Music

Stevie Nicks Says She Has a “Shawl Vault” in Amazing New Interview

GettyImages-910831800

On March 29, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame will induct its 2019 class of artists, which includes Radiohead, Janet Jackson, The Cure, and more. Making history among these acts is Stevie Nicks, who is set to be the first woman inducted twice: first in 1998 with Fleetwood Mac and now this year for her solo work. To celebrate the occasion, the 70-year-old icon sat down with Rolling Stone to talk about her legendary career and the resulting interview is even better than you could imagine.

Writer Rob Sheffield covers a lot of ground in the conservation, getting illuminating answers from the endlessly quotable Nicks on shawls, specifically her “shawl vault,” not owning a computer, balancing a solo career with a rock band, accidentally stealing a song from Tom Petty, and how she considers Harry Styles the son she never had. Any interview that starts with the revelation that Stevie Nicks writes her own Game of Thrones poetry is well worth your time. Read on for some of the best insights from their chat and be sure to check out the whole thing here.

Videos by VICE

Stevie Nicks on her shawls:
“I have my shawl vault—they’re all in temperature-controlled storage. I have these huge red cases Fleetwood Mac bought, all the way back in 1975—my clothes are saved in these cases. All my vintage stuff is protected for all my little goddaughters and nieces. I’m trying to give my shawls away—but there’s thousands of them. If I ever write my life story, maybe that should be the name of my book: There’s Enough Shawls to Go Around.”

On Harry Styles:
“He’s Mick [Fleetwood]’s and my love child. When Harry came into our lives, I said, “Oh my God, this is the son I never had.” So I adopted him. I love Harry, and I’m so happy Harry made a rock & roll record—he could have made a pop record and that would have been the easy way for him. But I guess he decided he wanted to be born in 1948, too—he made a record that was more like 1975.”

On technology:
I like my flip phone. But I don’t like what the Internet has done to people and I don’t like the fact that it’s nailed romance to the wall. I think it’s hard for people to find love these days. That makes me sad as a songwriter, because I want to write about love—I write about my friends’ relationships. People who call me up and say, “Oh my God, I met this gorgeous man and I totally fell in love with him,” and and I’m like, “Tell me more!” But it’s not happening near as much. Girls, don’t take it personally. It’s not you—it’s the Internet. There has to be romance before there can be love and it’s very hard to find romance in this hardcore high-tech world.

On stealing a song from Tom Petty:
I stole [“Ooh My Love”] from Tom Petty—accidentally! I picked up the wrong cassette at Tom’s one night, a tape of Mike Campbell’s instrumental demos. Tom would get them first, and then the ones he didn’t want, Mike sent them to me. I accidentally arrived home one night with a cassette—I thought it was mine, but it was Tom’s. It just said, “24 Demos from Mike Campbell.” It had the song that inspired “Ooh My Love,” which became “Runaway Train” for Tom. I took it into Fleetwood Mac and sang my lyrics over it. We started to record. I loved it so much, I called Tom and said, “Listen to this!” What an idiot, right? Let’s play him the song you stole over the phone! Tom just starts screaming at me on the other end of the phone. I’m realizing, “How stupid are you, Stevie?” So I had to go in the next day and tell Fleetwood Mac, “Guess what, we can’t do this song. ” “Why can’t we do it? ” “Because I stole it from Tom Petty, and I’m absolutely a total criminal and a thief.”

Read the whole interview over at Rolling Stone.