STEVIE NICKS INFO

Category: Say You Will (2003)

  • Fleetwood Mac back on track

    By Edna Gundersen
    USA Today
    Tuesday, February 4, 2003

    Rumours confirmed Fleetwood Mac’s place in rock history. The question now is whether the storied ’70s band has currency in 2003.

    Four of the five original members of Fleetwood Mac reunited for the recording of Say You Will, to be released on April 15.

    A new Mac attack starts April 15 with Say You Will, the band’s first studio album boasting a quorum of core members since 1987’s Tango in the Night.

    Singer/guitarist Lindsey Buckingham, who left after Tango and returned for Mac’s lucrative 1997 reunion, produced the album, which also features singer Stevie Nicks, bassist John McVie and drummer Mick Fleetwood. Singer/keyboardist Christine McVie retired.

    The album, recorded in Los Angeles over the past 18 months, contains new songs written by Buckingham and Nicks. It also has a studio version of Bleed to Love Her, which had been included on 1997’s live reunion disc, The Dance.

    Snippets of Say You Will can be heard in Fox promos for That ’70s Show.

    That decade found Fleetwood Mac in peak form. Rumours, the top-selling album of 1977 and third-best in 1978, spawned hits Go Your Own Way, Dreams, Don’t Stop and You Make Loving Fun, and for a time it reigned as the biggest seller in history. It has sold18 million copies and ranks ninth among U.S. best sellers. The band sustained success in the ’80s when Nicks’ solo career also flowered, but splintered lineups in the ’90s led to decreased sales and airplay.

    Although fans rallied for the 1997 reunion tour and chart-topping album, pop’s current climate tends to relegate veteran acts to the oldies circuit.

    “It’s difficult to think of Fleetwood Mac making a bad album, but I’m not sure how much difference that would make,” says Anthony DeCurtis, Rolling Stone contributing editor. “The new music is entirely secondary. The best parallel would be Paul McCartney, who made a pretty good record (Driving Rain) in 2001. He had a huge successful tour, but the record didn’t do much.

    “That’s the problem Fleetwood Mac faces. Obviously, they’ll do big business on the road. The larger issue is: Will radio play this record? It’s amazing to think that the band that helped invent FM radio may go begging to get airplay. Fleetwood Mac is imprisoned by its own gilded cage.”

    Considering the success of tours by the Rolling Stones (three original members) and The Who (two), Christine McVie’s absence shouldn’t impede ticket sales, he says. “The version of Fleetwood Mac that most people know is 80% intact,” says DeCurtis, who predicts a box office gold mine. But in record stores, “these bands almost exist in a vacuum.”

    DeCurtis says he doubts that the Dixie Chicks’ current hit cover of Nicks’ Landslide will fuel Mac interest. But Billboard director of charts Geoff Mayfield says, “I put that in the ‘it can’t hurt’ category.”

    Recent sales patterns reveal increased interest in vintage rockers, he says. He notes that roughly 30 acts that appeal largely to older audiences, including McCartney, Bruce Springsteen and James Taylor, last year enjoyed their best sales weeks in the 12 years SoundScan has been tabulating data.

    “People with gray hair are buying records,” he says. And unlike their younger counterparts, “they’re not burning CDs or file-swapping as much.”

    Say You Will may not reach the sales of Rumours, but it could thrive even without much radio support.

    “It’s not fair to expect another Rumours,” Mayfield says. “Considering the reunion album was their first No. 1 debut in a long while, the new record has a pretty good chance for a handsome start.”

  • Women in Rock: Stevie Nicks

    At 54, the Fleetwood Mac singer is still the coolest chick in the room

    STEVIE NICKS IS ALWAYS FUN to talk to — she’s candid (that tantalizing history!), warm and surprisingly funny. The hip big sister to musicians such as Sheryl Crow is still making vital, viable music in her fifties. She has been holed up with Fleetwood Mac for the last couple of months, working on an album, which will be in your hands by spring, followed by a major tour. (There’s also a new Fleetwood Mac greatest-hits collection out this month.) Nicks phones from her Los Angeles home before she heads off to the studio at her usual time of 2:30 P.M. — her idea of an early morn. Because Christine McVie is sitting it out this time, Nicks is the only woman in the band, so she has certain concerns that the fellas do not. “There is a tub of red licorice in the studio, fifteen boxes of Wheat Thins, Doritos and Fritos — my favorite thing,” she says. “It’s a boys’ kitchen, full of great stuff. And I just say to myself, ‘You can never eat this, or you will weigh 170 pounds at the end of this project.’ I walk in like I’ve got tank armor on.”

    How goes it in the studio? Your relationship with the band has outlasted most marriages.

    A lot of times it’s just me and Lindsey [Buckingham]. You know, we have a lot of the same problems that we’ve always had, which is our egos. And we’ve had a lot of fights. But we spend hours talking — we’re like a bunch of girls sometimes. We’ll be putting a guitar part on, and all of a sudden we’ll be talking about something that happened on the Tusk tour, and two hours later we’re still talking about it. And we’re filming a documentary at the studio, so there’s a crew with us at all times. There were a couple of times where I’ve gotten just furious and walked out of the room, yelling, and I’ve nearly run over the sound guy. It’s like the TV show Big Brother. If we could vote each other out, we’d all be fine! My vote would come up “Lindsey.” Lindsey’s would say “Stevie” [laughs].

    Some women we’ve talked to have said it’s nearly impossible to have a family and a musical career. You made a choice, and it was your career.

    If I had gotten married to someone in my twenties, I’d have grandchildren now. And I’d be rocking in a fabulous chair on my fabulous porch somewhere. So it is so different, my life. All these younger women who are singers — I sometimes think they see their future in me, and it’s not such a good thing. I made a choice to not be married and not have children, because I wanted to be a big-time rock & roll star. And people can get mad at me for saying this, but I did not feel that I could do both. I would have been, I think, a great mom, and I would not have put my career first once I had a baby. Sheryl Crow is a dear friend, and I know she looks at me and goes, “Do I have that baby now? Or do I want to be Stevie when I’m fifty-five? And if I do, that means I can never stop working.” Even in my really bad, drugged-out days, I didn’t go away. I still toured, still did interviews. I never gave up the fight. That’s why I’m who I am today, because I didn’t leave. And I think I made the right choice.

    Which female musicians do you admire?

    I love Sheryl Crow. She called me this morning already. She calls me from the road, and I cheer her up. And I love Gwen Stefani. I think she maybe is the reincarnated Mae West.

    How has music changed for women in your lifetime?

    People always ask me, “What do you think of Britney Spears? What do you think of this group, or that one?” I always say, “Well, they’re great.” But now … I think they all went too far. Their jeans got too low, their tops got too see-through. Personally, I think that sexy is keeping yourself mysterious. I’m really an old-fashioned girl, and I think I’m totally sexy.

    Right on!

    And I wouldn’t have any problem saying to any of these girls, “You know what? If you want to be around in twenty years, you’d better get your act together. And get back to your music.” What Britney should do is go back into the studio and get some great songs, and make a great record. And change her fashion style a little bit. Bring back her mysterious persona again. Otherwise it’s like, if you see somebody running down the street naked every single day, you stop looking up.

    Defining Moment: Her feathered haircut, gypsy cowl and flowing scarves on the cover of Rumours was the definitive rock & roll fashion statement of the 1970s.

    Jancee Dunn / Rolling Stone / October 31, 2002

  • Fleetwood Mac's new chapter-minus key member

    Reuters
    By Dean Goodman
    Sunday, November 11, 2001

    LOS ANGELES, Nov 11 (Reuters) — Fleetwood Mac, the Anglo-American pop group that shrugged off bitter internal rivalries to emerge as one of music’s great survival stories, is back in the studio recording its first album since a successful 1997 reunion.

    The band hopes to tour late next summer “with any luck,” co-founder Mick Fleetwood told Reuters, alluding to its wildly unpredictable 34-year progression from British blues combo to California rock institution.

    But it would not be a Fleetwood Mac project without some drama. In this case, singer/keyboardist Christine McVie, one of three key songwriters, has retired from rock ‘n’ roll. Tired of the travel, she lives in an English castle and indulges her passion for cooking.

    That leaves drummer Fleetwood, bass player John McVie, Christine’s ex-husband, and songwriters Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks, the American half who are former lovers.

    Fleetwood denied recent reports that rocker Sheryl Crow, who collaborated on Nicks’ recent solo album, will help out.

    “We’re happily a four-piece and are creatively, artistically handling to some degree a new chapter of Fleetwood Mac without Christine, and it’s going extremely well,” Fleetwood, 54, said in a telephone interview on Friday.

    NEW DOUBLE ALBUM?

    Fleetwood Mac has endured many changes over the years, but the best known lineup came together in 1975 when Buckingham and Nicks joined Fleetwood and the McVies. They powered the band to mega-success with the 1977 album “Rumours,” which sold more than 25 million copies worldwide.

    “Rumours” documents the chaos enveloping the band at the time: the McVies were breaking up, as were Buckingham and Nicks. Fleetwood’s wife was sleeping with his best friend. Drug abuse was rampant.

    Recording of the new album, under way in a Los Angeles house the band leased for a year, appears to be going more smoothly. In fact, Fleetwood said the band has too many songs, and has considered issuing a double album, something it has not done since 1979’s “Tusk.” Fleetwood hopes to complete the album in six to eight months.

    Fleetwood Mac last released an album in 1997, when Buckingham and Nicks rejoined the band. “The Dance,” a live album culled from three intimate performances on a Los Angeles soundstage, sold more than 4 million copies in the United States and paved the way for a successful U.S. tour.

    The last studio album featuring Buckingham and Nicks was 1987’s “Tango in the Night,” but Nicks’ involvement was limited and Buckingham declined to go out on tour. Fleetwood and the McVies subsequently kept the band half-alive with hired hands, releasing albums in 1990 and 1995.

    BUCKINGHAM IS BOSS

    Guitarist/vocalist Buckingham, 52, is firmly at the musical helm of the re-energized band, “and we all put our penny worth in,” Fleetwood said. Buckingham, author of such hits as “Go Your Own Way” and “Tusk,” is producing and engineering the album, which will likely use some songs from his unreleased fourth solo release. His contributions are already in the can, and the band is now working on tunes by Nicks, 53.

    Fleetwood said the absence of Christine McVie, 58, who wrote such tunes as “Don’t Stop” and “You Make Loving Fun,” has inevitably affected the band’s chemistry. Instead of bouncing ideas off her, Buckingham has worked more closely with Fleetwood and John McVie, 56, resulting in a harder sound.

    “You’ll smell an element of the … power trio, where we like to grind it out a bit,” Fleetwood said. “But equally there’s some blissfully, very cool harmonic, melodic stuff that just sounds modern. But it’s us.”

  • Mick Fleetwood talks about next Fleetwood Mac album

    CDNow
    Thursday, October 18, 2001

    Fleetwood Mac is about halfway through recording its latest album, which is due next year. The release will feature all the regular crew members except Christine McVie.

    Mick Fleetwood tells allstar that he heard from McVie earlier this week, though, and she said she would like to record with the group, but not tour.

    As a result, Fleetwood says he’s a bit perplexed. “If she writes and records with us, and does not tour,” he explains, “then it’s hard to play those songs in concert. Lindsey [Buckingham] and Stevie [Nicks] have already done most of their work.” Fleetwood is not sure if he will take her up on her offer at this time.

    Fleetwood Mac will probably tour the states late next summer or early fall. Fleetwood favors indoor arenas rather than outdoor amphitheaters. “We can get better sound and lights indoors,” he says.