DREAMING ON
Stevie Nicks talks about resurgence of Fleetwood Mac hit, new concert film
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. On Sunday night, Nicks’ film, “24 Karat Gold: The Movie,” premiered 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 welloiled 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.
You were inducted into the Rock and Roll of Fame as a solo artist last year. I was thinking about how people who are being inducted this year are missing out on the live induction experience. I was talking with Trent Reznor and kind of joking with him, like, “Oh, you must be happy, you don’t have to show up.” But he made it very clear he wasn’t happy — that he’d looked forward to it and had wanted to get some of his old cohorts together for it. So you must be really happy that your induction was last year, not in the middle of this no man’s land.
So happy. Do you know what I would have done if I ran the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame? I would have just said, “We’re going to take a pass this year. Hopefully, it’s just a year. So we’re going to do it next year, and hopefully everything will be back to normal enough where we can do it the way it’s sup
posed to be done.” Because going into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame without being able to do it at either Staples or at Madison Square Garden or somewhere like that… I mean, it’s the biggest deal in the world. The only people that think it isn’t a big deal are the people who don’t get in. The second that your name goes up, you’re like, “Oh my God, it’s a really big deal.” And so I’m very sorry that it’s going to be done in some sort of a weird (virtual) reality way, because it’s like not going to the ball.
You’ve pointed out that you’re the only woman who’s ever been inducted twice, even though it’s happened for a lot of guys.
Twenty-two. Twenty-two men to zero women… until me.
So you did count. The fact that it hadn’t happened that way for women was a matter of pride, aside from just your individual pride, at getting in a second time?
It was fantastic. It really was a memorable night for me, and I got to play four songs, and Harry (Styles) introduced me, which was great. I gave the longest speech probably ever given, and nobody threw anything at me or yelled at me, so I just said, “Well, I’m just going to (keep doing) my speech.” And I
talked way too long. But I was just so happy that, first of all, I got to open the show, and then do the “Here’s your statue” thing, which was great, because I got to actually show people how good we still played. It was much cooler to then get your award — you are now in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for the second time. I’ll never forget it. It was an incredibly memorable night.
You’ve been very strongly pro-mask on your social media, pointing out that you are in a high-risk group, and holding out your own future touring as a sort of incentive to fans to take the precautions of masks and social isolation. You’ve said, “I have put a magical shield around me, because I am not going to give up the last eight years — what I call my last youthful years — of doing this… I want to be able to pull up those black velvet platform boots and put on my black chiffon outfit and twirl onto a stage again.” You played the boots card, which is a powerful one.
Exactly. Well, that really is true for me. Because that’s the last thing that I change out of: I change from my tennies — my Gucci tennies — into my high heels. And as my foot goes into
that boot, I feel like Cinderella. Since that boot was made for my foot, it’s an amazing boot. Then I stand up and all of a sudden, instead of being fivefoot-one, I’m five-foot-seven. And I see the world differently. I’m tall, all of a sudden. And it’s very different than being fivefoot-one. So that’s when I really become who I actually am out there. And it’s really fun and I miss it, you know?
Was there anything challenging about editing the stories, since it was such a “storytellers” kind of a tour you’d filmed?
You heard how I just said “like.” Well, we took out a million “likes” — as many “likes” as we could possibly take out. [Laughs.] I was really happy about that, because that’s kind of that Valley girl thing that I get. When I start talking fast and telling stories, I start saying “like” way too much. It took us four weeks to do that, because when you take a word out of a sentence, it [leaves an odd sound], so you have to be really adept at pulling that together, that little bit of a sound thing. So that took us four weeks.
But in the music itself, there were no mistakes. I did read in one line because I forgot to go up to the higher part, and I said, “Well, I need to do that line over, because I stayed down, and I need to go up.” So I went to the microphone and re-sang one line. That’s the only thing that was changed in the music part.
You probably didn’t imagine until fairly recently that a significant percentage of the showings of this film would be in drive-ins. So that’s a new wrinkle.
I never in a million years did. And you know, I just remember from being a little girl how much I used to love drive-ins. I just used to think they were the best thing ever. And I actually saw “Woodstock,” the movie, in my Corvair Monza Spyder five-speed convertible. I went to see that movie in that little car with the top down, right? And when that movie ended, I was like, “Well, this is going to be my life.” When I drove out of there, I was totally crying. I was just like, “That’s it. I’m never going to walk in through the front of an outdoor concert. I am always going to fly in a helicopter.” [Laughs.] And I mean, I made that statement, and it was like written in gold, you know? Anyway, so when I thought of drive-ins, I thought, well, that would certainly be fun for people, I think.
You do “Starshine,” a song you co-wrote with Tom Petty, as well as “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around.” When you filmed the movie, he was still alive, right? It must make you glad you were able to pay as much tribute to him in the film as you did, without knowing we were about to lose him.
Absolutely. You know, the first time I was watching it here in my house, sitting in a director’s chair in front of my big screen TV, all of a sudden it just hit me and I went, “Tom was still alive when we did this show.” And that made me have to sit there for a minute and have a moment of silence. Because the way I’m talking about him…. Whenever you talk about somebody that’s passed away, it’s like when I talk about Prince; I talk about Prince as if he’s not gone. [Nicks tells the story in the film of meeting Prince after telling him she’d modeled her song “Stand Back” on the music of “Little Red Corvette.”] I just take that attitude and try not to get into a big, sad thing about it. I just talk about him as if he was at his house in Paisley Park and we’re still talking and having fun, because I don’t want to bring the audience down, and I want them to enjoy it. I want them to enjoy the stories of Tom and of Prince. I try to be buoyant about it.
You just released your first single in quite a while, “Show Them the Way,” which is based on a dream you had that had JFK and Martin Luther King Jr. and some other historical figures in it. You had the dream during the 2008 election cycle and wrote the lyrics then but held onto them until now, right?
I did hold it back since 2008, and I just knew that right now with the presidential election and everything else that’s going on, that this was (the time). There’s two versions — an acoustic piano version with me and Greg Kurstin, my amazing producer, and then a rock ‘n’ roll version of it too, with Dave Grohl playing drums and Dave Stewart (of Eurythmics) playing lead guitar from the middle out. … I think it’s just a spectacular song. And I hope that it is a prayer for people. It’s nonpartisan — it’s not for Republicans, it’s not for Democrats, it’s for the world, to maybe to be a moment of peace for everyone. And a moment of… you know, the silly thing where people say “Can’t everybody just get along?” It’s like, can we just figure a way out of this horrific thing that we have walked into?