Stevie Nicks – HuffPost 10.4.12
Mike Ragogna: Yeah, and you’ve said you would like to leave this behind for people who are getting into music, which brings me to my next question. What advice do you have for new artists?
Stevie Nicks: Well, if I had kids that were fifteen, sixteen, seventeen years old and I could see that they were so talented–Dave has a daughter that’s twelve and she’s super talented and she sings like Janis Joplin for real–it’s like what do you tell these kids? I would say, you have to do what you have to do, and if you really want to be a singer and you really want to be a songwriter, put a band together and you’re just going to have to live at your parents’ house and play everywhere in your city that you can, every night. And if you have to go to school at the same time like I did, that’s what I did. I practiced from five to ten with the band every night, and I studied from ten thirty to three every night and I went to college. I went to five years of college when I was in that band up in San Francisco before we moved to Los Angeles. So I did both–I went to school and I was in a band that was actually playing two to three gigs a week. You just can’t give up. I think it depends on how strong your spirit is to actually make it in the music business. If your spirit is super strong and you’ve really got the goods, then you’re going to take on that attitude that you’re not going to fail and you’re going to give it a try. You’re going to go after it in every place you can possibly play, from any mall that will accept you to a coffee shop to steakhouse to any place you can possibly get in. That’s what you do. That’s what you did then and that’s what you do now, except that, hopefully, you have a supportive family that let you stay at home for a couple extra years.
MR: Yeah, or pay for you wherever you’re going to live.
SN: Well that’s asking a lot, right there.
MR: I know, who has money.
SN: With this kind of financial crisis that’s been going on for eight years, you’re asking a lot. So you’re going to have to have a very supportive backup team besides being super-talented. You’re going to have to have a super support team. But you know what? Nobody would be able to tell me, if I moved to Los Angeles right now and I knew how good I was, because I did know how good I was, if I moved there and everybody said, “The record companies are screwed and you’re never going to get a record deal,” I would go, “Just watch me.” That’s how I would go into it. I would pack my bag and I’d be off to Los Angeles or New York in ten minutes. If I had to be a cleaning lady and have five waitress jobs and be a temp somewhere and substitute for dental assistants, whatever you have to do, you do it if you love it that much and then, five years later, you make a decision on what you’re going to do.