Tuesday, October 27, 2020

BOX OFFICE STATS: Stevie Nicks 24 Karat Gold The Concert Film

‘Stevie Nicks 24 Karat Gold’ Doc Heads To PVOD As Distributor Trafalgar Releasing Adapts To Pandemic Era

By Tom Grater - Deadline
October 26, 2020

Following its global cinema release last week, event music doc Stevie Nicks 24 Karat Gold The Concert is heading to premium VOD as distributor Trafalgar Releasing looks to employ new release strategies in the pandemic era.

The film will be available to rent online from October 29 at 9am PT at a premium $19.99 price point until November 5 at 11.59 PT via the official website. Audiences will have 48 hours to watch after purchase. The move follows similar PVOD endeavors undertaken by studios during the pandemic such as Universal with Trolls World Tour.

This marks the first such VOD release for event cinema specialist Trafalgar, which has to date relied heavily on theatrical in its business model. The company reduced its output while cinemas were disrupted by the pandemic and is now looking to take its ‘event’ style of releasing into the digital sphere, partnering with Nicks and her management company BMG on the release. Trafalgar’s primary focus still remains cinemas, Kymberli Frueh, Trafalgar’s SVP Programming & Content Acquisitions, emphasized to Deadline.

“The central reason from Stevie Nicks and the team at BMG for providing a video-on-demand alternative for the 24 Karat Gold concert film was to create options for consumers, ensuring fans feel safe wherever they watch the film and to hedge against uncertainty around market closures and COVID spikes,” Frueh explained.

“Whether it’s outdoor drive in locations, safely opened cinemas or online options, cinemas remain our main focus as they offer a safe communal experience among fans—especially since concerts and touring have stopped for now. Event cinema brings fans together in their local movie theater to enjoy their favorite artists as a community, as if they were at a live concert.

“While the team liked the opportunity from the onset, it became increasingly important when some cinema chains closed all locations due to lack of new film releases. As COVID concerns continue to keep NY and LA closed, outdoor and online became even more critical as viewing options as these are core markets for fans,” she said.

The film entered cinemas around the world on October 21 and reached number one in the UK and number two in the U.S.; it played in around 900 cinemas worldwide.

Directed and produced by Joe Thomas during Nick’s 67-city sold out 24 Karat Gold Tour, the film explores the inspirations behind some of the musician’s most know songs from her times as a member of Fleetwood Mac and as a solo artist.

BOX OFFICE STATS






Monday, October 26, 2020

STEVIE NICKS PLANS SOLO TOUR WHEN THE WORLD GETS BACK TO NORMAL


Stevie Nicks on Her New Concert Film, the ‘Crazy’ Resurgence of ‘Dreams’ and Staying in Touch With the Spirits of Prince and Tom Petty

In a wide-ranging Q&A, the singer discusses everything from a life-changing moment seeing the "Woodstock" movie at a drive-in to having her own new "24 Karat Gold: The Concert" film play at outdoor and indoor theaters.

By Chris Willman - Variety

Not that it ever was far from rock fans’ consciousness, but Stevie Nicks’ voice is suddenly a ubiquitous part of popular culture again, thanks to a viral video of a skateboarding man singing along to Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams” that has become the feel-good hit of a feel-bad fall season. Naturally, the snippet of it has made a hungry world ready again to consume more of “Dreams” than can fit in a TikTok video, which is why “Dreams” and the “Rumours” album have both returned to the top 10, 43 years later.

But if the resurgence has led you to want to hear not just “Dreams” but two hours and 10 minutes of unexpurgated Stevie, the universe has conspired to accommodate that. Sunday night, Nicks’ film, “24 Karat Gold: The Movie,” will be playing at theaters and drive-ins across the country. It’ll be followed Friday by the release of a full soundtrack on CD (as a Target exclusive), on vinyl (at Barnes & Noble) and for download, further capturing a 2017 show in Pittsburgh that found Nicks at what she considers her well-oiled performing peak. Its rendering of something that seems impossible now — an arena gig — really does feel like a dream.

Nicks got on the phone with Variety earlier this month, just as the “Dreams” phenomenon was starting to take off, to discuss the making of the new concert movie, a new studio single (“Show Them the Way”), her Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction last year, feeling like she’s still in touch with Tom Petty and Prince, how the “Woodstock” film changed her life, hopes and fears about the coronavirus crisis, and the importance of suede boots on the ground.

VARIETY: One of the songs in this concert film is “Dreams.” As you know, there’s this whole TikTok video tie-in, and suddenly “Dreams” is on the chart again.

NICKS: From the skateboarder? I know. How crazy is that? My assistant showed it to me — he’s drinking his juice and just skateboarding along and just filming himself and singing “Dreams.” It’s so funny, and so great, because “Dreams” is a fun song to sing. I’m thrilled that people still love it, and that it does still make people happy. And who knows even why? But it does. But “Dreams” came out how many years ago? Like in 1975, right? [Editor’s note: early 1977.] My assistant just told me there’s a lot of young kids who don’t even know the song, but they like it, and its streaming is massive. It’s fantastic.

Top 40 Radio Revives Fleetwood Mac’s Classic ‘Dreams.’


After Viral Video, Top 40 Radio Revives Fleetwood Mac’s Classic ‘Dreams.’

Oct 26, 2020 - Inside Radio

A new generation of listeners is discovering the Fleetwood Mac classic “Dreams” thanks to a viral TikTok video posted by Nathan Apodaca riding a skateboard, lip-synching the song while sipping a large bottle of Ocean Spray Cran-Raspberry. The 23-second video has been viewed millions of times, sparking a resurgence of the song from the 1997 Fleetwood Mac album “Rumours.”

The track accumulated 521 total spins the week of Oct. 19-25, according to Mediabase, with Top 40 radio leading the way with 248 or nearly half of the total spins. The song moved from No. 96 on the Mediabase Top 40 chart to No. 59 week-over-week.

Louie Diaz, Cumulus Media VP/Contemporary who programs Atlanta’s “Q99.7” WWWQ, gave a head’s up to his airstaff when the song started showing up on the music log every three hours. “We will treat it like a current song,” he wrote in a memo acquired by Atlanta Journal-Constitution radio and TV reporter Rodney Ho. “So, when you hear it into the Weeknd or Post Malone on Q99.7, don’t think it’s weird.”

He told Ho he’s not sure how long the song will be a taking up a spot on the current list, but says “Dreams” doesn’t sound out of place and is one of the top three most checked songs in the market on Shazam.

The viral video helped placed the song back on Rolling Stone’s Top 100 Songs Chart and the band notched its best-ever week on streaming, NPR reports. In its first hour on TikTok, the video gathered some 100,000 views. It now has more than 35 million. TikTok says 134,000 tribute videos have been made, totaling nearly a half-billion combined views.

The band has also noticed, with Mick Fleetwood telling NPR, the video “was spontaneous. It was heartfelt. It was fun, and God knows we need some of that right now... It could have been any song, but it was ours.”

Stevie Nicks, whose vocals Apodaca sings along to in the video, told “CBS This Morning,” “This TikTok thing has, kind of, blown my mind. And I’m happy about it because it seems to have made so many people happy.”

The newfound love for a classic song is not unusual. In the past it was movies and commercial campaigns that revived a song. After its prominence in the movie Wayne’s World, “Bohemian Rhapsody” by Queen returned to the Top 40 charts. Similar occurrences took place with Ben E. King’s “Stand By Me,” featured in the 1986 movie of the same name; “Unchained Melody” by the Righteous Brothers from “Ghost” and even “I Heard it Through the Grapevine” by Marvin Gaye, which blew up thanks to an animated commercial campaign for California raisins, commissioned by the California Raisin Advisory Board in the 1980s.

STEVIE NICKS 24 KARAT GOLD CONCERT ON DEMAND AVAILABLE OCT 29th


For the first time ever, get a virtual front-row seat to the magic that Stevie Nicks brings to the stage - from the comfort and the safety of your home! Recorded over two nights during her sold-out 24 Karat Gold Tour, this feature-length concert film features a set-list of fan favorites and rare gems from Stevie’s multi-platinum selling catalog. The film also highlights Stevie’s intuitive and intimate storytelling abilities, captivating audiences with personal stories behind some of the most famous songs in music history.

PRE-ORDER TODAY

Premium video streaming access for Stevie Nicks 24 Karat Gold The Concert will begin October 29 at 9:00am PST / 12:00pm EST, with purchase available through November 5, 2020 at 11:59 PM PST. The event will be available for replay for 48 hours following purchase and is not available for download.

Please note your 48-hour viewing period will begin as soon as it is made available on October 29.




STEVIE NICKS 'because of “Show Them the Way” I will make another record'


Stevie Nicks on Why Payback Is Coming For Trump Post-Coronavirus and Plans for New Album

"I never thought that I would’ve gone underground so heavily as I have," says Nicks of struggling to find inspiration amidst the pandemic.


By Lyndsey Havens - Billboard
10/26/2020

When Stevie Nicks was my age, she tells me, she had just joined Fleetwood Mac at 27.

“I remember the phone call,” she says, calling from her Los Angeles home’s landline late on Saturday night. “I remember scheduling a dinner the next day and meeting for Mexican food somewhere in Hollywood where it was all decided. It’s just like yesterday to me; I can smell the amazing smells of enchiladas and tacos and tamales, and see all of their beautiful faces. We were so young, but it just seems like I could reach out and touch that night.”

Now, Nicks is 72 -- and enjoying the unexpected return of Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams” and Rumours back on the charts at No. 12 on the Hot 100 and No. 7 on the Billboard 200, respectively. Meanwhile, Nicks herself just topped the Billboard Songwriter’s Chart.

It’s all thanks to the now famous TikTok; yes, that one with user doggface208 longboarding and sipping some Ocean Spray while vibing out to “Dreams.” Since he posted it to the platform, the clip has raked in 65.5 million views, and inspired everyone from Mick Fleetwood, Shakira and even Nicks herself to join in with their own renditions.

She says she’s “tickled pink” at the virality of her decades-old hit, and shares one important piece of advice: “If the young kids start listening to Fleetwood Mac, start with the first album and just go through them. Sit down and be in it for the long run, and you’ll have the best time.”

She also relates the moment currently being experienced by doggface208 (real name: Nathan Apodaca) to her own unexpected early-'70s breakthrough with Fleetwood Mac. “We all do silly, creative dumb things that we never think anybody is going to care about, and the fact that [this TikTok user] just reached out to the entire world with his 10-second ride… his life will never be the same. In a strange way, it’s kind of like when Lindsey and I joined [the band] and we had no money -- and I do mean no money -- and within eight months, together we were almost a millionaire.”

Now, Nicks is a millionaire many times over on her own accord, and has celebrated one victory after the next throughout her career, whether historic accomplishments like becoming the first (and still only) woman to be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame twice, or personal triumphs like participating in her first Zoom during the ongoing pandemic (she says the concept is “terrifying”).

And even though the icon has made her hatred of our current reality well known -- she refuses to contract the coronavirus, saying “I have put a clear plastic ring of angels around my body” -- she’s still managed to find pockets of creativity this year, resulting in her anticipated concert film, Live In Concert: The 24 Karat Gold Tour, which hit select theaters and drive-ins for two nights only last weekend, and powerful new pop-rock single, “Show Them The Way,” her first piece of new music in six years.

With so much to celebrate, it’s odd for Nicks to be lounging at home. “One more reason to hate this pandemic is that if this hadn’t been going on, I would have been out in the world [right now],” she says. “The only connection that I really have to all of this is doing these interviews.”

How does it feel to be back in the spotlight while also stuck at home?


Sunday, October 25, 2020

Singer, songwriter, superstar Stevie Nicks is getting a little restless these days.


Rock star Stevie Nicks, in her own words

CBS Sunday Morning Interview with Tracy Smith

Singer, songwriter, superstar Stevie Nicks is getting a little restless these days.

The pandemic has put performances for large audiences on hold so she's waiting to take the stage again, and, as she told "CBS Sunday Morning's" Tracy Smith last week, the waiting is the hardest part.

"It seems like, for so many creative people, this is a very creative time. But, also, time is slipping away," Smith said to Nicks.

"Time is being stolen from all of us," Nicks said. "Absolutely. Especially if you're 72 years old."

"Does that weigh on you?" Smith asked.


"Yeah, it does," Nicks said. "When you're really working, you really stay young. You stay young because you have to."  "But, when you're just sitting around in your house, I think that Old Man Time starts to get ahold of you," the Fleetwood Mac singer continued.

Still, it seems that Old Man Time has always been kind to Stevie Nicks. You can see it in her just-released feature film, "24 Karat Gold the Concert," where she looks and sounds pretty much the same as she always did.  The movie will stream soon, but for the moment it's being shown in socially distanced theaters.

"It's as close to a really big rock 'n roll concert in a big venue as you're gonna get," Nicks said.

And it's not the only way Stevie is making herself heard these days. She decided to release her first new song in six years, "Show them the Way," as a call for action on the eve of the election.

And now, some of her classic tunes are suddenly climbing the charts again. Thanks to a cranberry-juice-loving Idaho skateboarder who went viral after posting a video on TikTok featuring Fleetwood Mac's "Dreams."

"So four decades after 'Dreams' and 'Rumours' came out, they're both in the top 10 again," Smith said.

"I know," Nicks said.

The video has inspired quite a few imitators, including bandmate Mick Fleetwood. And last week, one from Nicks herself.

"This TikTok thing has, kind of, blown my mind," Nicks said. "And I'm happy about it because it seems to have made so many people happy."

You could say making people happy has been Stevie Nicks' calling for the past 50 years or so,  And after a career of platinum-selling albums and sold-out concerts, she became the first and, so far, only woman to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice.

"It's 22 men that are in twice for their solo work and being in a big band," Nicks said. "And no women."

"Until you," Smith said.

"Until me," Nicks said. "So I feel that I definitely broke a big rock 'n roll glass ceiling."

And her backstory is just as legendary.

When young Stevie dropped out of college to chase her musical dreams, her parents cut her off financially. So she waited tables and cleaned houses to support herself and her then-boyfriend, guitarist Lindsey Buckingham.

"Were there moments when you were cleaning, I mean, you were like cleaning houses, what, scrubbing toilets, mopping floors. Was there a moment when you thought, 'Ooh, I made a mistake?'" Smith asked.

"No. No, because I was doing that to support my music, my music pal, Lindsey and some other friends, too, you know, that didn't have hardly anything," Nicks said. "So I was the one who actually was able to pay the rent and pay the money to keep our Toyota running. And so it's like, I didn't mind at all, because I did not expect my boyfriend, Lindsey, to get a job. Because what in the world would he do?"

"So you had to be the one?" Smith said.

"It was all about me," Nicks said.

By the time she became a member of Fleetwood Mac, she almost expected to be underestimated. So she had an arrangement with the group's other female star, Christine McVie.

"You two stuck together through thick and thin and really had each other's backs," Smith said.

"Yeah, we did," Nicks said. "And Christine and I, we made a pact at the very beginning that if we were ever in a room of super famous guitar players that didn't treat us with the respect that we thought that we deserved, that we would just stand up and say, 'This party's over,' and we would walk out."

"And did you have to do that?" Smith asked.

"We never actually did have to do that," Nicks said. "So that was a nice surprise. We never had to make a scene."

And their friendship endures.

Stevie Nicks' romantic relationships seemed to be more of a challenge, but they inspired some great music.

"Have you had a love," Smith asked, "a great love in your life?"

"Yeah. Three. But it's not easy to be Mr. Stevie Nicks," Nicks said. "Even if you happen to be Mr. Really Famous Rock Star Guy."

"So Lindsey falls in that category?" Smith asked. "The great loves?"

"Oh, absolutely. Well, not exactly," Nicks said. "Lindsey is — has his own category. Lindsey was my great musical love. That's different."

Stevie Nicks' dad once told her she'd never marry because her music would always come first. He was wrong, she was briefly married once. But dad was also right.

For Stevie Nicks, music will always be her true love.

"When I'm 90 years old," Nicks said, "I don't wanna be laying in my big, gorgeous bedroom and, you know, with music playing and 15 little Chinese crested dogs and going like, 'Ugh, I'm so broken-hearted that I didn't find the one.'"

"And then I would have to answer myself and say, 'Yes, but you did find several "the ones" who you wrote really great songs about and that's why you're living in this absolutely spectacular house with everything that you want and anything that you could possibly wanna buy,'" Nicks continued. "And it's, like, so maybe this is just all the way your dad saw it when he said, 'Stevie will never get married.'"

"And the way it's supposed to be," Smith said.




Saturday, October 24, 2020

Returning to her 2017 live shows proved to be a godsend for Stevie Nicks


Stevie Nicks Can’t Wait for the Magic to Come Back

Nicks discusses her ’24 Karat Gold Concert Film’ and returning to live shows in new interview


By Brittany Spanos - Rollingstone
Photo: Randee St Nicholas

In another life, Stevie Nicks would have been a music-film editor. “I think I’m really good at it,” she says one Friday evening, calling from her home in Los Angeles. Her canine companion Lily is begging for her attention with a toy as Nicks reflects on her second life. “I can only say this about a few things.”

She’s had plenty of experience, working closely with director Joe Thomas on concert films for Fleetwood Mac (2004’s Live in Boston), her late friend Tom Petty (2006’s Live From Gainesville), and most recently, Stevie Nicks 24 Karat Gold Concert Film. Recorded during her 2017 tour stops in Indianapolis and Pittsburgh, the film is getting a special release this month and being screened at select drive-ins, theaters, and exhibition spaces on October 21st through 25th. The set lists featured classic solo and Nicks-led Fleetwood Mac songs along with tracks off her 2014 album, 24 Karat Gold: Songs From the Vault. For the music fans desperately missing live shows in the time of Covid-19, the film perfectly encapsulates the tambourine-banging, shawl-twirling, story-spinning magic that only Nicks can deliver.

Putting the project together with Thomas became one of two pandemic projects for the rock goddess (the other being her new song “Show Them the Way”). She flew out to Chicago in May with her assistant on a “full-on, fogged-out, Covid-free private plane” and lived in a house on a golf course that no one had been in since before lockdown had begun. Nicks would go to Thomas’ studio, masked up alongside everyone else (“I felt imprisoned by the mask, but I love the mask — I felt safe”), and got to work, diligently assessing the footage captured by all 12 cameras from shows in the two cities.

“I’m really the second editor,” she says of her uncredited job. “The fact is that if I don’t like a shot, it’s not going in.” She learned, as she had in past editing-room experiences, that men see women differently.



Stevie Nicks hits No. 1 on Billboard's Hot 100 Songwriters chart


Stevie Nicks Tops Hot 100 Songwriters Chart Thanks to Fleetwood Mac 'Dreams' Resurgence

Xander Zellner - Billboard
October 21, 2020

She solely wrote the 1977 smash.

Stevie Nicks hits No. 1 on Billboard's Hot 100 Songwriters chart (dated Oct. 24), leading for the first time since the chart's 2019 launch, thanks to her writing credit on Fleetwood Mac's "Dreams."

The 1977 classic, and a Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 that June, rises 21-12 in its second week back on the chart, with 16.1 million U.S. streams (up 20%) and 25,000 downloads sold (up 15%), according to Nielsen Music/MRC Data. It pushes 3-2 on the Digital Song Sales chart and 18-6 on Streaming Songs.

Even in quarantine Stevie Nicks is not slowing down!


Stevie Nicks is still dreaming

by - Greg Wetherall - Dazed
October 20, 2020
Photo: Randee St Nicholas

She’s just released her first solo single in six years. A new concert film is about to hit cinemas. And a viral TikTok has put the Fleetwood Mac classic Rumours back in the Top 10. Even in quarantine, the rock and roll icon is not slowing down.

Stevie Nicks has had “a hell of a day”. Not only is it 3am at her home in Los Angeles when we first speak on the phone, the power has gone out in her house. “It was out all day until about nine o’clock (in the evening), but we’ve not been here,” she laments. “We got home and it was on. I came in, got ready to do this interview, and the power went out again.”

Nicks, the 72-year-old Fleetwood Mac singer and solo star, is almost entirely nocturnal these days. The coronavirus pandemic and subsequent quarantine has locked her into a diet of rolling news and perpetual worry, and being awake and active during the witching hour has become her normal. Her current lack of electricity, however, is somewhat less so. “We are prepared here, just in case there’s an earthquake,” she continues (the ‘we’ referring to her assistant and two goddaughters, who Nicks has been holed up with ever since the pandemic struck). “We have a lot of lanterns. I’m in a window seat in a swing. We’ve lit the area so at least I can see the papers in front of me.” Our conversation unfurls to breaking news that Donald Trump has tested positive for COVID-19. “When everyone wakes up in the morning and discovers that the whole government has possibly been exposed to the virus, they’re gonna go crazy,” she remarks, adding that Trump contracting the virus proves that wearing a mask is “not political... it’s contagious and it’s dangerous”.

To speak with Stevie Nicks is to spend time with one of music’s true greats. Not only is she responsible for writing some of the rock and pop canon’s greatest standards – “Dreams”, “Landslide”, “Edge of Seventeen” – her life has been so eventful that it can include opening up for Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix, to turning down Prince’s offer to record “Purple Rain” among its many, many tales. When we talk, she’s just arrived home from the edit suite, where she’s been busy applying the finishing touches to the video for “Show Them the Way”, her first solo single in six years.


Stevie Nicks can’t wait to perform with Harry Styles again when this is all through

Stevie Nicks Just Wants to Keep Telling Stories

by Keaton Bell - Vogue
October 20, 2020
Photo: Randee St Nicholas

Stevie Nicks bought her first copy of Vogue when she was 25 years old. It was 1973, around the time of Buckingham Nicks, the first and only album she and ex-boyfriend Lindsey Buckingham ever released as a duo. Still a few years removed from the fame and fortune that would follow their recruitment into Fleetwood Mac, Nicks was earning just a buck fifty an hour waiting tables in a flapper girl uniform.

“I only had enough money for one magazine at that point, and Vogue was the first one I ever bought,” Nicks recalls. “I would scrape my money together and buy it every month.” 

Five decades later, Nicks—who prefers using a landline and doesn’t own a computer—still finds comfort in her lo-fi rituals. “To this day my favorite thing is getting into bed at five o’clock in the morning with a cup of decaf coffee, playing some soft, groovy music, and reading my Vogue,” she tells me. “Me and my little dog Lily pore over every single page for hours, and it’s been that way since 1973.”

Nicks has spent most of the pandemic in her Pacific Palisades home with two close friends and the aforementioned Lily—a Chinese crested who sits dutifully on her owner’s lap during our call. “She has her back turned to me because she doesn’t really wanna be here. I just know she’s plotting her escape,” Nicks says with a raspy giggle. “It’s fine. My feelings aren’t too hurt…well, they are, but I’ll be okay.”

As Fleetwood Mac’s lovelorn frontwoman, Nicks crafted masterworks out of the sex-and-drug-fueled dalliances that almost destroyed the group (documented in real time on their 1977 breakup opus Rumours). Still one of the 10 best-selling albums of all time, Rumours made stars out of its new lineup, but it was always clear from the outset who the breakout was. With three songwriters fighting for space on each record, it wasn’t long before Nicks needed her own outlet.

“They said, ‘You can make your solo album and have a solo trip, but if we go into work, we’re gonna call you,’” she remembers. “‘Terrific, I’ll be there.’ That was always my promise to them.” 1981’s shimmery Bella Donna set the stage for a second career that made Nicks the first woman to ever be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice (once with the group in 1998 and by herself just last year).

2020 was originally meant to be a year off from the grueling lifestyle that comes with back-to-back arena tours as both Fleetwood Mac frontwoman and solo enchantress. With just one festival show a month, Nicks would slow down. Then the shows—her headlining slots at Jazz Fest and Governors Ball were early casualties—began to be canceled.

Monday, October 19, 2020

FLEETWOOD MAC'S 'DREAMS' TOP SELLING SONG WORLDWIDE LAST WEEK


Fleetwood Mac's 'Dreams' Thunders to Top 10.

Billboard published the Top 10 Global Tracks and "Dreams" bounds from No. 20 to No. 10 on the Global 200, sparked by its TikTok-fueled revival.

The Billboard Global 200 chart is inclusive of worldwide data and ranks songs based on streaming and sales activity culled from more than 200 territories around the world, as compiled by Nielsen Music/MRC Data.

"Dreams" vaults 20-10, with 27.3 million streams (up 36%) and 33,000 downloads sold (up 20%) globally. The classic, which was the top-selling song worldwide in the tracking week, is benefiting from the viral TikTok video in which Idahoan Nathan Apodaca rides his longboard while drinking a bottle of Ocean Spray Cran-Raspberry juice, backed by the Stevie Nicks-penned song; the band's Mick Fleetwood and Nicks have since created their own tribute clips. - BILLBOARD

Sunday, October 18, 2020

Fleetwood Mac's Rumours Is Once Again a Top 10 Album in the US

Fleetwood Mac's 'Rumours' Returns to Billboard 200 Top 10 -- 42 Years Later

by Keith Caulfield
Billboard

After a 42-year wait, Fleetwood Mac’s former Billboard 200 No. 1 album Rumours returns to the top 10 this week, as the set jumps 13-7. The album, released in 1977, is basking in the glow of sales and streaming increases spurred on by publicity generated from a viral TikTok video set to the album’s song “Dreams.”

The Billboard 200 chart ranks the most popular albums of the week in the U.S. based on multi-metric consumption as measured in equivalent album units. Units comprise album sales, track equivalent albums (TEA) and streaming equivalent albums (SEA). Each unit equals one album sale, or 10 individual tracks sold from an album, or 3,750 ad-supported or 1,250 paid/subscription on-demand official audio and video streams generated by songs from an album. The new Oct. 24-dated chart (where Rumours returns to the top 10) will be posted in full on Billboard's website on Oct. 20. For all chart news, follow @billboard and @billboardcharts on both Twitter and Instagram. 

Rumours earned 33,000 equivalent album units in the U.S. in the week ending Oct. 15 – up 15%, according to Nielsen Music/MRC Data. Of that sum, 23,000 comprise SEA units (up 15%, equating to 30.6 million on-demand streams of the album’s songs, including "Dreams"), a little under 7,000 are in album sales (up 15%) and 4,000 are in TEA units (up 13%).

The TikTok video in question has “Dreams” soundtracking a man in a hoodie (Nathan Apodaca) seemingly being pulled on a skateboard, as he drinks from a bottle of Ocean Spray Cran-Raspberry juice and sings along with Stevie Nicks’ lead vocal. The video became so popular, it moved the band’s own Mick Fleetwood and Nicks to create their own tribute clips.

Rumours spent 31 nonconsecutive weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 in 1977-78 – a record number of weeks atop the list for an album by a duo or group. Rumours was last in the top 10 on the Feb. 18, 1978-dated chart (at No. 10), and last ranked at No. 7 or higher on the Feb. 11, 1978 chart (where it placed at No. 7).


“Dreams” is Fleetwood Mac’s only No. 1 single on the Billboard Hot 100 songs chart – out of 25 chart hits. “Dreams” spent one week at No. 1 on June 18, 1977. The cut is one of four top 10 hits from the Rumours album. The effort also launched the singles “Go Your Own Way” (No. 10), “Don’t Stop” (No. 3) and “You Make Loving Fun” (No. 9).

INTERVIEW focused on Stevie Nicks superb new single "Show Them The Way"

Sunday Conversation: Stevie Nicks On Why Hew New Single Was A Premonition, John Lennon And More

by Steve Baltin - Forbes


As I started in part one of my marathon Stevie Nicks interview, there was no way to condense 90 minutes with one of the most iconic figures in music to one part. Nicks simply had way too much to offer in the lengthy call.

Part two, below, focuses on her superb new single, "Show Them The Way," which she views as a prayer to lift people up and unite them in these incredibly turbulent and fractured times.

The song actually dates back to 2008, when she had a dream that inspired the lyrics. Looking at how much it fits into our world today she now sees the song and the dream as a premonition.

I spoke with her about the song, the unintentional nod to John Lennon, the powerful video directed by Cameron Crowe and her concert film, 24 Karat Gold, screening in cinemas this week (October 21 and 25).  

Steve Baltin: I love the new single, 'Show Them The Way." And I love the symmetry of releasing it on John Lennon’s eightieth birthday. It came from a your dream and Lennon was one of the best at talking about dreams. So was it just a coincidence that it came out on John Lennon’s 80th birthday?

Stevie Nicks: It kind of was, but I have to tell you that John Lennon was the first shadow and the last verse. And the shadow says, “The dream is not over, the dream has just begun. And the last shadow in the last verse is my mom saying, "Don’t forget what me and your father were fighting for, sweetie. Don’t forget it."

Baltin: You have said the song comes from a dream you had in 2008.

Nicks: The reason that I wrote it, I was back in Chicago for about two months editing a film and when we’d get home at about 10 o’clock from the studio we’d turn on the TV. And they were playing all the documentaries from the late '50s, and all through the '60s, and into the '70s. For two months I watched documentaries because it was also at the same time Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama were going back and forth on who was going to be the candidate for the democratic primary. So it was a good way to walk away from what you were doing musically into another world. I had all these documentaries in my head. And towards the end of that two months, I just went to bed one night and had that dream. And the dream was so clear I sat up in bed and reached for my journal and just started writing it down in prose, not as a poem. Just like, "I was invited to be the entertainer for the party in the Hamptons . It was for some really famous political figures and why the hell did they ask me? I don’t play piano that well." I just said in the dream, “Well, sure I’d love to do that, right?” So when I woke up I just started writing it down as a story and I got the whole story written down. And then I stopped and walked away from it and went back to it the next night and made it into a poem because that’s what I do with my writing. I write it in prose and then if I think it’s poetry worthy then I go back and I write it into a poem. So the poem came very fast and then the next day I put it to music. And then it was done and I put it in cold storage because it wasn’t the time for a song like this to come out then. It just wasn’t. I knew a song like this wasn’t going to be a song that would always fit.

Baltin: So what made this the time to release it?

INTERVIEW Stevie Nicks on book plans, "Show Them The Way" and her style

Stevie Nicks on how she wrote 'Dreams,' her signature style, book plans and not being able to tour: 'This virus has stolen time from me'


By Lyndsey Parker


To describe Stevie Nicks as a woman of many words — fascinating words — is a massive understatement. Whether it’s in the cosmic lyrics to classic songs like Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams” (which is a bigger hit than ever, thanks to Nathan Apodaca’s TikTok skateboarding video); her eloquent, journal-like social media posts; her new fever-dreaming comeback single, “Show Them the Way”; or her utterly unfiltered interviews like the one below, Nicks is a brilliant thinker, a consummate storyteller and an absolute icon.

Leading up to the release of her film Stevie Nicks 24 Karat Gold The Concert — which will run for two nights only, on Oct. 21 and 25, at select cinemas, drive-ins and exhibition spaces around the world — Yahoo Entertainment spoke at length with the two-time Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee about the secret “magic room” where she conjured “Dreams” in 1975, how she came up with her signature look, her friendship with Harry Styles, her admiration for Ruth Bader Ginsburg, why she’s happy being single, her COVID-era fears about never being able to perform onstage again and her hopes of compiling all her wonderful words into a book one day.

Yahoo Entertainment: Lately, you’ve been writing some very beautiful, heartfelt things on social media, almost like essays. And one that really struck me was you were expressing your fears about being able to return to doing what you love, which is performing live. It must be bittersweet to be releasing a concert film in the middle of a time when there are pretty much no concerts happening at all.

Stevie Nicks: Well, first of all, last February I had a talk on the phone with my friend Harry Styles — I call him “H” — about when we could perform together again, because I had just sung with him at the Forum, and it was so much fun. And he said to me, in all of his 26-years-old-ness, “Stevie, I think it’s going to be a long time before we can walk onstage again. I don’t think that we will walk onstage again until the end of 2021, and maybe not until 2022.” And now I’m like, “Oh my God, this man is more psychic than I am!” Damn, if he wasn't right. So the thing is, is that, are we sad? Yes, we’re devastated. I turn the television on for 15 minutes and it’s showing every single state and the upticks in every single state, still going up. Like, what the hell? This is terrible. We were hoping that by this time we would be at least getting closer to being able to go back out and at least do outdoor festivals. But you know what? We’re not Donald Trump. We can’t put people in danger, and we never will put people in danger because of that. We're not going to take people into a big venue like the Forum and take the chance that they’re all going to come down with this virus in six weeks. So, honestly, I don’t know what the future holds.

Saturday, October 17, 2020

Eddy Quintela, second husband to Christine McVie has passed away

Eddy Quintela, second husband of Christine McVie and co-writer on a number of her songs from 1987 through 1997 has passed away.

Song writer, keyboardist and composer of Portuguese origin, Eddy Quintela was also the second husband of Christine McVie, a fundamental element in the formation of Fleetwood Mac. For the North American band, Quintela composed with McVie numerous songs between the years 1987 and 1997 Among them is the hit, "Little Lies" from the album Tango in the Night, published in 1987. The hit helped this LP to become the second best seller in the entire Fleetwood Mac career.

They divorced in 2003 but continued to collaborate on Christine McVie's solo album published the following year. One of Eddy Quintela's themes for the American band, "Nights in Estoril", alludes to the time spent by the couple in Portugal, where the musician established several connections, namely in the Cascais line, with Marita Leon (with whom he maintained a musical project in the 1990s) and Fernando Cunha dos Delfins. The song would be published on Fleetwood Mac's Time album, which came out in 1995. In an interview with the British newspaper Guardian, McVie would say however "he was not happy in love".

Eduardo Quintela de Mendonça, of his full name, will also have collaborated with Adelaide Ferreira, at the time of "Baby Suicida" and Portuguese rock. In a post on his Facebook page, Manuel Falcão, founder of BLITZ, says he met Eddy Quintela through a mutual friend, Pedro Baltazar. "He lived a large part of his life in the United States and Great Britain and returned to Portugal some twenty years ago. He was a creative man, he was engaged in a musical project that he loved, a rock opera about John Kennedy, which he left almost ready, now that's left".

- Blitz Expresso

Little Lies by Fleetwood Mac was certified Platinum in the UK

Fleetwood Mac's "Little Lies" has been certified Platinum in the UK on October 16, 2020 for sales exceeding 600,000 units.

Little Lies was the 3rd single released from Tango In The Night in 1987 and peaked at number 5 in the UK.



Stevie Nicks talks Harry Styles, Christine McVie and the Pandemic

Stevie Nicks talks Harry Styles, pandemic fears and her Fleetwood Mac pact

Bree Player, Stellar Magazine
The Daily Telegraph (Australia)

Rock’n’roll royalty Stevie Nicks talks to Stellar about her fear of the pandemic, her close friendship with Harry Styles and the pact she made with bandmate Christine McVie at the beginning of their run with Fleetwood Mac.

How are you going in Los Angeles?

I’m as good as you can be in these circumstances. I really have been locked down because I truly believe that should I contract this disease it would kill me, or it would at the very least knock me down so bad I wouldn’t have a career anymore.

And at 72 years old, I may have my freedom but I don’t have much time, as Mick Jagger would say. So, even if this takes another year-and-a-half I’m going to get through this without getting it because I want to go back to work. I want to go back on tour. I want to come back to Australia, for god’s sake!

Your natural space is the stage. How are you handling not performing live for such an extended period of time?

Well, this was meant to be a year off for me, but I was still performing six shows and we probably would have added six more. I do miss it – I don’t feel like myself.

I look at these next six or so years as my last youthful years, when I’m going to feel like putting on six-inch heels and dancing across a stage for the world. Because, really, at some point you have to go, “OK, you’ll be 80 – just exactly how long can you cartwheel across the world?” I don’t have that much time left to be a rock star.

Although you can’t perform now, you’re releasing your most recent solo tour 24 Karat Gold The Concert in cinemas next week, so you’re still managing to keep busy…

Yes, this film was so lovingly made and I’ve also just released a song called ‘Show Them The Way’. These are projects I’m so proud of and in this time of strife for all of us, I’m hoping that both the film and the song might be something that will make people feel better and give them some hope.

I made a video for this song that’s mostly photographs but I shot a small portion of it in my entryway. I put on my boots for a couple of hours and for those hours I felt like myself again. I feel like Cinderella putting on her glass slippers.

At five-foot-seven, I feel incredibly powerful, at five-foot-one in a pair of bedroom slippers or tennis shoes, I don’t feel so powerful.

FLEETWOOD MAC ALBUMS CHART UPDATES - US, UK AU & NZ

Fleetwood Mac makes some significant moves on the albums and singles chart in these selected countries.



 


AUSTRALIA

Fleetwood Mac's 'Dreams' enters the Top 10 in Australia for the first time jumping 10 spots this week to number 4 from number 14 last week.  'Rumours' climbs up the Top 100 albums chart to number 11 from number 17 last week.

NEW ZEALAND

'Dreams' remains in the Top 40 in New Zealand on the singles chart moving up 4 spots this week to number 6 from number 10.  'Rumours' jumps into the Top 10 at number 6 this week up from number 10 last week on the Top 40 Albums chart.

UK 

In it's 100th week on the UK Top 100 albums chart, Fleetwood Mac's "50 YEARS - DON'T STOP" climbs back into the UK Top 10 at number 10 this week up from number 17 last week. 

- 100 weeks in the top 75
-  95 weeks in the top 40
-  69 weeks in the top 20
-  14 weeks in the top 10

'Rumours' moves up to number 18 from number 22. 

Finally, Fleetwood Mac’s Dreams re-enters the Official Singles Chart Top 40 for the first time since 1977, climbing 18 places to Number 37. The feat follows a surge in streams and downloads following the viral TikTok video of user Doggface208 skating to the track while drinking cranberry juice. Mick Fleetwood and Stevie Nicks have each since responded with their own TikToks paying homage to the clip.

Dreams only peaked at Number 24 upon its original release in August 1977, however its success has endured over the years, racking up just shy of 100 million streams in the UK since streaming was introduced in 2014.

Dreams is Fleetwood Mac’s first UK Top 40 entry in seven years. In 2013, their 1988 hit Everywhere re-entered the Top 40 at Number 15 following its use in a TV advert.

IRELAND

In IRELAND Fleetwood Mac’s discography is being streamed strong, leading to a new peak for the band’s 2018 box set '50 Years – Don’t Stop'. Peaking at #5 previously, the collection advances to #4 this week. 'Rumours' returns to the Top 10, climbing to #6. 


USA / CANADA

Fleetwood Mac's 'Rumours' is the "greatest gainer" this week on the Billboard Top 200 albums chart dated October 17, 2020 as it explodes in sales and jumps up the Top 200 albums chart to number 13 from number 27 last week as a result of Nathan Apodaca’s viral TikTok video featuring 'Dreams'. The last time the album was this high on the charts was back in May, 2011 when the entire 'Rumours' album was featured in the Glee episode and it reached number 11.

The 1988 Greatest Hits release also sees a major boost on the chart, jumping up to number 61 this week from number 103 last week.

DREAMS ROCKETS UP THE BILLBOARD HOT 100

'Dreams' re-enters the Billboard Top 100 singles chart at number 21 this week based on sales, streams and radio play. The song took off following Nathan Apodaca’s viral TikTok video flying up the iTunes and Spotify song charts. The song is currently No.1 on iTunes in the US and has been for a number of days.  This is the first time the song has been on the Hot 100 since August, 1977!

Other Billboard Charts:

Friday, October 16, 2020

At 72, STEVIE NICKS is still looking for adventure

Stevie Nicks on art, ageing and attraction: ‘Botox makes it look like you’re in a satanic cult!’

Jenny Stevens - The Guardian

At 72, the singer is still looking for adventure. She talks about her years with Fleetwood Mac, the abortion that made them possible, and her friendship with Harry Styles

Stevie Nicks has been taking the pandemic even more seriously than most. She has barely left her home in Los Angeles this year. “My assistant, God bless her, she puts on her hazmat suit and goes to get food, otherwise we’d starve to death,” she says. She fell seriously ill in March 2019, ending up in intensive care with double pneumonia; after that shock, she fears contracting Covid-19 could end her singing career: “My mom was on a ventilator for three weeks when she had open-heart surgery and she was hoarse for the rest of her life.”

What would it mean to her to stop singing? “It would kill me,” she says. “It isn’t just singing; it’s that I would never perform again, that I would never dance across the stages of the world again.” She pauses and sighs. “I’m not, at 72 years old, willing to give up my career.”

It is nearly midnight in LA when we speak on the phone; not a problem for Nicks, who is “totally nocturnal”. The night she fell ill last year, she had just become the first woman to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice – an honour that reflects her wild success as one of the lead singers of Fleetwood Mac and as a solo artist, as a writer and singer of raw, magical songs about love and freedom, including Dreams, Rhiannon, Gold Dust Woman, Landslide and Edge of Seventeen. Nicks is unabashedly funny, dry as a bone, often sidling into sarcasm.

I ask about her approach to spirituality. She says that, for all her fears about her career, “some people are really afraid of dying, but I’m not. I’ve always believed in spiritual forces. I absolutely know that my mom is around all the time.” Just after her mother died, in 2012, Nicks was standing in her kitchen with “really bad acid reflux”. “And I felt something almost tap my shoulder and this voice go: ‘It’s that Gatorade you’re drinking,’” she says. “I’d been sick and chugging down the Hawaiian Punch. Now, that’s not some romantic, gothic story of your mother coming back to you. It’s your real mother, walking into your kitchen and saying” – she puts on a rasp – “‘Don’t drink any more of that shit.’” She pauses, waiting for me to laugh, then cackles.

Nicks was close to her mother, Barbara, who pushed to get her career back after she had children. “She said to me: you will never stand in a room full of men and feel like you can’t keep up with them. And you will never depend upon a man to support you. She drummed that into me, and I’m so glad she did.”

Women’s rights have been on Nicks’ mind since the death of her “hero”, the US supreme court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, last month. “Abortion rights, that was really my generation’s fight. If President Trump wins this election and puts the judge he wants in, she will absolutely outlaw it and push women back into back-alley abortions.”

Nicks terminated a pregnancy in 1979, when Fleetwood Mac were at their height and she was dating the Eagles singer Don Henley. What did it mean to be able to make that choice? “If I had not had that abortion, I’m pretty sure there would have been no Fleetwood Mac. There’s just no way that I could have had a child then, working as hard as we worked constantly. And there were a lot of drugs, I was doing a lot of drugs … I would have had to walk away.” She pauses. “And I knew that the music we were going to bring to the world was going to heal so many people’s hearts and make people so happy. And I thought: you know what? That’s really important. There’s not another band in the world that has two lead women singers, two lead women writers. That was my world’s mission.”

Stevie Nicks, she reflects on mortality

Stevie Nicks Salutes Lost Friends: ‘I Never Thought Prince And Tom Petty Wouldn’t Be Here In 2020’

By Steve Baltin Forbes


There are certain moments you dream (pun intended ) of as a journalist. Spending 90 minutes on the phone on a Friday night with twice-inducted Rock And Roll Hall Of Famer Stevie Nicks is definitely one of those.

Over the course of the wide-ranging conversation, which will run in three parts, due to the remarkable length, we touched upon a number of subjects, from her brilliant new single, "Show Them The Way" to her influences.

At one point we joked about the viral success of "Dreams." Thanks to the superb original TikTok video from Nathan Apodaca, the song was top five on streaming charts from that day, sandwiched between six or seven Van Halen songs following the death of guitar legend Eddie Van Halen a few days before our conversation.

Of course, Nicks knew Van Halen, who she said she had written a tribute to (as of this publishing it has not been shared). And that set off a conversation about other recent losses, including her friends like Tom Petty and Prince.

Here in part one with Stevie Nicks, she reflects on mortality.

Steve Baltin: "Dreams" is on the charts today sandwiched between several Van Halen songs, which should rightly be in the top 10.

Stevie Nicks: I wrote something about Eddie that I'm gonna put on my website cause I knew him quite a while ago. So when you know somebody fairly well for several years it doesn't have to be just the few years. He was always so nice to me and such a nice person. I really liked him besides the fact he was such an awesome guitar player. But that's really too bad, that's a big loss. One more person that I didn't want to lose.

Baltin: Is there music from friends who have passed you find it hard to listen to?

Nicks: It's mostly Tom's music and I love Tom's music. I listen to Tom Petty Radio [on Sirius XM] and it makes me feel like he's still alive because he spent a lot of time on that radio station to the point where the rest of the Heartbreakers were like, "So you missed your calling. You just really wanted to be a disc jockey." And he did so much work on it they've been able to totally keep the Tom Petty radio station alive and I'm so happy about that because to me I hear him and it's like I'm talking to him while he's talking to us. I forget that he's gone because of that station. And I'm so happy that he actually did piss everybody off and spent a lot of time putting that all together for all of us because it's so special. But I did want to tell you one thing my dad said to me once. He died in 2005. In the last couple of years of his life, at one point he said to me, "All my friends are dead." And I was struck dumb when he said that cause I actually knew a lot of his friends. But then of course there were a lot of his friends that I didn't know or didn't know anything about cause he was 22 years older than me so there were a lot of friends in my father's life that I never even knew. Same with all of us, we don't really know everything about our parents. And the fact is when he said that to me I thought, "That's the worst thing I ever heard." And just in a really quite, somber voice, "All of my friends are dead." I'm like, "I don't want to hear that, that makes me so sad for you." So when my dad died there was a part of me that went, "Farewell, my friend, farewell, my father. Now you're gonna be with all your friends who you obviously were missing so much. And I'm glad you made that final journey and you're up there with them now." When he said that I didn't even get it. And now I'm starting to really understand because just in the time of the loss of Prince, the loss of Tom Petty, the loss of Glenn Frey, the loss of Eddie Van Halen, it's like I knew all these people. And then you can kind of go to the generation that was 15, 20 years older than me and think, "They already went through this. Every generation it goes through." And the people that live to be really old, like hopefully me, there will be a time where a lot of people will be gone. And I certainly never expected for Prince and Tom Petty to be gone in 2020.

Baltin: I don't think anyone did. But I love what you said about the radio station. And it's funny because when you think back on his relationship with Jim Ladd and "The Last DJ," he did give a foreshadowing he wanted to be a DJ.

Nicks: Well, he never did tell me that and I never even knew he was working on that. But then when he died all the rest of the Heartbreakers told me all of their stories cause they'd be like, "Tom, let's record something." And he'd be like, "I'm going to the station." And he wanted to be there by himself so he could make up all those names. And I just laugh because he had such a goofy sense of humor, dry, but goofy. And it's all there. And I just go, "This is so great that he actually did this." It's too bad all of us aren't obsessed enough with radio we can't go out and actually do what he did because it really had made a difference I think for everybody who misses Tom Petty. You just turn on that station and listen to him, it's like he's back. If anything it proves we need to try to appreciate our friends more than we probably do because we're not gonna have them forever.

Baltin: Is there one Tom song you wish you had written or one that speaks to you the most?

Nicks: That would be a hard question for me because there are so many. I really love "Don't Come Around Here No More," which came basically from Dave Stewart to me. Dave Stewart wrote the track for that for me, for the timbre, timbre was the word he used, of my voice. And then we went into the studio with Jimmy Iovine, me and Dave and Jimmy. Then we started working on it and at some point Jimmy said, "We should call Tom." I said, "Yeah, he can come and help us." So Tom came down and by this time it was one o'clock in the morning and for whatever of my reasons, me who stays up all night every night, I was tired. So I went home to get some rest and said I'd try to be in the next afternoon earlier than usual. So when I came back the next night I walked in and Jimmy was like, "Okay, listen to this." Tom was there, Dave was there, they pushed play and it was the entire song, done, finished. And I was furious, I was so pissed off because I said, "It's done." And Tom says, "Oh, you can change any of it you want." "Thanks, yeah, I'm gonna change your, 'I don't feel you anymore, don't darken my door.' First of all, Tom, I bow to your greatness. And it's amazing. You did an amazing job for this f**king awesome song." Then I said to Dave, "I'm sorry, Dave Stewart that it's now not gonna be my song. It's gonna be Tom Petty's song, the world is gonna love it and you did a great job." And I said to Jimmy, "How could you let this happen?" And I fired him. I was so angry. And then Jimmy sent me a final mix of it and I thought, "This has just become my favorite Tom Petty song. So it really was a collaboration between him and Dave Stewart, who wrote the track. So the track was really as it is now. When Dave does a track for you it's like done. Same with Mike Campbell. They give you the finished track almost. Then it became my favorite song to do with Tom on stage. So as difficult as it was that I didn't get to write it because Dave did write, "Don't come around here no more," just that one sentence. He usually does that. Like "In Your Dreams," he wrote a song for me, just the track. But he did write "Everybody loves you, but you're so alone." So he gives you this little seed of an idea and then you take it from there. And when I listen to "Don't Come Around Here No More" I always think there's a little bit of my vocals because Sharon [Celani] and I did do some vocals that first night on that chorus. But there are so many. If I got a list of all of Tom's songs, there are a million songs he wrote I'd like to actually record and may sometime take four or five of his songs and record them. But I would trade all that just to have him come back.

Part 2 and 3 to follow.

Nothing will slow Stevie Nicks down.

Stevie Nicks: “In Fleetwood Mac, Christine McVie and I were a force of nature”

On the eve of her new concert film, the Fleetwood Mac singer talks new solo material, Trump's response to COVID-19 and the chances of a 'Rumours'-era reunion

By Greg Wetherall 15th October 2020 - NME

Nothing will slow Stevie Nicks down. When Fleetwood Mac concluded their year-long world tour at the end of 2019, the 72-year-old singer songwriter decamped to her Santa Monica home with the intention of taking the year off from touring. Like the rest of us, she didn’t expect to be holed-up for quite so long. “I’ve been quarantined solid since March,” Nicks tells NME. “I figured that I’d probably do about ten gigs and then I was just going to work on a miniseries for Rhiannon but then the door slams and we have a pandemic.”

Out of these dark days, Nicks has kept a busy schedule. ‘Show Them The Way’, worked upon remotely with the help of Dave Grohl, is her first single in six years. She has also helped produce 24 Karat Gold The Concert, a spellbinding concert film from the 2016/7 tour of the same name, which in cinemas for two nights later this month featuring staples such as ‘Edge of Seventeen’ and ‘Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around’ alongside unreleased gems and deep cuts.

Whilst a viral TikTok video may have drawn headlines and pushed her song ‘Dreams’ back into the charts recently, the two-time Rock and Roll Hall of Famer had other things on her mind when we caught up with her, including her issues with Trump, the lost ‘Buckingham Nicks’ album and why she is fatalistic if ‘Rumours’–era Fleetwood Mac are to never play together again.

Your first single for six years and the 24 Karat Gold The Concert film – this is turning into a very busy time for you…

“In a million years, I never thought I’d have two projects coming out within two weeks of each other. It’s been a lot of work over the last two months, let me tell you. I’m pretty excited and really proud of everything. I think the film is the closest anyone is going to get to a real, serious concert until the pandemic is over. And I think the song is ‘right now’ with what’s going on in our country. Our country is so divisive. We have gone back so far. It is very sad and very scary.”

You have been openly critical of the US administration’s response to COVID-19. You tweeted that ‘Nobody is leading us. Nobody has a plan.’ You called it ‘a tragedy’ and ‘a real American Horror Story’.  

“You know that our President and his wife contracted the virus? It’s like, ‘wear your mask’, you know? It’s a simple thing to ask. Just wear your mask. Especially if you’re the President of the United States. It’s pretty simple. We’ve been told again and again and again that it’s incredibly contagious. I don’t take any chances. Nobody in my world does. For me, as a singer, if I get it and I get that terrible cough that never goes away; if it attacks my lungs and I don’t have my lung power anymore it would kill me. It would destroy my career.”

Do you feel that Trump been irresponsible?

“I think if you don’t wear a mask you’re irresponsible. I’m very sorry that he got it – I’m not saying anything like that – but he never wears a mask. Nobody in his circle does. And now they’ve all got it. It really proves something to the people in the US who view it as some political thing. Well, guess what? It’s not political. It’s dangerous and it’s contagious. But he [Trump] had to get it to know that? He couldn’t listen to the science? He couldn’t listen to all the doctors who probably said in private, ‘you need to take care of yourself and wear your mask’?” 

Why do you think he hasn’t listened to the scientists?

“I think he just thinks he knows better. But what is he going to say now? This is like telling your children to be careful when they go out and then they don’t come home one night. All you can do is tell people and whether they listen or not is up to them. But that’s not my problem. I’m very sorry that they got it. But they knew better.”

You have a reputation for being forthcoming and open in interviews. I presume this is what you’re like in all aspects of your life?

“It’s the only way I can really be. I know that comes from my mum. I just am who I am. I know that sometimes my honesty is a lot for people and that it pushes some away, but if you can’t hear the truth then I can’t really hang out with you!”

In 24 Karat Gold The Concert, you detail difficulties you had making 1983’s ‘The Wild Heart’. You say you were ‘arrogant’ and ‘less of a team player’ than you were on your solo debut, ‘Bella Donna’. Why so?

“‘Bella Donna’ took three months to make. It was the first record in a solo career and I was not stupid enough to waste time and spend too much money. No self-indulgence. Then, after ‘Bella Donna’, I made ‘Mirage’ with Fleetwood Mac. That took a year and we went on tour for about another year. ‘Mirage’ was a big record and had a tonne of singles on it and so, when I came back, I was different. I could not consider myself a cleaning lady and a waitress anymore.”

How did this affect the recording of ‘The Wild Heart’?

“When I walked into the studio I was much more confident. I can call it arrogance or I can call it confidence. It was somewhere in between the two. I was much stronger in my ideas. For example, I wanted to produce. I just wanted to be more involved than I was during the first album. When I look back on that now, that was just me growing as an artist. I didn’t want it all done for me. ‘The Wild Heart’ was different. It needed to be different. Much like how, after ‘Rumours’, we [Fleetwood Mac] made ‘Tusk’ because we didn’t want to do ‘Rumours’ over. Even though the record company said we needed to, we just said, ‘We can’t do it.’”

Was your second album a personal turning point?

“‘Bella Donna’ kicked off my solo career but as I walked away from ‘The Wild Heart’ everybody knew that I had arrived as a solo artist. I was not going to just say, ‘That was fun’ and go back to Fleetwood Mac. I was going to be able to handle being in both bands. When Fleetwood Mac took vacations, I could go and make a solo album and tour. And then go back again. It worked out great for a Gemini: I had two worlds. Never a boring moment.”

Were you ever conflicted about offering songs to Fleetwood Mac rather than keeping them for yourself?

“No, I was never selfish with the songs. If I had ten songs that I had written, I would sit at the piano and play all ten for Fleetwood Mac. I would let them choose because if they chose the songs then they were going to be good. If I tried to shove songs down their throat, they weren’t going to be good. Who they go to is fine by me. It’s never been a problem. It kinda works itself out. The songs that are supposed to be on the record that you’re doing at the time jump out. And the ones that aren’t right for that particular time don’t.”

Thinking of the revelations springing from the #MeToo movement, did you ever experience any difficulties of that kind over the years?

“Honestly… in Fleetwood Mac, Christine [McVie] and I were a force of nature. In the first two months I was in the band, Chris and I made a pact that we would never be in a room full of famous English or American guitar players and be treated like second class citizens. If we weren’t respected, we would say, ‘this party’s over.’ We have stayed true to that our entire career.

In my own career, I didn’t have Christine but I had Lori Nicks and Sharon Celani. My [backing] singers and my best friends. We wanted to be Crosby, Stills and Nash! Sometime we would try not to make my voice louder than theirs, so that we could have that three-part [harmony] going on. I had my girls: the three of us. They were my sound. Together, we were also very much like, ‘don’t mess with us, because we’re really good, we’re talented and we’re really nice women. If you don’t treat us the way we feel that we should be treated we won’t work with you.’”

Was the need for a pact, or strength in numbers, necessary because you witnessed mistreatment, or worse, directly? 

“Sometimes I saw women treated in a way that I didn’t think was great. At 72 years old, I am totally behind MeToo. I support all those women, totally. I joined a famous band in 1975. I didn’t have to move to Los Angeles by myself and try to find a job in a band or try to find something to do with music all alone. I didn’t have to do what women who move to LA to be an actress have to do. I had a team behind me immediately. When I was with Lindsey [Buckingham], I had him. I was never out there alone having to talk to producers or men who were going to try and take advantage of me. I’m really lucky. It’s really unfortunate that most women in showbusiness do experience that, but I seem to have skated through it.”

The film features ‘Cryin’ in the Night’ from 1973’s ‘Buckingham Nicks’. This album has never been released in the CD era and beyond. Due to your fall-out are we further away than ever from a release?

“I don’t know. I think it should be released. It should just be polished up a little bit. I don’t think it should be remixed. I think it should just go out the way it was mixed when we released it. I hope it happens. Owning ‘Buckingham Nicks’ between me and Lindsey is like owning an old Mercedes. One person says, ‘let’s release it!’ and the other person goes, ‘I don’t wanna let it go.’ And then three years later it’s the other way around. That’s what’s been happening with ‘Buckingham Nicks’ since 1975!”

Have you heard back from Lindsey since you sent him a note following his heart attack last year?

“The heart attack was serious. All of us in Fleetwood Mac wrote to him and told him that he’d better get well. Being an ex-girlfriend, I wrote more than that. I said, ‘you’d better stay well and you’d take care of yourself’. The same old thing, right? But we haven’t had any communication. It’s OK. If it’s ever meant to happen, it will. If we’re meant to communicate ever again, we will. It’s not happening right now.”

Did he acknowledge the letter though?

“He’s acknowledged it, yeah. He wrote a kind of group letter to us all. None of us have had any communication with him since. You know, it lasted 43 years, so we had a really, really good run.”

Stevie Nicks 24 Karat Gold The Concert will be in cinemas on 21 Oct. Find your screening at stevienicksfilm.com. The 2CD & digital/streaming releases will be available on 30 Oct.