Stevie Nicks Said Her Pre-Fleetwood Mac Bandmates ‘Hated’ the Attention She Got
Stevie Nicks has a powerful and captivating onstage presence that draws many fans to her. She perfected her look and dance moves while in Fleetwood Mac, but she received a good deal of attention in her earlier ventures. Her bandmates didn’t always appreciate this. She explained that they were jealous of all the attention she received as the singer.
Stevie Nicks met Lindsey Buckingham in high school
When Nicks was in high school, she met her future boyfriend and musical collaborator, Lindsey Buckingham, at a church event. He was singing “California Dreamin’” by The Mamas & the Papas, and Nicks walked over to join him.
“Well, I just happened to know every word and could sing the harmony, and I thought he was absolutely stunning,” she explained in the book Gold Dust Woman: The Biography of Stevie Nicks by Stephen Davis. “So I kind of casually maneuvered my way over to the piano.”
The two sang another song together afterward, which hinted to Nicks that she had impressed Buckingham. Still, she didn’t think much of the moment.
“It wasn’t any kind of big deal,” she said. “He was singing ‘California Dreamin’,’ and I joined in. It was just a one-off, three-minute moment.”
The moment had a profound impact on Buckingham, however. Several years later, he would reach out to Nicks and ask her to join his band, Fritz.
Her bandmates didn’t appreciate all the attention she got
Buckingham formed Fritz in 1966 with two high school friends, Bob Aguirre and Javier Pacheco. When their first female vocalist, Jody Moreing, left for another band, Buckingham asked Nicks if she wanted to join. At this point, she was an aspiring singer in need of a band and was happy to be a part of Fritz.
“They were good,” she said. “They were really playing, so it was almost as bad as joining a big rock-and-roll band, because they were serious. I was the only girl and I was always late for everything, but now it was ‘You be there!’ But I was one on-time person, mostly. I had no social life at all, but I would get paid, at least.”
Though she was a late addition, she quickly became one of the band’s most popular members. Audiences demanded that she sang songs more than once, and they applauded the intensity of her dances. She believes that this irritated her bandmates.
“Nobody in that band wanted me as their girlfriend because I was too ambitious for them,” she said. “But they didn’t want anyone else to have me either. If anyone else in the band started spending any time with me, the other three would literally pick that person apart — to the death. They all thought I was in it for the attention. These guys didn’t take me seriously at all. I was just a girl singer, and they hated the fact that I got a lot of the credit.”
Soon, though, she was the band’s most recognizable member.
“We were being booked like crazy,” she told Rolling Stone. “But they’d all say, ‘We want to book the band with the blondy brown-haired girl.’”
Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham got together after leaving Fritz
Despite Fritz’s growing success, a record producer told Nicks and Buckingham that they would do better as a duo. They left the band and moved to Los Angeles to pursue music together. This move sparked a romance between them.
“It was like, ‘Well, we’ve done it now,’” she explained. “‘We’ve completely screwed up their lives forever now. So why not?’ So we became a couple.”
Though their only album didn’t perform well, they would eventually find global success when they joined Fleetwood Mac together.
