"Stevie Nicks is coming to the Hamptons. But not to sing. Well, not exactly." - Interview

Stevie Nicks Rocks Hamptons International Film Festival
OCTOBER 5, 2012 By Dan Koontz
Dan's Hamptons

Stevie Nicks is coming to the Hamptons. But not to sing. Well, not exactly. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee and Grammy winner is coming to take part in the Hamptons International Film Festival, which will be screening In Your Dreams, an intimate documentary about the making of her latest album. She’s also looking forward to a little R&R.

“Last night I just did my last 2 hour and 10 minute performance. We’ve been out on the road since June, and I really need a break from that.” Speaking from her hotel room in Florida, the rock icon who sang in Fleetwood Mac starting in 1975 and wrote many of their hits before launching her fabulous solo career sounds thoroughly pleased to be on her way to spend a few days in our neck of the woods.

“I’ve been to the Hamptons three times before, to do benefit performances, but this will be the first time I’ll have a chance to really look around.  I’m a real water person, so I’m looking forward to getting down to see the ocean.  And so many people have told me that I’ve got to see Sag Harbor!”

Nicks is also tremendously excited about what she calls “this little film” that is showing during HIFF, one that documents the nearly yearlong process of writing and recording the CD In Your Dreams in her Malibu home. It was a process that Nicks likens to a “happening,” with at least ten people in and out every day. “It was the best year of my life,” she says, which is saying a lot for a rock queen who has surely had many a great year, even if they were sometimes legendarily tumultuous.

Nicks’s Hamptons fans will no doubt want to learn more about her thoughts on these and other issues, and we’ll get our chance at noon on Sunday, October 7th at Bay Street Theatre, where she will be interviewed live before an audience before the screening of In Your Dreams at the Sag Harbor Cinema that same Sunday at 3 p.m. After that, maybe it’s off to the beach.

The idea to film the In Your Dreams sessions originated with producer Dave Stewart (best known as Annie Lennox’s partner in Eurythmics), who is in the habit of filming everything. Initially, Nicks was skeptical.

“I don’t care who you are, every woman has a problem with being photographed,” she observes. “But David said”—and here she imitates Stewart’s British accent—“Stevie, I’ve been filming women all my life. I know how to do it.”

In the end what truly convinced Nicks to allow cameras was revisiting the short film that captured the recording sessions where George Harrison, Tom Petty, Roy Orbison and Bob Dylan got together as the Traveling Wilburys—an event made more poignant by the early passing of both Orbison and Harrison not so long after. “It will never happen again, not this way,” Nicks points out. A singular creative process cannot be repeated. Why not film a record of the day-to-day work and play that goes on in making an album?

Nicks is also practical. Given what she calls the “dire straits” of the music business (i.e. nobody buys records anymore), she hopes that people will be inspired by the sounds they hear in the film to seek out the CD. She is indeed quite disturbed by the now ubiquitous practice of musical file-sharing, and of all the other technologies that have put musicians out of work. As a result of her deeply held convictions in this regard, she herself refuses to own a computer or any other device that she blames for the music business’s current plight.

Nicks’s Hamptons fans will no doubt want to learn more about her thoughts on these and other issues, and we’ll get our chance at noon on Sunday, October 7th at Bay Street Theatre, where she will be interviewed live before an audience before the screening of In Your Dreams at the Sag Harbor Cinema that same Sunday at 3 p.m. After that, maybe it’s off to the beach.

In Your Dreams: A Conversation With Stevie Nicks

Chatting With Stevie Nicks
by Mike Ragogna
Huffington Post
October 4, 2012

Mike Ragogna: Stevie, how are you?

Stevie Nicks: Good, how are you?

MR: Pretty good, thanks. Stevie, you have a new documentary that's going to be premiering on October 7th at Hamptons International Film Festival. The name of you new documentary with Dave Stewart is In Your Dreams, that title also having been the name of the last album. Obviously  this was an important album for you.

SN: This was an important album. This was an album that I probably was never going to make, because after I did Trouble in Shangri-La that came out in 2001, I went out on the road with Fleetwood Mac for a couple of years and then in 2005, I was going to make a record. I came off the road with Fleetwood Mac and that's kind of what I've always done. I do my whole thing with Fleetwood Mac, and it was like a year and a half for Say You Will, and then I was going to make a record. I really got very depressed feedback from everyone in the business around me, which was like, "You know what, the business is so screwed up that really, right now, you just shouldn't bother." It wasn't just my manager, it was everybody. It was like I'd tripped and fallen down the stairs. It was a really bad moment in my life, and I said, "Okay." That's really not like me, but with the whole internet piracy and everything, I don't have a computer, I didn't have one then, but I knew that was coming ten years ago. I knew that that was going to start to destroy the music business, and I was like, "Oh, my God, it's happening, it's even happening to me."

MR: Let's get further into In Your Dreams. On camera, you appear fluid, informed, and very comfortable. You're very at ease here.

SN: Yes. You know what, I have been a little performer since I was four years old, and you're going to see that in this film. I was just nuts for the stage. I came into the world dancing and singing, and my mom and dad, I think, knew from the very beginning. My grandfather was a country-western singer and a fiddle player and guitarist, and he wrote songs and traveled all over the United States and played gigs in the forties. My parents were very supportive of my love of music and my focus was very strong from when I was in grade school. They knew I didn't want to be an actress, I didn't want to take drama, I didn't really want to take musical drama. I just wanted to listen to rockabilly and rock 'n' roll and R&B, and I just was in my own little musical world. I had it planned out. In sixth grade, I was wearing a black outfit with a top hat. I had it all planned out.

MR: Stevie, any more reflections on the documentary?

SN: I tell people that Dave created a magical sandbox for me and my singers to play in and that he became The Mad Hatter and this walk through ten months in my house is like going into Alice In Wonderland's world. You really get to experience making this record. Anybody who loves music, wants to be in music, is a singer, is a writer, used to be a singer or a writer, is ninety years old and wishes they were still young enough to be a singer and a writer, it's like you come into my world and it's very, very special. I'm so proud of this that my real prayer for this film is that when people see this--because they get to see a little bit and hear a little bit of the finished product of each song, not a lot--but what I'm hoping is that in this world of "We don't need to buy a whole concept record," that they see this film and they go, "I really need to hear this record!"

MR: Nice. And again, it's debuting at the Hamptons International Film Festival on October 7th.

SN: Right. Dave and I are going to be there and it's going to be so fun.


MR: I also want to congratulate you on your song "Soldier's Angel." It's still very touching and I love that you are still with the Band Of Soldiers charity. You've contributed to our soldiers' lives as well as the culture in beautiful ways.

SN: Well, thank you. I think that "Soldier's Angel" is probably the song off of this record that will live on forever because it does sort of capture a moment in time through Iraq and Afghanistan and everything that's going on now. These wars aren't over and these kids are coming back and they're so wounded and they're never going to be the same and people should try to remember that and try to take care of these guys because once they leave the hospitals, they're on their own. When you actually sit on the bed of one of these injured soldiers, you're like, "Oh my God, what can I do to help?" and I tell everybody every night, you need to send in five bucks a month. Do whatever you can.

MR: All right, Stevie, I really appreciate your time. Thank you so much.

SN: You too, and hopefully I'll see you soon.

MR: Yes, I'll see you soon.

New Interview: Stevie Nicks Lives Her 'Dreams'

Stevie Nicks Lives Her 'Dreams'
By Dawn Watson
27east.com - October 2, 2012

Ms. Nicks said that working with Mr. Stewart was the experience of a lifetime, and one that she hopes to soon repeat.

Sitting on her bed, in a cottage on a beach somewhere in Florida, Stevie Nicks counts her blessings.

“We just finished our last big concert and I’m surrounded by people I love—my two back-up singers Sharon Celani and Lori Nicks, she’s my sister-in-law, and my assistant, Karen—and my little doggie Sulamith Wülfing,” she said. “She’s in the movie too,” Ms. Nicks said of her 14-year-old Chinese Crested Yorkie.

The movie is the documentary “In Your Dreams,” which was co-directed by Ms. Nicks and Dave Stewart of the Eurythmics and focuses on the making of the album of the same name. The 14-track album was released in May 2011. The 101-minute documentary feature will make its world premiere at the 20th annual Hamptons International Film Festival on Sunday, October 7, at 3 p.m. at the Sag Harbor Cinema.

According to Ms. Nicks, she and Mr. Stewart, with whom she collaborated for the album as well (“Dave and I wrote songs together. I’d never written songs with anyone in my life, not even Lindsey,” she said, referring to former lover and bandmate Lindsey Buckingham), will both be at a talk preceding the screening, to be held at noon on Sunday at Bay Street Theatre in Sag Harbor.

“We barely finished the film 10 days ago,” the former Fleetwood Mac member and singer of such hits as “Landslide,” “Gold Dust Woman,” “Edge of Seventeen,” and “Leather and Lace,” said on Friday afternoon. “I’ve never made a movie. When you put something out there this personal, you get a little scared. You want people to love it. I’m not spoiled so I don’t expect everyone will love everything that I do but I hope everyone likes it.”


Filming, which took place in 2010 at her home in the Pacific Palisades in Los Angeles, was a “super-magical time,” Ms. Nicks said. It was the happiest year of her life, she added.

“It was from the very, very beginning of the album, to the very end. We followed each song through the journey,” she said. “We were all running around with Flip cameras, recording each other, even when we were shooting our videos in my backyard. When it was finished, I sat on the stairs and thought ‘this will never happen again.’”

Ms. Nicks said that working with Mr. Stewart was the experience of a lifetime, and one that she hopes to soon repeat.

“He makes you feel like Alice in Wonderland and he’s the Mad Hatter,” she said. “And that’s a wonderful way to feel.”

“Every day Dave arrived at 2 o’clock with his posse, and then I have my entourage, and we’d work and film until around 7:30 or 8 and have dinner for 12. It reminded me of the stories of the artists in Paris in the ’20s,” she recalled. “Then we’d go back to work for another two and a half hours. That’s what we did every night. And every holiday, from Easter to Halloween, we’d dress up and film that too,” she continued. “Dave Stewart created this amazing magical sandbox for me, for my friends, for his friends.”

A big motivation for making the film came from watching the documentary “The True History of the Traveling Wilburys,” which filmed George Harrison, Jeff Lynne, Roy Orbison, Tom Petty, Bob Dylan and Jim Keltner during a week at Mr. Stewart’s home, Ms. Nicks said. The film shows the band members writing and recording a song a day to produce an album.

“I loved it so much that they filmed that part, it’s a legacy that they left behind. That was my epiphany,” she said. “I told Dave, I want to do that. I want to do what Tom did for the little music men and women. I want to give them that help ... To show them, this is why you want to be a rock star.”

The World Cinema documentary “In Your Dreams,” starring Stevie Nicks, Dave Stewart, Glen Ballard, Waddy Wachtel, Sharon Celani and Lori Nicks will screen at the Sag Harbor Cinema on Sunday, October 7, at 3 p.m. Preceding the film, Ms. Nicks will give a talk at Bay Street Theatre in Sag Harbor that day at noon. For more information, visit hamptonsfilmfest.org.

Interview: Stevie Nicks In Your Dreams Documentary Should Arrive by End of Year

Stevie Nicks to "Make Memories" as She Hits the Road This Summer

Stevie Nicks has a dream...and it involves encouraging fans to check out her album In Your Dreams.  The disc came out last year and made the top 10, but she feels so strongly about the project that she wants to continue to spread the word.  That's why, starting tonight, she's hitting the road this summer, not once, but twice.

Stevie will kick off her solo tour in Long Island, New York Friday night, and wrap up those shows on July 15.  Then, July 20, she's heading back out again, this time on a double bill with Rod Stewart.  The two first teamed up last year for their Heart & Soul Tour, and it was such a success that they're doing it again.

So how will those two tours be different?  Stevie explains, "Well, Rod gives me an hour and fifteen minutes and my own set is a little over two hours.  So, it's you know, it's great either way.  I mean, I get to do a longer set by myself, but I don't get Rod."

Stevie tells New York Newsday that in addition to her hits, her solo shows will include as many as half-a-dozen songs from In Your Dreams.  "No one puts six new songs in their set," she says. "I feel like it's really a gift that my audience has given me to allow me to do the new songs and not start complaining...I feel really thankful for that."

The Rock and Roll Hall of Famer tells Newsday that each night on stage, she'll tells her audience, "This is not a Stevie Nicks' greatest hits tour.  This is a tour promoting a record called In Your Dreams.  I'm giving it a second chance because I believe in it that much, and I hope that you like [it].  And if you like [it]...do me a favor and tell a friend."

But aside from promoting the new album, Stevie says her other impetus for touring this summer is to give herself material for a future project.  "At my age, you start to really go, 'I'm going for the experience,'" she explains.  "As my mom always used to say, 'We're just making memories.'"  

Stevie says that she writes her tour experiences "in my journal every night," adding, "These are memories that I'm making right now...that someday will go into a big art thing: book, poems, you know, the whole thing."  No word on when that project will materialize, but Stevie has completed a documentary about the making of In My Dreams which we should see by the end of the year.

ABC News Radio

Friday, June 29, 2012 Andrea Dresdale