Spotight on Stevie Nicks

Aired on 96.1 WSRS Worcester, MA on 8/5/01

Transcribed by Jane Fijal

Valerie: Hello, and welcome to another addition of “Spotlight On.” I’m Valerie Smaldone. Today’s show focuses on the career of a woman who was intricately involved with Fleetwood Mac, a group that shaped the sound of the 70’s and 80’s, and is now, once again out on her own, forging new bonds with different artists and finding success in her own voice. Today the spotlight shines on Stevie Nicks, who talked a lot about how relationships influence her songwriting.

Stevie: It gives me lots of stuff to write about.

Valerie: We’ll be hearing more from Stevie of course, in this program, but right now lets go back to an album that came out in 1977 reflecting the tumultuous relationships within the band. From the Rumours album, here’s Dreams.

(Dreams plays)

Valerie: Hi there, and thanks for coming along to “Spotlight on Stevie Nicks.” One of the things Stevie is well known for is her husky speaking voice and her trademark sound. Stevie said that in her early years, she never warmed up before singing, but in time that changed.

Stevie: Well, my singing voice is good now, because I study. And I take voice lessons, and I do 45 minutes before I go onstage. I do not go onstage if I don’t do my 45 minutes of vocal exercises. And I realized that its really too bad that I didn’t learn that a long time ago because, would a ballerina ever go onstage without thirty minutes of stretches? So in the last five years I’ve been studying, and I love it, and it like, you know, as long as I do that 45 minutes I go onstage and I can leave that behind because I know I’m gonna be okay, and I know I’ll sing okay.

Valerie: Yeah, but what about that delicious speaking voice?

Stevie: I think if I had not have made it in the music business I would’ve either been a music teacher or a disc jockey. Absolutely. Because that’s would’ve been where my love would have went, you know, and this is my low disc jockey voice. I’ve been doing press for weeks. So I’m kind, kinda losing my voice from talking. This is not a loss from singing. This is just from speaking, you know. So this low voice....I have to raise up my pitch you know, and come up, you know, but so, this is my disc jockey voice...(Stevie chuckles)

Valerie: And what a voice it is! And talking about talking, here’s Stevie with Talk to Me on Spotlight on Stevie Nicks.

(Talk to Me plays)

Valerie: You’re listening to Spotlight on Stevie Nicks, and I’m Valerie Smaldone. As Stevie’s a great storyteller and, she painted a picture of how it came to pass that she became a part of Fleetwood Mac. It was at a gathering where she first met Lindsey Buckingham.

Stevie: It was one of those things in high school, you know where they just have these kind of little religious meetings, but they weren’t really religious and there was really nothing religious about it. (Stevie chuckles) It was just a reason to get out of the house and go somewhere on a Wednesday night. And, ah, it was just this kind of thing...I don’t even remember why I was there. And I walked into a room and Lindsey was sittin’ on a chair with his guitar and he kinda broke into California Dreamin’ - Mamas and the Papas - which of course I knew every word to, and I just walked over and started singing with him. And we finished out the song and we introduced ourselves, and he was going with somebody and I was going with somebody...and we walked away and I never saw him again for 2 1/2 years.

Valerie: But they obviously reconnected...

Stevie: The drummer in his band called me and asked me if I want to join their band, and I said, “Sure why not? I’m ready to rock now.”

Valerie: Seven years later they were a part of Fleetwood Mac. In October of 1979 the group received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and that same year, one million dollars was spent on the production of the double album, Tusk, where this song came from... (Sara plays, then goes right into Stand Back.)

Valerie: That’s Stand Back from The Wild Heart, and Sara from Tusk before that. This is Spotlight on Stevie Nicks, and I’m Valerie Smaldone. Next, Stevie talks about her latest effort and her collaboration with Sheryl Crow.

Stevie: The second time I met Sheryl, I really said, “Do you want to produce this record?”

Valerie: Coming up on Spotlight on Stevie Nicks...

(Commercial break)

Valerie: Hello and welcome back to Spotlight on Stevie Nicks! I’m Valerie Smaldone spending some time with you. Stevie Nicks’ latest album, Trouble in Shangri-La, was released a few months ago and has received critical acclaim. And Stevie was delighted that Sheryl Crow produced the album. I asked her what drew her to Sheryl...

Stevie: “Cause we like the same kind of music, and we... well, she does what I do, I mean... she’s a rock star, you know, she really does what I do. So, I’m always drawn to people, you know, who sort of do the same kind work that I do. Because you know you can have that kind of friendship where you can talk to each other about what your life is like and what my life is, and what Sheryl Crow’s life is. They’re not easy lives sometimes....and there isn’t a whole lot of other people that can talk to us that we will listen to unless you really do what we do. We are trying to build something, we are really building something... a repertoire, things that we can do together on stage, ‘cause someday we’ll tour....we’ll do the Stevie and Sheryl show.

(Everyday plays)

Valerie: From Stevie Nicks’ latest album, Trouble in Shangri-La, that’s Everyday. Prior to the release of that cd, Stevie had a listening party at her seaside home in Malibu that was chronicled in the pages of In Style magazine. And Stevie chatted about how she created the ambiance for that event.

Stevie: Well, I got a couple of...I got some wonderful Buddhist statues and I got an incredible statue of a lady...a Chinese lady-goddess that’s in my hallway that’s really tall...its like as tall as I am... and just some things that I just wanted to take into that Shangri-La place...so I’m decorating all the time.... it’s kind of what I do when I’m not working, is redo my house.

Valerie: Now that Stevie is concentrating on redoing her house and her songwriting and performing, she’s a healthy and engaging woman.

Stevie: I mean, I’m never going to be a health nut, but I exercise, I do pleats, I work out on my treadmill...I try to do as much as I can. I never even have toast, you know, I’m on a pretty rigid diet all the time. I want to be healthy. I want to be able to do this for a long time. I want to be able to get up on that stage and rock out and I don’t want to feel sick or old you know, so I have to take care of myself.

Valerie: But she herself admitted it wasn’t always that way. She endured a cocaine habit that she kicked at the Betty Ford Clinic in the 80’s but soon after, a psychiatrist put her on a tranquilizer that she feels ruined her creativity.

Stevie: With the Klonopin, I really realized that my creativity had died. It’s a tranquilizer. It’s in the, I think it’s in the Valium family. They almost destroyed my career, I mean literally almost destroyed my life and my career. I didn’t really care about writing anymore, and that was a difficult thing to live through every day because my inspiration was gone. Nothing inspired me. I called myself the “Whatever” person....it was like, “Do you want to come over?” “Whatever...” “Do you want to go out?” “Whatever...” “Do you want to have dinner?” “Whatever...” It was horrible. So, that was the hardest thing, you know, the ten years of cocaine was really bad, but the klonopin was way worse. I don’t know why anybody would want to give me anything to change my bitter little angst-ridden personality. Because I liked that...you know....people have moods, people are not always happy, people are up and down, you know... It’s like to me, the world is going on to these designer drugs that make everybody just like, flatline....you might as well just flatline....it’s just a whole world of Stepford People on these drugs.... And I know I kind of go on about it, but I just really want people to be careful. And if one little thing that I say makes somebody run out of a doctor’s office screaming “I don’t want that!” then I will be happy; that will have made my life worth it.

(Gold Dust Woman is played.)

Valerie: That’s Gold Dust Woman on Spotlight on Stevie Nicks. I’m Valerie Smadone. Well, besides her signature voice, Stevie has always had a very distinctive clothing style.

Stevie: I developed it before the Rumours album with my designer, Margi Kent, that I met in the first year of Fleetwood Mac. I told her, “I need to have uniform. We have to think of something that looks good. We can make three skirts, three tops, and have your shoes and your little, you know....a couple of wraps and jackets and you’re ready to go.” And that’s what I did. And the outfit that’s on the Rumours cover is exactly the same outfit that’s on the Shangri-La cover. It’s the same outfit that’s on the Bella Donna cover. It’s timeless...it’s a timeless outfit, and it has made my life much easier because I don’t ever have to think about it.

(Edge of Seventeen is played.)

Valerie: Back to the early 80’s and Stevie’s solo album that topped the charts...Bella Donna and Edge of Seventeen. By the way, Stevie has two Yorkshire Terriers, and one of them is named Sara Belladonna, a combination of the titles of two of her biggest hits. Coming up, Stevie talks about her relationship with Lindsey Buckingham.

Stevie: Lindsey has a life now. So now Lindsey and I can really be friends.

(Commercial break)

Valerie: This is Spotlight on Stevie Nicks, and I’m Valerie Smaldone. Being in a band like Fleetwood Mac, the whole world seemed to be in on the affairs of the four of them...Stevie had had a tempestuous relationship with Lindsey Buckingham.

Stevie: You know, it was very difficult for Lindsey and I. And it never got better, really. It’s better now because Lindsey is married. And he loves his wife, and I think she’s great too. And he has a little six...seven month old baby girl named LeeLee, and a little boy named Will, who’s four. And they are precious, you know... Lindsey has a life now. So now Lindsey and I can really be friends. Because now we’re not thinking in the back of our mind that we’ll ever go back together. That allows us to be free. So now with his new relationship that’s really great for me, because it allows me to be his friend, and hang out with him and see him.

Valerie: Going back to the enormously successful Rumours album, here’s Don’t Stop; this time with Stevie on background vocals.

(Don’t Stop plays.)

Valerie: You’re listening to Spotlight on Stevie Nicks, as we hear Fleetwood Mac, and Stevie’s female counterpart, Christine McVie. Stevie told me what Chistine’s up to these days, and joining another reunion of Fleetwood Mac is, apparently, not on her agenda.

Stevie: Well, she has a castle, you know, an incredible English castle , and she’s an incredible chef, and she’s an incredible gardener and she has lots of dogs and animals, and...she’s probably got horses by now...and I think she’s going out with somebody; I think she’s in love.....she’s not leavin’.

Valerie: Stevie has recorded several very successful songs with other artists, and here’s Stevie with former lover, and now good friend, Don Henley. From her Bella Donna album, with a song that sort of describes her clothing style...

Stevie: ...My black skirt and my little black French corset and my little black top and my black tights and my black boots....it’s just what I always wear, it’s my uniform, you know...

(Leather and Lace is played.)

Valerie: That’s Don and Stevie on Spotlight on Stevie Nicks. And I’m Valerie Smaldone. Stevie and I spent a lot of time talking about her eight years on the tranquilizer she wishes she never took. But I asked her what she did during those years.

Stevie: I managed to do the Timespace record, which was a greatest hits kind of record. And I managed to get through Tango in the Night, but that was really a Lindsey Buckingham record changed into a Fleetwood Mac record so I didn’t have to do a whole lot of work on that. I just stayed home.

(Seven Wonders plays.)

Valerie: That’s Seven Wonders from Tango in the Night. I’m Valerie Smaldone. And there’s much more coming up.

Stevie: I think I’ve had a very eccentric and unique life...

Valerie: ...When Spotlight on Stevie Nicks continues...

(Commercial break)

Valerie: Hello, and welcome back to this addition of Spotlight On, where the spotlight shines on Stevie Nicks today. I’m Valerie Smaldone. Stevie shared with me where she got her name.

Stevie: Stevie just came from not being able to pronounce “Stephanie.” And it kind of came out as “teedee.” My mother calls me TD Bird, she calls me TD Bird....it’s really sickening, isn’t it!? But TD went to Stevie. And I was too little to remember why that happened, but they told me that’s what I used to, that’s how I used to say “Stephanie.” And so, it just kinda worked itself into Stevie. And I was never called Stephanie. And my Dad named me Stephanie to call me Stephanie, because he loved that name, so somehow whatever fate just twisted it away and I became Stevie....

(Landslide from The Dance is played.)

Stevie: Hi, this is Stevie Nicks and you’re listening to Spotlight on Stevie Nicks.

(I Can’t Wait plays.)

Valerie: That’s from the Rock A Little album, and before that, a redone version of Landslide from the Fleetwood Mac reunion cd, The Dance. I’m Valerie Smaldone. And you’re listening to Spotlight on Stevie Nicks. Thanks for coming along. Over the years, Stevie has discovered how vocal exercises can improve and strengthen her singing.

Stevie: I sing much higher now. I hit, can hit notes that I could never hit. And if somebody had told me this fifteen years ago, they would have saved my life because I wouldn’t have to have read back all those horrible reviews where “Stevie Nicks screamed herself through her songs.” Well, this just would kill me, you know....because this was the only way to get through them. To do Rhiannon every night for four nights in a row, I had no voice left. But if I’d been doing these vocal warmups, that would have never happened.

(Rhiannon is played.)

Valerie: That’s Stevie Nicks....before vocal cord exercises, with Rhiannon, on Spotlight on Stevie Nicks. Stevie has had a long friendship with Tom Petty and she talked about how he helped her to get started on her latest album with basically, a verbal kick in the pants.

Stevie: Well, I always feel rejected with Tom when I ask him to help me, because he doesn’t ever want to help me. Because he doesn’t think I need help. Because he’s that good of a friend. And he’s the one person that said to me at the Ritz-Carlton over dinner, “Whatever it is that’s bothering you, and we don’t really need to go into that...” I mean he said that to me, “We really don’t need to talk about what it is that’s really bothering you. Whatever it is, you need to get over it. Then you need to go home and write some songs. I don’t need to help you do this.” And that’s a really good friend, you know, somebody who says, you need to just get up and get started. And I did! And I went home and got started.

Valerie: Well, here’s Stevie singing with Tom Petty from back in the 80’s on the Bella Donna album.

(They play Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around.)

Valerie: That’s Petty and Nicks on Spotlight on Stevie Nicks. Coming up, Stevie talks about how she knew she wanted to sing and write ever since she was a teenager.

Stevie: Just singing it with my guitar, and you know, just loving it at 15 1/2 when I got my first guitar...just really loving sitting and singing something that I had written.

Valerie: Next, when Spotlight on Stevie Nicks returns...

(Commercial break)

Valerie: Stevie’s lifelong dream of being a singer/songwriter has been with her since she was a young girl. And she still uses a journal to document her thoughts.

Stevie: That’s where my songs come from. I journal on this side of the book, and then I go back and read my journal entry and I go over it and if I think it has any poetic justice going on about it, I’ll go over here and I’ll make it into a poem so that then when I’m writing songs, I go back and look at the journal and I look at these sides and there will be little bits and pieces of poems that become the songs, straight out of the journal. So the songs are never really made up. There’s always kind of a reason that they’re written.

Valerie: Well, here’s one of those songs from her Wild Heart album back in 1983....If Anyone Falls, on Spotlight on Stevie Nicks.

(If Anyone Falls plays.)

Valerie: That’s If Anyone Falls, on Spotlight on Stevie Nicks. Now, one of the other passions in Stevie’s life is her artwork.

Stevie: I don’t really call myself a painter...I draw. So I draw my pictures and then sometimes I paint them in and sometimes I don’t. So I’m really more into the fine drawing... And I just draw little creatures, and little people and little bits of my drawing has gone out over the years...I’m doing....I’m gonna do a book...I’m working on it now with my best friend. That’s just art...art and some poetry and some little vignettes from my journals that’s I think is going to be really nice. And it’ll be in the next year or two...so you’ll get to actually see what I draw, because I’ve been doing this always, I’ve just never shown anybody. My drawing is like my meditation.

(Silver Springs plays.)

Valerie: From the Fleetwood Mac reunion album, The Dance. Stevie’s latest album, Trouble in Shangri-La had an interesting origin.

Stevie: When I wrote Trouble in Shangri-La, it was the last two months of the O.J. Simpson trial and I always say this in the interviews....it was not about him. It was about the situation. It was about that last two months, November/December, when everybody in the world was watching. And I mean, I’m sure, you, as myself, Valerie, were talking about relationships, and people that have it all, and people that can make it to Shangri-La, can really get to paradise and make it to the top of their field and be really beloved and how hard it is to stay there. And that’s you know, lots of people I know. I thought that it would be interesting to use that as a theme and carry it through the whole record.

Valerie: Let’s go back to that album now. Here’s another release from Trouble in Shangri-La, on Spotlight on Stevie Nicks.

(I Miss You is played.)

Valerie: From her latest effort, Trouble in Shangri-La, I Miss You. And you heard it here on Spotlight on Stevie Nicks. Although Stevie was suffering from a throat ailment when we met, she did manage to sing for me!

Stevie: (singing) Whenever I call you friend....dah dah dah dah dah dah dah dah dah...I don’t have any voice! I just went to a doctor, thank you! I just went to an ENT just now, he said don’t sing!

Valerie: Alright, well, Stevie does do more talking when we return...

(Commercial break)

Valerie: Hi there. Thanks for coming along to this edition of Spotlight On, where the spotlight is shining on Stevie Nicks. I’m Valerie Smaldone. Stevie talked about what is fun for her as a singer.

Stevie: Well, I think it’s really fun to work with different people, and not for it to always just be you, you know, that’s kind of the fun of Fleetwood Mac too, is that there’s somebody to work with. In my solo career it’s a little more lonely. So I tend to bring people in, ’cause I don’t want to do these things all by myself sometimes.

(You Make Loving Fun plays.)

Valerie: Well there’s a fun song by Fleetwood Mac and Stevie Nicks singing in the background this time around. Stevie just mentioned a little while ago that she enjoys working with other artists, and she had this to say about her collaboration with Kenny Loggins....

Stevie: (singing)...Whenever I call you friend, yeah, and that was, you know what? a great experience....Kenny is a hardcore producer! And I was not happy with Kenny Loggins when I left that studio. But he got a great performance. So I....it was like one of those things where you work with somebody and you didn’t enjoy it, but the finished product almost made you forget the fact that you did not enjoy working with him for that. ‘Cause he was not....you know, he was like “do that, do this, do this...” And I did it, and the finished product was incredible, but at the time it was just like he was really telling me what to do and I wanted to sing a few other things, and he didn’t really want me to do that and he was very rigid. And that was a huge hit ‘cause he is a classic, very commercial producer. But you know, that song has brought me joy since the day we did it. So, you know, people love it. And when I hear it on the radio, it’s like, it cracks me up because I remember the whole experience, and Kenny, and I’m going “I’m glad I did what he said.” I’m glad I actually followed his directions and didn’t get angry and stomp out. ‘Cause what he got was a wonderful thing.

(They play Whenever I Call You Friend.)

Valerie: That’s the famous collaboration between Kenny Loggins and Stevie Nicks. Well, we’re just about out of time on this edition of Spotlight On Stevie Nicks. But before we go, we spoke about whether there was someone special in her life right now.

Stevie: If I meet somebody terrific, if I don’t, that’s okay too, because I’m...I’m very busy, you know I don’t have a lot of time.... and I’m very....the way I lead my life and what I do, I’m very free. And I’d just, like, disappear and you won’t even know where I’m gone and it’s like, I’m not used to checking in with somebody. So, whether or not I’d ever want to give up my freedom, I don’t know.

(Gypsy plays.)

Valerie: That’s the Stevie Nicks’ penned song, Gypsy, that sort of describes how she views life. This is Spotlight On Stevie Nicks. And Stevie shared some final thoughts when we spoke a few months back...

Stevie: The best part of my life right now, Valerie, is knowing that people seem to like this record. Because this is just Tuesday I just gave the baby away...so, this is what, Friday? So, it’s been three days and I’m starting to feel, like, the love and the warmth. I’m starting to feel something coming back at me. And, I felt that several times before, and it’s about people understanding what I do, and that makes me really happy. It’s like, they like my record! What could be better!?

Valerie: Thanks a lot for joining us for Spotlight on Stevie Nicks. And special thanks to Stevie Nicks for her honest and frank interview.

Stevie: Thanks Valerie, so much.