Speaking exclusively in the new issue of MOJO, Stevie Nicks has revealed she’s working on new music and plans to go into the studio later this summer.
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READ MORE: Stevie Nicks: "Without Christine there is no chance of putting Fleetwood Mac back together."
The Fleetwood Mac singer released an emotional plea ahead of 2020’s US Presidential election called Show Them The Way (co-written with producer Greg Kurstin, and featuring the Foo Fighters Dave Grohl) and a cover Buffalo Springfield’s For What It’s Worth in 2022.
However, it’s been over a decade since she last put out a solo album, 2011’s In Your Dreams, yet that looks like it may change soon.
“At the end of pandemic, I finally started to write again,” Nicks tells MOJO’s Bob Mehr. “I’ve got this song about women’s rights that I think is really strong. And I wrote a song called The Vampire’s Wife, which is one of the best things I’ve ever written. It’s a story song, like Gypsy’s a story song, and Rhiannon’s a story song. So maybe that’s the beginning of an album.”
Nicks plans to go into the studio to record her new material later this summer, following her forthcoming run of European dates, including her headlining show at Hyde Park in July.
Nick’s previous appearance at the venue came in 2017, on a bill with Tom Petty, as the two performed together just months before his passing. “That’s the last time I saw Tom,” she says. “That was a really good way to be able to say goodbye to him.”
A big part of Nicks’ sets these days are tributes to fallen friends including Petty and Christine McVie.
“I do [Landslide] and we have beautiful video montage of me and Chris,” says Nicks. “I can never look at it, though, when I’m singing, because I’ll just get hysterical and sob. The world is a little bit of an empty place without her.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Nicks states that McVie’s passing in 2022 has effectively ruled out any Fleetwood Mac reunion and that the band are now no more.
“Without Christine, no can do,” she says. “There is no chance of putting Fleetwood Mac back together in any way. Without her, it just couldn’t work.”
While Fleetwood Mac operated successfully between 1998 and 2014 largely without McVie, her absence heaped more onus on Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham to front the band in tandem. But, as she explains, a détente between her and Buckingham wouldn’t necessarily clear the way to a final tour.
“Even if I thought I could work with Lindsey again, he’s had some health problems,” says Nicks, referring to Buckingham’s emergency open heart surgery in 2019. “It’s not for me to say, but I’m not sure if Lindsey could do the kind of touring that Fleetwood Mac does, where you go out for a year and half. It’s so demanding.”
Following the guitarist’s exit from the band in 2018, his place in Fleetwood Mac’s last tour was taken by The Heartbreakers’ Mike Campbell and Crowded House’s Neil Finn.
Speaking to MOJO in April, Neil Finn described his shock at being invited to take Buckingham’s place in the band.
“I was gobsmacked. I was 60 and I’d had a wonderfully diverse musical life when Mick [Fleetwood] called and said, ‘We’ve got rid of Lindsey, would you play with us?’” he told MOJO’s John Aizlewood.
Finn’s tenure with the band ended before Christine McVie’s passing and he’s since returned to Crowded House, who released their eighth studio album Gravity Stairs last month. However, Finn appears to back up Nicks’ assertion that – for the time being at least – Fleetwood Mac are not a going concern.
“[Fleetwood Mac] doesn’t currently exist, but when I was there Mick carried the flag. He always has and he’s the heart and soul,” said Finn.
“Yet Stevie’s the leader in many ways, because Stevie wants it the way Stevie wants it and that’s the way it’ll be. She couldn’t bear to be in a band with Lindsey anymore, but she still wanted to do it exactly the way he would have. It was more difficult for Mike Campbell: she was really happy with the way it sounded between me and her, but she put a lot of pressure on Mike to be more like Lindsey. Sometimes Mike’s solos would go on and Stevie would get exhausted playing tambourine. She’d be, “Fucking hell, Lindsey only did 12 bars!”
“Rumours was a lot to experience – and all happened very fast. In a way, it still seems sort of unreal…” Stevie Nicks relives her rollercoaster ride in rock ‘n’ roll, from her first musical excursions, the wild success of Fleetwood Mac, solo stardom, fallen friends, Barbie and more. Read the full interview only in the latest issue of MOJO. More info and to order a copy HERE!
