This interview with Ian "Molly" Meldrum was broadcast in Australia in 1986.

Molly: Tonight we are going to feature a very special lady, and her name is Stevie Nicks.

Now how this interview came about was that towards the end of the Dire Straits performances in Melbourne, I threw a party for them here at my home. And it just so happened that Stevie Nicks, Bob Dylan and Tom Petty happened to be performing here on the same night. Well Bob didn't arrive at the party but Stevie and Tom Petty arrived. Stevie agreed to do an interview. So she came over here on the Saturday afternoon, we sat down, we had a lot of laughs and then we sat down here to do the interview. It's one of the most enjoyable afternoons I've ever spent and certainly one of the most enjoyable interviews. So here it is, from the Egyptian Room, Stevie Nicks.

Video clip: Talk To Me

Molly: The first time I ever met you, was when you were really.. they were calling you "megastars" in the essence because it was Fleetwood Mac. But I knew of you before then, let's go right back and start at when you actually started singing

Stevie: Well I started singing when I was very little because my grandfather was a country singer, so my grand dad and I sang, seriously duets, which is why I love duets. So I started singing, even my mother says when I was really a baby. I just always loved to sing, and I never took music classes and I never took "Glee Club" and I was never was in… I never wanted to do that singing, I just sang by myself all the time. I got a guitar on my 16th birthday and I wrote a song that night and I never stopped writing since. I didn't get a piano until I was about 25 so I played guitar and wrote all my songs on guitar.

Molly: Now even though you were singing with your family in itself and doing duets, in your school days what did you aspire to be? Was it to be a singer or a musician?

Stevie: Well it was always to be a singer. I think I always knew that I was not… that I did not have the innate talent like say, Lindsey at 8 years old laying around playing the guitar. I mean, he plays the guitar all day long. Well I played the guitar from when I was sixteen until I was about 25/26 and I still play a little, but, it never came in that innate ability to be Eric Clapton, and I waited for it to come in and it didn't, so I started to play the piano. It was easier for me because all I had to do was chord, and I could sit there and figure that out, but on the guitar I was baffled. Even though I play real good rhythm guitar actually, but when I went to the piano I could sit there for days you know and I never had a piano, my family never had a piano. So, I started writing pretty much on piano, I am, going to, after this tour that I have been tagging along with, I am going to go home and cut my fingernails off and I'm going to get an electric guitar and I'm going to start to work with the guitar again cause I wrote a guitar song last night and its another part of me that nobody has seen in a long time.

Molly: Going back to the first song that you wrote, you said you got the guitar and wrote a song. What musical influences were going around in your mind?

Stevie: Everley Brothers, I would say The Beatles except for the fact when I met Lindsey he was so insistent that I listen to The Beatles for form, for like, here's your verse, here's your one bar, and I'm going "this is a bar down the corner - right?", I mean, two bars, and then there's another verse, and then you have to have a chorus, and now you have to have a bridge, and I'm going over to a blotter, and I don't understand this, so I got a little upset with people that I was forced to listen to. So, I was not forced to listen to the Everley Brothers and I was not forced to listen to R&B or The Supremes or The Beach Boys, The Four Tops.

Molly: But forced to listen to The Beatles?

Stevie: Forced to listen to The Beatles - and as much as I love The Beatles its like, you know - nobody likes to be … "and did this"… also the Kingston Trio. So somewhere between The Beatles and the Kingston Trio I kind of burned out a little bit and said in my own self, quietly, I'm going and find what I want to sing and listen to, even though I'll sing what YOU want me to do, and YOU want me to do, and what YOU want me to do when I'm with you. But in my own private time I'm going to sing to Diana Ross and I'm going to sing to Aretha Franklin, that's just the way it is.

Molly: When did you then start taking it seriously, in the essence that it was going to be your career and that you would have to work extremely hard, to even make something of it, especially in America where everyone wants to be a star?

Stevie: But, you see for me, it was never… OK, I met Lindsey, I love to tell this story, I met Lindsey at a religious meeting called "The Young Life" that they used to have at high school, when I went to high school, and cause everyone just went cause to get us out of the house and really go to a party, and I met Lindsey and he was sitting there just gorgeous, playing his guitar and I walked over to him and we sang California Dreaming and we sang it perfect and I'd never met him before. He was a year younger than me, so he was a junior and I was a senior. I didn't see him again after that night until about two years later. I was like two years into junior college, and he called me up and asked me if I wanted to be in a rock and roll band and I had been of course, very much Joan Baez, and very much (sings) "and I never got over those blue eyes" but I was also going (sings) "take another little piece of my heart now baby" cause I was also really into Janis Joplin and I was really into Jimi Hendrix, and like nobody knew this, my parents knew because my room was like dancing all the time - and I said sure, I had no idea. For the next 5 years of my life, not only would I have this relationship with Lindsey Buckingham but I would also go to college, 5 years going straight through Junior to upper college and have to drive from Stanford University down to Menlo Atherton which is like an hour on the freeway at 5.30 and practice until midnight then drive back, and also study. And they weren't going to college so they don't really care.

Molly: So what was your motivation?

Stevie: I wanted to be in a rock 'n' roll band, and I also realized that I had found in Lindsey a duet singer. Which was my grandfather, right? Which was that close Everley Brother thing that I have, which is what Lindsey and I are really famous for is that 5th… If he's singing this one then I'm singing just ever so slightly, a tiny bit higher than him. It's Scottish almost, sort of. And also I'd found an incredible guitar player, who could play anything, who could sit an play you any song, and of course he found in me a whole lot of trouble, because I could very easily sit down and with one note go "do, do, do, do do" and write a song, not knowing anything about the guitar which to this day upsets him and everybody else because something just says…OK... and I just sit down and I play, and its not great, but it's a great skeleton, it's a great skeletal thing to give to you and say, here it is, its very simple, go ahead and make it into a Bo Diddley song, make it into a Led Zeppelin song, make it into a Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks song, make it into a Stevie Nicks song, which was usually the last on the priority list, but that was alright, because I needed to learn.

Molly: OK, so there's this relationship with yourself and Lindsey as far as peformers are concerned. To go into and get a recording contract, how did you do that?

Stevie: We moved to Los Angeles at the beginning of 1972, in my Toyota which Lindsey named "The Pocket" for in the pocket, right in the… and we drove to LA and we lived with Keith Olsen, who was our producer, who basically kind of like saw us on the only little tour we ever did with Leon Russell which was four shows, with Leon Russell, Salt Lake City, San Diego, Los Angeles…

Molly: How did you get that gig?

Stevie: I don't know, but however we got it, I was going if I had to carry the piano, it didn't matter. So I got to stand on the side of the stage for four nights and watch Leon Russell play. That's an influence, he was very much an influence of mine, and so Lindsey and I were singing, by Keith Olsen, the whole band came down to Los Angeles and we stayed at the Tropicana Hotel, right? (laughs). Which is the worst place in the world, that is the scheme of the rock and roll life, everyone needs to stay there for a night, and we got… well what happened was is that the band ended up breaking.. they ended up really driving everybody else in the band away, which is what drove Lindsey and I together because Lindsey and I were never going together in the whole three and a half years that we were in the Fritz Rabyne Memorial Band. Can you believe this name? we were both going with someone else, and what happened really, the reason Linsdey and I ever started really going together was cause it was kind of so cruel that these people in Los Angeles had decided to break this band up, and they succeeded, they broke it up, and so the other three members who were really very good, and they only took me because they knew that they weren't gonna get Lindsey without me and also as a little kind of back up to Lindsey, so we signed the Buckingham Nicks contract and we did an album that is now ours, actually Lindsey and I bought it, and we may just go back in and remix a little bit and maybe do a little singing on it and because, I sat in a room with Lindsey for nine months, in his father's coffee plant, a little tiny room littler than this while we did half of the songs on that record on a four track. Like we'd go when the workers went home. We'd go at 7 o'clock and we'd stay until 6.30 all night long, up by the Cow Palace (?) in San Francisco and I would sit there every night, all night long and listen to him like put the lead on "So Afraid" or the seven minute acoustical version of "Frozen Love" which he just plays all the way through.

Molly: So the initial success of that album, then it starts travelling into what was probably one of the most incredible emergences of two Americans with a very established English band, how did that happen?

Stevie: OK - I'm going to conceptualize this and put it into a small [gestures box shape]… I love these stories. Lindsey and I lived in an apartment on Fairfax and Orangegrove, in Los Angeles and Richard Dashut who ended up to be one of our producers because we took Richard with us, we weren't going alone. I guess Mick Fleetwood just went out to our studio in Los Angeles, it was out in the valley, that's called Sound City, its right across the freeway from this huge brewery, beer brewery, so you can never get lost because you always smell beer and knew you were coming upon Sound City so you turn off and you go to this place. And he went there to check out Keith Olsen's work, so Keith put on Frozen Love, and what did Fleetwood Mac need? They needed a guitar player, and in Frozen Love Lindsey does an incredible job of… he plays, that's a live thing all they way through - straight. He's also an incredible lead guitar player when he wants to be, and Mick Fleetwood said here is Peter Green for us, and, the fact that, we know as history says, they already had a lady singer, they didn't really need another one, but, they needed a guitar player bad enough to say well, we'll take her, if she's good, good - if she's not she's gone. They, Fleetwood Mac is a band and they just go right on, and they are famous for their guitar players, so I was a surprise to them, cause they didn't expect really anything from me.

Molly: So Mick Fleetwood takes on Lindsey and yourself, you certainly then are becoming a band…

Stevie: And not even suddenly. The reason I told you we lived on Orangegrove and Fairfax was because Christine's mother was very psychic and the last thing that Chris' mom said to her before she died was "you will find it on Orangegrove" and of course Christine with her dry English humour is sure she's going to be picking oranges somewhere in an orange grove in California, and they found us on Orangegrove, and we became… from the day that we all met at a Mexican restaurant, and they drove up in these 2 wild Cadillacs, white like with the fins, clunked up! Lindsey and I are like going these people are strange and they get out and it was really like love at first sight, how could you not love these people? So we had dinner, and it was never like "do you want to join the band?". It was like well rehersal's tomorrow at 5pm in the basement and you'll get paid $200 a week in cash for each of you, and I'm going 'we're rich! we're rich'. It was instant, and I went out and bought all the Fleetwood Mac albums with my last pennies and listened to every side, back to front, back to front, to see if I could find any thematic thing in this band that I felt was something I could do, and I did, I found a real mystical thing in it from Christine's songs to Peter's to the Green Manalishi to Black Magic Wowan, to all the.. to the things I love, some good ballads, some really neat rock and roll, some really good rock and roll stuff, and I love Peter Green, so I said "yeah, I can blend".

Molly: You go into a situation then, where an album is to be done - Fleetwood Mac. How the hell did it happen, and did you ever imagine what was going to happen after that? I know you would probably hope it, but..

Stevie: No, no, Fleetwood Mac "Fleetwood Mac" only took three months from beginning to end. That's 5 wild indians in one room, all going "I'm the producer", or "listen I know I'm right" and I didn't even ever say that, so were talking only four. And Linsdey, is once again radically perfectionistic and its like, you know, well, I don't want to be on it then, if its not right. And Lindsey and Stevie and Chris had to learn to sing together because Christine is so very, so very English and like I'm kinda like wherever I am, if I'm in Atlanta I have a southern accent, and if I'm in England, its like… and Lindsey's like kind of very country rock'n'roll, to just listen to just Lindsey play and sing. So to put these three voices together, especially since two had been singing for years, was hard. But, the one great thing about the English is that they are jovial enough to make a joke out of a lot of things, and this is the only way I think that the three of us learned to sing together. Because, it was like Lindsey and I had already practiced for years you know and then there was another lady and she had to learn to sing with us too, you know, and that was the hardest part, but the record was done in three months, what can I say? We didn't have all the money in the world to spend, we couldn't be indulgent, and nobody knew if it was going to be a hit or not. And for Lindsey and I, like we were rich because we were getting hundreds of dollar bills a week, and we were starving.

Molly: So, Fleetwood Mac - Fleetwood Mac started to take off, singles were released from it, and suddenly, Stevie Nicks, especially, is starting to become a first class lady, as far as, a big number one and a big star, how did you react to that?

Stevie: I don't think that Stevie Nicks really realised it. Because once again, we left, and we worked for like four months solid, four nights a week, you know, that's why my voice got hurt and like one day off, then 3 gigs, then one day off then four gigs. We were so busy, honestly, and we went everywhere, we went to Grand Junction Colorado and Casper Wyoming, we went to places where nobody went. So, we really did take our music out, and I think that as much as the record, we went out and played it for people. I mean, it was an amazing life adjustment for me to literally be doing three to four shows a night, I mean not a night but a week and then having a day to travel and like that the first class ticket you know. Well, you travel once and then you work solid and so the only time to really got to sit down and rest was when you on the airplane and nobody read Billboard and nobody called home to find out… you know when you are really touring you are really wrapped up in your music and what you are doing every night. I was working out everything in my….you know… Rhiannon is a certain way on the record, well Rhiannon turned into a whole other thing on stage but I had to work that out in my head every night when I went bed. I'd lay in bed and go, what do I want to do in this song? and I'd really spend an awful lot of hours thinking not about how good we were doing, but about what I wanted to do in my place in the three people, Lindsey, Christine and Stevie and what was I going to do right here in the middle of these two, how was I going to be?

Video clip: Rhiannon

Molly: Well you've got one enormous album, you've created sales that no one believed at that stage could be possible, especially with the combination of the group, you've had major hits off that album, suddenly Chrissie and yourself and two major names around the world, how then did you approach the next album?

Stevie: We never changed. Fleetwood Mac never changes. We go in exactly the same everytime. There's always electricity. We don't approach an album really, we just go in and Lindsey is pretty much the boss. We never knew when we did Rumours that it was… we all loved it… but we didn't know it was going to be that big of a record and we again went right on the road, and when you're out there touring, you don't get a subscription to Billboard or Cashbox or Record World, and nobody's really calling you up and telling you. So, its an elitist thing, the band goes on the road and its like you live in your world of touring. We're never aware of it.

Molly: Have you changed since then? Have you changed from the Rhiannon days of being a star and everyone wanting an ounce - saying Stevie Nicks belongs to us, the press say this, the television says that, are you changing at this time? Its not quite the same as doing the first album is it?

Stevie: No, but amazingly enough, only because we are older, is it not the same. Its really very much the same. It was always crazy. They are wondering right now why I am here. I have to go home and work with them, and there's the radical Stevie, she's split to Australia.

Molly: Was it frightening you, number one, as an individual, frightening you as a group secondly, how big this album was becoming?

Stevie: No, because we never, as I said, we never checked. So for all those weeks that we were on the road, and that Rumours was on the charts, once again, we toured for a year, a solid year and Fleetwood Mac tours for eight weeks, then they take 3 1/2 weeks off, they tour eight more weeks, they went to Japan for a year, they went to Australia, I'm sorry not Japan for a year, they went to Japan for a month, and then we came to, thank the lord, Australia for a month and this is solid - this is no break. Everyone else tours for 3 weeks and they take four weeks off, and its like "I don't understand this" because I am from a serious touring band. So we were so busy Molly, that we didn't really know or really care what the record was doing. We would walk up those stairs every night and there were 20 thousand people, or 30 thousand people or 50 thousand people or 75 thousand people or 10 people that are there to see you and its like forget it, everything else doesn't matter, and this is where we most want to be. So no, we're not very aware of what's happening as far as charts go, if you even mention the word single to Lindsey he'll get angry with you. Its like "don't tell me what a single is, cause I don't write singles". And of course, so that rubs off on me from 20 years ago also to everybody its like don't tell us to write singles, ever. Don't tell Fleetwood Mac to be commercial, don't tell Stevie Nicks to be commercial. I mean Lindsey gets mad at me now, its like "I'm telling you to be commercial" and I'm going "but nobody told Fleetwood Mac to be commercial" Fleetwood Mac never tried to be commercial, ever

Video clip: Dreams

Molly: Rumours had become history, it is a landmark in rock'n'roll history, whether you read charts or not, it's a very big album, a lot of great songs, incredible songs, four top hits, I won't say singles, that were just massive, world tours, covering an immense amount of countries, then the Tusk album.

Stevie: [laughs]

Molly: Why are you laughing?

Stevie: Well, just because "then the Tusk album - The Movie". Right then, my eyes are filling up with funny tears. I wish you could have been there for the thirteen months of Tusk.

Molly: It took so long?

Stevie: [giggling] Yep, and when we moved out of the studio it looked like your house that we had lived in, I mean there had to be 350,000 polaroids plus stuffed animals hanging upside down, you know, rabbits, everything that we all owned, yarn and crocheting stuff, and paints. Christine is really an art teacher right, so we have all our art supplies. We had a digital person that I never understood the whole 13 months why he was there, I called him "Mr Didge" he lived outside the door. For 13 months we went to the studio every single day at 2 o'clock, and you know that I'm late, and I have been told that sometimes you are late. Well, you are not late for a Fleetwood Mac session - they come and get you and kill you. Its like, you don't ever do this again, and, so from 2 o'clock in the afternoon, which is a horrifying time of day to even be up, until 8 or 9 the next morning, and then its like, lets play, then its like lets jam, lets play the blues da da da da-da!! And you can't leave cause you're part of this band, so, Fleetwood Mac would… I mean… and Tusk, was like very native, very African. Mick lived in the jungle in Africa for 5 or 6 years of his life, right? And so Mick thinks that he is a Watouzi (sp?) Warrior and .. he is! So this whole record… I mean I would sit and write for days, you know, it was like "The Tribe" and like this is the sacred steps back up to the top of the sacred mountain of this jungle kind of thing, and that's what Tusk was. And if you ever really listen to Tusk and listen to it quietly, its very slow. I listen to it sometimes and I think these songs are so slow. Its like, Lindsey's song goes [singing slowly] "and they said I never would recover, and they said I knew you well". Its like everything on Tusk was very like "warrioresque", which is probably one of the reasons why 13 months didn't kill us all, because it was so…its like we kind of went to kind of another kind of world for Tusk and I think that Tusk is one of those records that some day people will sit down and listen to and understand what it really was because I didn't even understand what it was and I think I'm only now, as I listen to it in my own private time, starting to realise that there was a lot more in Tusk that even I didn't see.

Video clip: Tusk

Molly: Stevie Nicks is now Stevie Nicks known to the world

Stevie: [laughs] Alright

Molly: Well you are known to the world

Stevie: Yeah, OK

Molly: Especially for anyone that follows rock and rock and most people who follow rock and roll are basically in that part of the world, the Western World. The image of Stevie Nicks started to expand beyond belief because now suddenly video is a huge thing.

Stevie: [laughing] And starting with Gypsy though

Molly: Exactly

Stevie: OK

Molly: Now lets get on to Gypsy, because by now, even though he is a friend of mine, he was one of the major pioneers of video, and a very talented person. Accused also though, by me, I might say, that he goes over the top. You said before you thought it was going to be a disaster

Stevie: We did! Because once again, you put, like I would always thing the buffalo (???). You put five people especially that aren't used to ever doing any filming of any kind, in room and try and tell them what to do and I thought like, this is a disaster, and Russell said to me "this is my film and everybody will do what I say" and the thing is that he came to my house for 2 hours and he looked at my closet and he looked at my things and my crystal balls and all my stuff that I have, and, I thought that he was going to be a lot a lot more like.. and he wasn't. He never raised his voice to anybody in Fleetwood Mac, he was totally, completely calm and nobody in Fleetwood Mac ever raised their voice to him.

Molly: A brilliant film clip

Stevie: A brilliant film clip, which was for me… I wish we could find a producer like Russell, a producer of music like Russell for Fleetwood Mac, because the way he handled those five people was so, it was like the best Mom in the world, that just handled all ten of those kids perfect. And that's what he did, and I was amazed. In Gypsy there's a part where I come around this lamp post and I look, and you think I'm looking at Mick, because Mick's driving up in the truck, well I'm not, I'm looking at Russell and Russell's like… and then when Mick drives up, Mick's not just looking at me, Mick's looking at me and Russell who are both like vibing him, and the looks between Mick and I, I think are so intense there, but it wasn't just Mick and I, it was Mick and I and Russell… and it was easy

Video Clip: Gypsy

Molly: Russell directed you in Gypsy. A couple of years later Russell said to me one of the most frustrating things is that to meet Stevie Nicks and to meet, of all other people, Martha Davis, they both could have been great actresses

Stevie: That's a very nice thing to say

Molly: Did you ever have any…

Stevie: No. Because I don't like to be, as you know [gestures being filmed], if I'm having to worry about how I look and how, you know, if I'm getting older, or if, you know, I'm not 95 pounds. If I have to worry about that it takes away from my being a rock'n'roll singer, and that's what I am, so, that bothers me, and for me also to be told what to say, is really hard. So I never… and to repeat and repeat and repeat, I'm really an entertainer, I'm not a studio… you know I'm not a perfectionist, I'm an entertainer, a live entertainer.

Molly: Well you're a songwriter, singer and performer…going back to Sara, did that hurt you when that lawsuit happened?

Stevie: If the girl had called me up and asked me, and told me what she did, and of course I did answer the phone, cause the woman called me and she told me her story and I told her mine, very honestly. And if she had just left it at that I probably would have said, which I did say, maybe the same star hit us both at the same time. Maybe the same words came through to you and me at the same time very similar, that's alright, I accept that, and I'd probably have given her half of that song, but what she did was, she talked to me, and she was real nice, and I was real vulnerable, and real naïve, and I really told her exactly the truth, and she sued me and she had me subpoenad and THAT made me angry.

Molly: Does it also make you angry that you are very vulnerable?

Stevie: No, because if I'm not vulnerable, I won't ever write any more songs about vulnerability and then what am I doing? I need to help people. I need to make people believe that its alright to be vulnerable and to be a little naïve and to be still sweet and kind and good.

Video clip: Sara

Molly: So there was Stevie Nicks - superstar - has gone through the rigors of being a rock star, of being married, of having that exploding in the papers, of having the accolades of one of the biggest groups in the world, of being sued because of lyrics, did you ever feel at that stage, is this worth it?

Stevie: And still she lives in her ivory chamber, yeah, I wonder sometimes, but I never wonder enough to ever stop doing this though, they can't hurt me. Because the people that listen to me sing, the kids in Australia, the kids in The United States, the kids in Europe, anybody, my friends, you anybody that wants me to sit down and sing for them - yeah that makes it worth it

Molly: To go into a solo career, how hard was that?

Stevie: Very difficult, and so come the words of Bella Donna, about this is life, this is the fast lane, and you never thought that your face would become thin but it did, and you are in love with and I'm ready to sail… cause I'm gonna still do this with or without you. Also come in out of the darkness, yeah, come in out of the darkness, I though I was in a little bit of darkness and because I just needed to sing and to be with people and to work with people and I had become so questered that I hadn't known much life at all, and certainly as we already spoke of three songs per writer, right? Well I write three songs in three months, or 3 songs sometimes in three weeks or sometimes three songs in two days and so I'm down to three songs of my life experience for three years basically, so yeah, that's difficult. So, at some point, if you are a really prolific song writer and you want to be able to walk to that piano, and as Christine calls me "the mad songwriter" and not feel stupid about writing another song, or have somebody walk by and say "oh great, your writing another song". I don't want to feel that and that's why I went to do a solo career. I need to write even if nobody ever hears it.

Molly: Suddenly a third thing happened, which was almost a landmark as well. I've spoken about the female singing part of leading a group, both you and Chrissie, the video…

Stevie: No, but I never led that group

Molly: Just simply saying you two as singers

Stevie: A team

Molly: … the video… as far as making a video which Americans weren't doing at that stage or taking it too seriously…

Stevie: But we knew they were taking it seriously here (Australia) cause when we came here there was nothing but videos on TV, and that was before MTV

Molly: … the third thing, is that, here was a major star linking up then with another star, in Tom Petty, and doing duets, which has become one would think these days, that it was always done, it was never done

Stevie: No, it was right back to my Grandfather, it was right back to country music

Video clip: Stop Draggin' my heart around

Molly: Going back then to your rock and roll ….. before Tom Petty, your association, as far as records is concerned, and your great love for bands…

Stevie: and The Heartbreakers, and The Eagles and Fleetwood Mac and Led Zeppelin are about the only bands I know, and about Pete Towshend and The Who. That's it! There are no other bands in this world

Molly: Tom and you doing a thing together, and then you becoming literally part of that band for a while, was it a sympathy thing because Stevie's a female…

Stevie: A little, a little bit, [sings] "I need a little sympathy". Yeah, a little! A little, they let me be an honorary Heartbreaker

Molly: So Bella Donna happens, and again it's a hit, you can't stop having them!

Stevie: But nobody raves about it

Molly: What do you mean no one raves about it?

Stevie: In my world. Bella Donna is a hit, as was Rumours a hit, nobody raved about it in our world. Its like Bella Donna I guess was a hit, but nobody really told me, nobody told me about it, nobody told me that they were raving. So I wasn't aware that anybody was raving. I guess what I'm trying to say to you Molly, is that its very easy to sail through these records without really noticing too much, because you're going so fast. Nobody's calling you up and telling you anything, so you just do your gigs and what becomes really important is that live performance, is that walking out on the stage, and that's it, and yeah, I can sit here and sing to right now, any of those records…

Molly: I've got to argue here, the live performance is important, however there is a million, and millions out there watching video so they might not see Stevie. Stevie could be in England…

Stevie: Alright, but I'm making the videos too now, which is something I don't like to do…

Molly: That's what I'm saying, with Stand Back, its such an unbelievable simple video which defied all over the top costs

Stevie: Right, and then of course in complete confidence over international Australian TV I should tell you about the first "Stand Back" which I did my own horseback riding [laughs] and was like, you know, incredible to a point, but it wasn't right, and I freaked out and I said Fleetwood Mac didn't have to make videos to sell records so at this point I said take it back. And I did, I re-did Stand Back with Geoffrey Horneby (sp?) who choreographed Flash Dance, now you have to know this sent me into waves of panic because I am not a dancer and I am certainly not like "whats-her-name" in Flash Dance. So I am afraid. And I make this video right, and I have my kind of gang of dancers who are all going like this [looks over shoulder] and it's wonderful, and I meet this guy named Brad who choreographs all my videos to this day and who puts up with a lot from me because he knows that I'm sweet and he doesn't want to hurt my feelings, you know. Its like, its difficult because I'm a rock'n'roll singer, I'm a ROCK'N'ROLL SINGER!

Molly: I know that!

Stevie: I'm not a model, I am not an actress, I will never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever be able to model for vogue!

Molly: I wish I had never told you what Russell had said..

Stevie: However… [laughs then looks straight down the lens]

Molly: Why not? Why not?

Stevie: Because I'm only 5 foot, one inches tall! And because you know what? I don't care about being pretty that much, what I want to do, is I want to sing to you!

Video Clip: Stand Back

Molly: Stevie Nicks "superstar" could be classed as a… I don't know.. of how Madonna is these days and perhaps Whitney Houston in the future…

Stevie: I am so much older than they are Molly

Molly: Sure… and still as pretty, but here you are in their same league - I see you walk forward with those people

Stevie: Because why? Because why? Because they are the "great singers" and the "great great players"

Molly: Because you're talented - you don't think you're talented?

Stevie: But I wanted to go see the great singers and the great, great players

Molly: In the meantime, you have got a solo album out, which people say, and I agree, is your best effort… it's a great album. You have got some great songs on it, and I don't have to… perhaps I should tell you about the charts. Its rolling up the charts here, its huge in America and you're here

Stevie: And I want to be here

Molly: And the least you seem to be concerned about is Stevie Nicks this superstar solo image

Stevie: The least I am concerned about is that

Molly: You love rock and roll that much?

Stevie: I love rock and roll that much!

Molly: It's a neat thing

Stevie: It's the most special thing

Video Clip: I Can't Wait

Molly: During this interview, you've talked about that you're a lot older than say Madonna or Whitney Houston…

Stevie: I am

Molly: Yet you show the enthusiasm and the want probably above them, I've listened to you saying "I'm gonna do some film directing, I love it"

Stevie: And photography

Molly: "And photography"

Stevie: And interview you

Molly: No way

Stevie: yes, yes, yes, yes!

Molly: You've got that enthusiasm, where do you get it from? Was it bred in your family?

Stevie: No I think its really from God, I think its really from the spirits. I think its really from the little jazz spirit that hangs over my head, and the little rock'n'roll spirit that hangs over my head

Molly: We were talking before about you've written a song with your brother…

Stevie:Yeah, and the little brother spirit that hangs over my head

Molly: Is your family that important?

Stevie: My family is… my family is so important to me that last night in the middle of the night I started to cry because I miss my brother, and I needed to call him, and I didn't have any phone numbers. I don't have anybody's phone number - cause I don't have a book. I needed to talk to Christopher because I just needed for somebody to tell me that its all OK, and yeah, my family is very, very important to me, and you are important to me, and all the people that come to see me are important to me

Molly: Well I don't have to wish you luck for your solo album because its already going to be a hit. I wish you luck with Fleetwood Mac, with the forthcoming album, I wish you luck with everything else because quite frankly you are one of the most enjoyable people that I have ever met and talked to, and one of the most honest, and I thank you for that

Stevie: Well, I have to say one thing to you too, I've been interviewed by many people, many, many great people, and I think this is probably the nicest and most really true to my heart interview that I have ever really done and I really appreciate it.

Molly: Thanks Stevie

****************

There is a long version (above) of this interview and a shorter version. The shorter version has the following footage in it that they didn't use in the long version:

Molly: Well knowing Lindsey after the Fleetwood Mac period when and he was doing his solo thing, and getting to know him fairly well, he seems an utter perfectionist. Is he?

Stevie: Utter. To the point of "why can't you just come and play?", and its like, "well I can't just do that". And that's the reason, and I love Lindsey, but that's the reason that Lindsey and I aren't together. Its because I'm radical, you know, its like, I just want to play, I just want us all together here, and set up some microphones, and a camera and I just want to play. And Lindsey, it needs to be perfect for Lindsey and so his perfection drives me crazy because I think he doesn't have any fun, and my radicalness drives him crazy because he thinks I'm not as good as I should be.

Video clip: You Make Loving Fun

Molly: Everyone now is forced to do videos

Stevie: Right

Molly: After the Gypsy thing, you'll want to do another video, and obviously one from Bella Donna, from that album. Were you getting worried about the fact that the image was taking over your music?

Stevie: Angry

Molly: Yeah?

Stevie: Because of what I said already, I don't like the fact that I have to be an actress or a model.

Molly: Yet you do one of the most simplest videos…

Stevie: Its… yeah, because I can sit down at the piano and play you a song, and you'll love it, and you'll even probably cry and say play it again and I don't have to have make up on and I don't have to have all the fancy clothes on.

Molly: Well, "Stand Back" is hardly a "Gypsy" yet it was…

Stevie: But Stand Back is a… because once again the difference between the brilliance of Russell Mulcahey is that is, that he handled five crazy people. He said listen, don't mess with me. And Hold Me, the one where I am laying on the chaise lounge, where my friends say, of course you would get that job, right? it was 115 degrees at Palm Springs up on this sand dune. We never even got.. no one in Fleetwood Mac even saw the other scenes that anybody ever did, cause if you walked out of your trailer for five minutes, you died of asphyxiation because it was so hot. So, nobody saw anything else, and me walking across with that picture, you know? Its like I'm laying on that chaise lounge, and its 115 degrees, and they're saying we need you to look dreamy, you know, I'm going to look dreamy and then I'm going to die!

Video clip: Hold Me