Stevie Nicks Reveals the Pact She Made With Another Fleetwood Mac Member After Joining the Band
Stevie Nicks is a legend in her own right; there’s no question about that. In 2019, Nicks became the only woman to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, twice. Not to mention, as a rocker and a songwriter, she’s left an undeniable impression on women in music today.
In a 2019 interview with Rolling Stone, the singer actually said she felt she got “lucky” when it came to facing the issues other women have faced in the industry. She also admitted that having another girl [keyboardist Christine McVie] in Fleetwood Mac helped her to have a better experience.
Nicks even told Rolling Stone, “Christine and I made a pact the day I joined Fleetwood Mac.”
“She and I said, ‘We will never be treated like second-class citizens. We will never be not allowed to hang out in a room full of intelligent, crazy rock and roll stars, because we’re just as crazy and just as intelligent as they are,’” Nicks recalled. “We just made that promise to each other that we would do everything we could do for women, that we would fight for everything that we wanted and get it. That our songs and our music would be equally as good as all the men surrounding us. And it was.”
Being the lead female singer in a band of mostly guys was never going to be easy. However, this precedent Nicks set with McVie at the beginning likely helped a lot.
Nicks’ Tribute to McVie Following Her Death
Now a titan of the industry, it’s hard to imagine a time when Nicks wasn’t our role model. But next to every Stevie Nicks, it seems, there’s also a Christine McVie.
“If I had been the only girl in Fleetwood Mac, it would have been very different,” Nicks told Rolling Stone. “So I’m really glad I joined a band that happened to have another woman in it.”
She continued, “At the beginning people said, ‘Does Christine want another girl in the band?’ And I said, ‘I hope she does. When she meets me, I hope she likes me.’ She did really like me — we got Mexican food, and we laughed and looked at each other and went, ‘This is going to be great.’”
In 2022, McVie passed away following an ischemic stroke, much to the dismay of her former Fleetwood Mac band members.
In a letter posted to social media following McVie’s passing, Nicks quoted Haim’s song “Hallelujah”. The song sings about losing a close friend. Nicks also affectionately referred to McVie as her “best friend in the whole world since the first day of 1975.”
The rock legend said goodbye to McVie at the end of her tribute. “See you on the other side, my love,” she wrote. “Don’t forget me.”
Photo by: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
