Random Behind-The-Scenes Stories From Stevie Nicks's Unique Life (14 items)

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  (#11) She Almost Died In The '80s

  Once Stevie Nicks joined Fleetwood Mac in the '70s and the band released their self-titled debut, she was essentially given a ticket to ride forever. Even after the band took a break in 1982, Nicks continued on with her solo career... and continued with her heavy drug use. 

  After the death of her best friend and watching several relationships dissolve, she sunk even more into a drug haze that almost killed her. When the band reconvened to record Tango in the Night, Nicks was suffering from nosebleeds, falls, and blackouts. She finally visited a doctor who told her that she was dangerously close to suffering from a brain hemorrhage.

  Nicks says that he told her that the hemorrhage could occur “the next time you do cocaine. It won’t be pretty.” Of course, she didn't stop. Instead she worked with Fleetwood Mac for three weeks before leaving for an Australian tour, and, again, continued her heavy drug use. 
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  (#14) Prince Sent Her A Demo For 'Purple Rain' Which She Refused To Work On

  Nicks alleges Prince sent her a demo for "Purple Rain" after she proposed a collaboration between the two stars. When Nicks wrote her solo hit, "Stand Back," she made sure Prince was okay with its relationship to his "Little Red Corvette." Not only was he on board, but he showed up to Nicks's studio and recorded uncredited synth work on the track. Nicks was so pleased she asked if Prince would like to work with her again, and he responded by sending her a demo for what became "Purple Rain." 

  Though Nicks turned down the collaboration saying the song was "too much" for her, she has no regrets. She recalls telling him, "Prince, I've listened to this a hundred times but I wouldn't know where to start. It's a movie, it's epic." 

  Prince and Nicks maintained their friendship and she remembers riding alongside him in his purple camaro going 100 MPH on the freeway after a Fleetwood Mac show. Nicks assured fans that losing Prince in 2016 broke her heart. 
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  (#12) Lindsey Buckingham Physically Assaulted Stevie Nicks When He Quit The Band

  From the moment that Buckingham and Nicks joined Fleetwood Mac in the mid-'70s, their relationship has been fraught with tension. They broke up after their first big tour, wrote an album about that break up, and then spent the next half-decade touring in support of those songs.

  While much of their tension comes from being in a long-term relationship marred with drug abuse and everything that comes with the rock and roll life, it’s likely that the two also resented each other for having to work together in order to get the sound they needed. In 1987, after recording Tango in the Night, Buckingham announced that he was leaving Fleetwood Mac.

  According to Stevie Nicks: Visions, Dreams and Rumours, the band, including Buckingham, met at Christine McVie’s house, and after a screaming match between Nicks and Buckingham,  a “physically ugly” fight broke out.

  The book alleges that Lindsey Buckingham slapped Stevie Nicks across the face before pushing her against the hood of his car. Lindsay Buckingham has said that he “doesn't remember” what happened that afternoon.
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  (#3) Stevie Described The Pre-Show Bumps

  One of the most telling anecdotes from Stevie Nicks’s biography comes from her first tour with the band in 1975. A passage in the book notes that, around this time, Nicks began her infamous drug usage, mostly because everyone in the band did a bump together before going onstage.

  The band’s tour manager, John Courage, would line up the band and pour a bump onto each of their wrists, which they would inhale before walking onstage.
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  (#8) Her Affair With Mick Fleetwood Is All Because Of Cocaine

  Even though Nicks describes Mick Fleetwood (Fleetwood Mac’s drummer) as one of the great loves of her lives, she admits that they never would have gotten together had they not being doing so many drugs. She spilled the beans on her addiction-fueled affair with Fleetwood to Oprah, saying that they were the “last two people at a party,” and that, “It was a doomed thing [that] caused pain for everybody.”

  To underscore how bad her addiction was at the time – as if being in a relationship with someone solely because you both do insane amounts of drugs isn’t enough – Nicks says that when she sees pictures of herself from that era, she only sees someone who is “unattractive and high.”
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  (#2) During The Recording Of “Fleetwood Mac” Stevie Rarely Stopped Dancing

  In 1975, Fleetwood Mac gathered in Los Angeles’s Sound City studios to record their first album with Buckingham and Nicks. Being the witchy flower child that she was, while the rest of the band recorded their parts and the engineers mixed the tracks, Nicks was continually dancing.

  In the book Stevie Nicks: Visions, Dreams and Rumours, one of the album’s engineers, Ken Calliat, remembers that, while he mixed "Rhiannon," Nicks “whirled” around the studio.

  “She believed she had magical powers. She probably thought she was chanting up a good mix.”

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