her favorite men were in the audience.” On Thursday, Tina O concluded that Nicks’ “Gold Dust” was gone. “She wasn’t electrifying and the twirling was like a frog in a blender.” Get used to Tina rating things with kisses.

This fall on Hubbard Broadcasting’s Channel 45, she and Cindy Redmond are scheduled to start doing two-minute movie reviews, which she hopes will launch them into a 30-minute talk show. They’ll be passing out kisses, not stars, and the rating you don’t want is “the kiss off,” said Tina O. A friend of hers wanted to smack Tina O’s kisser after Tina pointed out the wifely half of the couple known as Mr. and Mrs. Big house because they are building such an enormous residence in the western suburbs.

“Why would you ever believe anything she said?” Mrs. Bighouse remarked about Tina O’s blabbing.

By Cindy Adams
New York Post
Friday, May 30, 2003

I PERFORMED social work this week. I did a service for mankind. Possibly maybe I even saved a human life al though that’s not definite.

I went forth into foreign terrain. Fleetwood Mac’s first together-again concert in the New York area in seven years. I went into even foreigner terrain — New Jersey. I went with the band’s producer/architect/hotshot guitarist Lindsey Buckingham, who was at the Ritz under an alias. The now four-person bunch — Stevie Nicks, Mick Fleetwood, John McVie, Lindsey — all stay at different hotels.

Lindsey’s transport was a limo so stretched that it reached the Lincoln Tunnel while still parked at the Ritz. And what’s their tour bus like? “We don’t do buses. We have our own 727.” Right. OK.

I was told to wear flats. Lindsey’s stunner blonde wife, Kirsten, featured 4-inch stiletto boots. I was told to go casual. She was in jeans and scoopneck sweater with a diamond necklace — considered casual, since she didn’t have matching earrings.

We left at 4:30 p.m. for the 8:15 concert. Sound check is early because, whatever the voodoo that she do, Stevie, who brings her two Yorkies, “needs three hours to get ready.” Why? “She gets a massage.” But if you have to get “up” for a performance, isn’t massage relaxing, not stimulating? Lindsey, who “personally could arrive 15 minutes before and walk right onstage,” doesn’t know. He only knows she needs three hours to get ready.

At rehearsal Mick Fleetwood sported a neon turquoise jacket. Stevie, with rollers in her hair, said: “Today’s my birthday. I’m 55. Not my favorite, because it means I’m getting close to 60.”

Holding son, Will, 41/2, and daughter LeeLee, 21/2, Lindsey said: “I used to start my day at 7 p.m. and finish with the sun. The road was three times crazier. A critical mess. An exercise in denial. We were wild animals who couldn’t start working even in a studio at 11 a.m. In R ‘n’ R, they say you’re burned out in your 40s. I’m 53. And now I’m living a simple life.”

“Simple” is their new Bel Air home — 8,000 square feet, plus cabanas, pool, grounds, 1,200-square-foot studio — all of which an architect built as an authentic hacienda after “we got books, then explored to death every Spanish house we could find in Montecito and Santa Barbara” and after “pretty ballsy” Kristen personally sketched what she wanted.

Lindsey, soft-spoken, easy, pleasant, in plain black pants, T-shirt and jacket, cuddling his children like any dad, anywhere: “And I’m working on having friends. Those old days I was not happy, so I was more guarded. I had girlfriends not friend friends. Now I live a 9-to-5 life and don’t extend myself to things like parties.”

This particular performance was the dawn of a new day. “Not as big individually as we were together,” they’re now a unit again and pushing their new album “Say You Will,” which started as a solo but morphed into Fleetwood Mac.

“We have to rebuild. To be Fleetwood Mac 2. The whole mantra now is trust. Much as I want this to go on a dozen more years, I’m sort of waiting for the other shoe to drop. We’re always stressed out. It’s 75/25 we make it. Us reuniting is a minor miracle. My family at this stage of my life is a major miracle.”

Being the first his kids had seen Papa Rock Star on stage, Kristen stuffed earplugs in them. As 18,000 fans began screaming, she said: “They saw him on the ‘Today’ show and asked, ‘All those people clapping for daddy?’ ”

Added Kristen: “I love New York. It’s the only place I can get dressed up, although we couldn’t get into Le Cirque because Lindsey had no shirt or tie.”

Speaking of getting dressed, what’s with the diamond necklace? “I just got it,” she said. “My Mother’s Day gift. We bought it at Judith Ripka.”

But no matching earrings? That’s a shame for the neighbors, I said.

“No matching earrings,” she sighed.

She needs matching earrings, I said.

“Matching earrings?” he repeated.

“Cindy says it’s embarrassing I don’t have matching earrings,” she explained.

“But we’re leaving tomorrow. No time to go back to Judith Ripka.”

Always one to help the less fortunate, I rang Judith and got the matching earrings to them.

I truly believe I did some form of social work. A service for (wo)mankind. Possibly maybe even saved a human life although, like I say, that’s not definite.

Fleetwood Mac’s gold dust woman has grown up. A Q&A with Stevie Nicks

By Jac Chebatoris
Newsweek.com
Wednesday, May 28, 2003

During the height of Fleetwood Mac, Stevie Nicks would stay up all night via the band’s infamous “velvet bags” of cocaine. She was also addicted for years to Klonopin, an anti-anxiety drug.

NOW 55 YEARS OLD and at the start of a new tour with the Mac, Nicks keeps earlier hours. If she can’t sleep, she gets on the treadmill instead of taking a pill. A big night for her might include friends—Sheryl Crow’s now a close pal—coming over for dinner and poring over fashion magazines. Nicks is hoping Crow and the other “rock-star women” that came after her can learn from some of her lessons. “They know that I went through all the bad parts and I really tell them the truth and I love all those girls, I really do,” Nicks says. “And I love the fact that they care about me and they’re like all my daughters that I didn’t get to have.”

That’s right, the once hot-rockin’ mama is now more like a den mother. She still has the flowing lace scarves and skirts and the distinct rasp (though she now takes voice lessons, which she started in 1997), but Nicks has something new, too: a softness that comes with the wisdom of age. “The fact that we even managed to get to this point is amazing,” says Nicks.

Back in the Mac’s heyday, the band’s chemistry made for good music and great drama. After joining the already-formed group as a couple, Nicks and guitar player Lindsey Buckingham famously busted up during the recording of “Rumours” in 1977 (think about that and then go listen to “Go Your Own Way”). Then there was Nicks’s brief affair with married drummer Mick Fleetwood. And don’t forget the just-part-of-the-lifestyle constant flow of drugs and alcohol that kept the party going. It seemed sure that even though they had been the ones to sing “Don’t Stop,” they would eventually have to.

Fleetwood Mac last recorded a CD of original music back in 1987 and remained largely estranged for many years. They reunited for President Clinton’s inaugural celebration in 1993 and in 1997 put out a live album, “The Dance,” which was followed by a reunion tour. The band’s new CD, “Say Will Will” (Reprise), includes songs from both Nicks and Buckingham. The group—sans keyboardist Christine McVie, who opted out of the band’s latest effort—is presently on a 40-city tour. Nicks found some time to phone in for a few questions from NEWSWEEK’s Jac Chebatoris:

NEWSWEEK: Your voice sounds incredible on this album. How have you maintained it?

Stevie Nicks: Well, I’ve been taking voice lessons since 1997, and if I had been taking voice lessons my entire life, I never would have had all those bad nights where people wrote that I was singing horribly. That’s the reason why—nobody really told us—the reason you’re losing your voice is because you’re not singing right and people aren’t meant to sing four nights in a row, a three-hour set without any vocal work before! I didn’t have any idea. So now, please, if you offer me—”Here’s your blush-on, your lipstick, your mascara or here’s your [vocal exercises] tape—I would have to take the tape.

How has the band not crumbled underneath the weight of all the stuff that went on over all these years?

Well, there isn’t all that many examples of a band that really goes on and keeps working into their mid-50s, I mean constantly—even if we weren’t working together, we were all always working. We do have a lot of drama. And drama keeps people together. And drama makes people have fun—even if it’s bad drama. It still has its very exciting moments and we have arguments and disagreements and we make up and that’s great. We got to know each other a little bit better. Over the last year and a half we’ve been together almost every day and that’s hard for anybody, you know? So the fact is that it’s worked out into these 18 songs.

It’s almost like a marriage.

You pick your things to get mad about and you pick your things that aren’t that important and you let go of stuff and of course, in all of our wisdom we hope that we all learn how to let go of the unimportant things. And if you’re going to argue about something, make sure it’s really important because nothing is worth breaking the whole thing up over a stupid argument.

How are things different from 25 years ago when you started out?

Before we would stay up later. Now we stop at about 7 or 8 p.m. We get to the studio at around 2 p.m., and Lindsey gets there at 9 in the morning. But we don’t stay up all night long and record anymore because you know what? You don’t get anything done, so you just have to get to a place finally where your wisdom again says, ‘It’d be really fun to stay here until 4 in the morning, but isn’t it interesting that nothing gets done after 9 p.m.?’ So, you know, we’re smart enough to realize that now.

“Silver Girl” is so classic you. It’s like a warm blanket.

Thank you. Thank you little Sheryl Crow for inspiring me to write that.

Really?

The first couple of lines are definitely about Sheryl. And when I thought about writing a whole song to this poem I had called “Silver Girl,” I thought, ‘Well, this whole song could be about Sheryl and also about all the rock and roll women, be they Norah Jones, Avril Lavigne, Michelle Branch, Stevie Nicks, Gwen Stefani, whoever. That song is about the great parts, and also the difficulties, of being rock-star women.

What a nice burden.

Oh, yeah listen, I wouldn’t trade it for a second. I’m never going to be one of those people that’s going to say, ‘You know what, this is just such a hassle,’ because it is not a hassle. It’s incredible. My life is incredible. I am a wild adventurerer. My life is totally exciting and it changes everyday. If I had dreamed this, I could not have written this down any better.

By Sarah Rodman
Boston Herald
Tuesday, May 27, 2003

Mick Fleetwood was browsing in a Philadelphia Tower Records store last week when he was pleased to find Fleetwood Mac’s new album, “Say You Will,” prominently displayed among the store’s top sellers. It now sits in the top 15 of the Billboard albums chart and is quickly on its way to gold status after a month in release.

Also, the band’s tour is playing to packed houses and glowing notices across the country. The current incarnation of Fleetwood Mac – Fleetwood, bassist John McVie, singer Stevie Nicks and singer-guitarist Lindsey Buckingham – comes to the Worcester Centrum Centre tonight and tomorrow.

“It’s certainly really gratifying,” says the towering drummer on the phone from the City of Brotherly Love. “There we are (on the racks) with a whole myriad of people that quite frankly I haven’t heard of who are vastly successful, rappers and God knows what else, and there’s Fleetwood Mac. So it’s doing extraordinarily well.”

Although the 55-year-old Brit has some experience with doing extraordinarily well – the band’s 1977 album “Rumours” is the fifth best-selling album of all time, with more than 18 million copies sold in the United States alone – his expectations were not high for an album of all-new material after the band had spent several years out of the spotlight.

“You always live in hope that things are going to go well but this is a very different climate. The reality is, we’re not 18 years old anymore and the people who go out and buy records are certainly a very different demographic, and radio is hard to get and we don’t get MTV, so with what’s happening it is fairly extraordinary.”

What might be even more amazing is that “Say You Will” is a solid and respectable return to peak form for a band that has taken many turns, and made many personnel shifts, in its 36-year history.

The album began as a Buckingham solo record until Warner Brothers showed more interest in a Fleetwood Mac release. Buckingham, who plays guitar like a monster throughout, contributed nine songs. The best of these, including “Miranda” and “What’s the World Coming To,” combine acoustic and electric textures and great pop hooks. Nicks comes through with the other nine songs, including several ethereal keepers sung in her deepening, yet still compelling, rasp. The lilting “Peacekeeper” already has become a radio hit.

The (overlong) album is by no means a retread of “Rumours” or “Tusk,” but the more organic, laid-back tone of “Say You Will” does evoke the late-’70s work more than the likable but synth-heavy pop radio singles from the late ’80s and early ’90s releases.

“It’s the best of the `Tusk’ sensibilities meeting where we were with `Rumours’ in terms of an awareness that this is the style of the band and the style of the writing. I think that’s where we ended up with this album, which is not a bad place to be,” says Fleetwood, who is the only member other than McVie to be with the band from the beginning.

The latest lineup change comes with the departure of singer-keyboardist-songwriter Christine McVie, John’s ex. She had been with the band since 1970 and contributed such hits as “You Make Loving Fun” and “Don’t Stop.” Her willowy alto and sweet pop sensibilities are missed on the new album, but Fleetwood says it was surprisingly easy to soldier on without her.

“It really wasn’t too traumatic, to tell you the truth,” Fleetwood says of Christine McVie’s departure after the 1997 “The Dance” tour. He compares the band to “a good regiment. We just closed ranks and this is what we came up with. Her legacy is so affirmed in our history, and it’s an important one that will never go away.”

Fleetwood misses McVie on the road, but understands her wariness of the show-biz machine. “She made it very clear that it was not for her anymore, doing what we do – running around, having to be available all the time, she didn’t enjoy flying – she’d just had enough.”

The other members have yet to reach their limits, however. And with the soap-opera story lines of fractured intraband romances, copious drug abuse and ego-driven transgressions behind them, Fleetwood thinks there might be a future for the foursome beyond this tour.

“We’re basically committed to doing all of that stuff as long as we’re all happy doing it,” says Fleetwood of potential recordings and tours. “I would love to think that we’re going to make more music, and I think all of us are open to that. It’s going to be a very long tour and at the end of it, if we’re all still smiling, we’ll say, `Why the hell not?’ ”

One thing working in their favor is that fights among band members – and they are still numerous, says Fleetwood – are conducted in a healthier fashion.

“It is different because we get a resolve out of it, nothing gets shoved under the carpet,” says Fleetwood of creative differences over everything from the set list to album sequencing. “In the old days, we were all on such a roll and doing our own thing, and things weren’t really spoken about.

“And to be blunt, we’re not doing things that are mind-altering in any way anymore,” he says with a laugh, “so it has greatly changed.”

Luckily, the quality of the songs remains the same.

Fleetwood Mac plays the Worcester Centrum Centre tonight and tomorrow. Tickets: $49.50-$125. Call 617-508-931-2000.

People Magazine
May 2003

LOS ANGELES (People) – Stevie Nicks hits the road this month, donning her platform shoes to tour with Fleetwood Mac following the release of their new album Say You Will. Scoop talked with Nicks, 54 late one night after band rehearsal in L.A.

How’s rehearsal?

If I sound like I’m spaced, I’m not. I’ve been listening to really, really, really loud rock music since 2 o’clock, for almost eight hours now. But that’s how it is-very long hours.

And you still love this?

I will like it if I’m having fun out there. I think we need to go out and make music that makes people happy.

How do rock and menopause mix?

Well, it has not been easy. I fight it every day. It takes over your life. It makes you not feel good. I’ve heard women say menopause is wonderful, the “change” is great, but it’s not. It sucks. It forces you to make a choice-whether you want to get old or you want to stay young.

And you?

I have a 40-city tour starting on May 17. I can’t give in.

At what age do you start worrying about falling off your platform boots?

I was trying to prepare everyone that I wasn’t going to wear them on this tour, and I got a terrible reaction. So I guess they’re back.

What do you think of the new crop of female rockers?

I just met Michelle Branch. Pretty impressive. I told her to write her own songs. That’s where you make the money. I also laughingly said, “Don’t ever gain 20 lbs.”

Out of curiosity, have you seen American Idol?

Whenever I can. I love it. It makes me laugh. If I was 20, I’d be down there trying out.

If Simon said you couldn’t sing, how would you react?

I could handle him.

And if you were a judge?

I’d be just like him. “Get another job. Next!”