Stevie Nicks Reflects on Past Addiction Issues: 'I Survived Me'
Dia Dipasupil/FilmMagic Stevie Nicks
The rock 'n roll lifestyle can be a notoriously tricky one to navigate — and for Stevie Nicks, making it through the turbulent times remains a source of pride.
The legendary singer, 73, joined Tim McGraw on his Apple Music Country show Beyond the Influence Radio on Wednesday, and revealed that while she hasn't exactly solidified plans to share her life story with the world, there's a certain subject she'd like to avoid should she one day do so.
Nicks said that while she's considered publishing some sort of collection of stories, she'd like to omit the time she spent dabbling with drugs, as she doesn't feel as though it "defined" her life.
"I managed to save myself. I got through some pretty scary moments, but I saved me, nobody else saved me," she told McGraw. "I survived me. I survived my cocaine. I survived by myself."
"I checked myself into rehab. Nobody did that for me. I did it and that's like with my whole life," she continued. "So I would dance over those parts just to give the wisdom out to people."
Getty (2) Stevie Nicks, Tim McGraw
The Fleetwood Mac songstress said that the idea of publishing her life story is one that's taken her years to even entertain, and that if she did, it would have to be broken up into four different books.
"I think that what I would do first, and only lately have I thought this, I might sit down at some point across the kitchen table with some of my girlfriends who have been there for a lot of it and put on a tape recorder and just start talking from the very beginning," she said.
In her chat with McGraw — which the 54-year-old country star called "one of the highlights" of his career — Nicks did just that, discussing her childhood and her grandfather, an aspiring country singer who'd play her records and who taught her how to sing harmonies.
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She also touched on signing her first record contract with 20th Century Fox out of school before joining forces with Lindsey Buckingham, whom she dated on and off for years.
"I loved being in a band. Until 1981, I was not the least bit interested in having a solo career," she said. "Even when I decided I did want to do a solo record, I was not at all interested in leaving my band and not being in a band anymore. I just wrote way too many songs for Fleetwood Mac."
Nicks said she shopped the idea of a solo career "very quietly," and was careful to make it clear that she had no intentions of leaving Fleetwood Mac. Though she's released eight solo studio albums since 1981, Nicks has stayed true to her word, and still tours and records with the band.
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"Fleetwood Mac was my team," she told McGraw. "I had them and I felt safe. So I felt like, 'I'm not trying to break up this band, I'm just trying to actually keep this band together.' Because what's going to keep this band together is me being able to make the odd solo album here and there when you guys are doing other things."
McGraw, meanwhile, explained that he started his radio show in order to be able to discuss all of the different influences that artists like himself pull from — and said few were more influential to him than Nicks.
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"The way you sing has influenced the way I approach music in so many ways because you're such a stylist and you're such an interpretator of songs and music, and such a storyteller in the way you do it," he told the star.
He also revealed his three favorite female singers of all time: wife Faith Hill, Nicks and Tammy Wynette.
McGraw's chat with Nicks will be available for free on Wednesday at 8 p.m. EST only on Apple Music Country.
