Building on a huge touring run that saw the band visit their biggest ever venues across the UK, Europe, USA, Australia and Japan, Bury Tomorrow look forward to an even bigger 2025.
New single, “Let Go”, serves as the third preview of the recently announced LP, Will You Haunt Me, With That Same Patience, and looks set to continue stoking the furnace of a fanbase already burning brightly.
On “Let Go,” the band table perhaps the biggest addition to their sonic approach to date, whilst still maintaining their signature savagery. Drum and bass beats collide with breakdowns, as aggressive vocals interweave in and around the tempo in a spoken word delivery, reinforced by stadium-sized choruses.
The track explores concepts of honesty, as frontman Dani Winter-Bates expands, “Both within yourself and the people around you. To be dishonest with yourself leads to decisions based in fear and can lead to regret, while to be true to yourself can cost some of the things you hold closest.”
Co-vocalist Tom Prendergast goes further, saying “There is a sense throughout the song that we can often give all of our energy to a toxic situation and need to recognize when to cut ties to grow. ‘Let Go’ is about how that can shape you, change you and define your choices and your path through life. There is a cost to every choice, and there are some harder to let go of than others.”
For Bury Tomorrow, the last two years have been about trying to fill the space where they knew something was missing.
From the depths of uncertainty, through line-up changes and COVID-inspired road blocks, the arrival of guitarist Ed Hartwell and keyboardist/vocalist rendergast and the creation of 2023’s The Seventh Sun has allowed them to lay out a whole new path of possibilities that felt unavailable before. Now, with an invigorated belief and fresh outlook on what the band can encompass, they present Will You Haunt Me, With That Same Patience, their most fantastically visceral offering to date.
Crafted more intimately and intricately than ever before by internalizing every aspect of the writing process, with Carl Bown [Sleep Token, Bullet For My Valentine, While She Sleeps] manning production duties for the first time, the result is a profoundly personal, extraordinarily expansive, and punishingly grand display of cathartic craftsmanship.
Born from a shared sense of frustration in feeling an ever-shifting disconnect from the state of modern society, the band have created an earnest, heart-wrenching, and definitive look at the overlapping effects of brutal self-sabotage, crippling anxiety, fierce despondency, and the never-ending search for peace and clarity in a world so full of noise. It is a record about division as much as togetherness, an outpouring of personal devastation but a hopeful reminder that we are all navigating it together.
“To haunt is to revisit or recur persistently to the consciousness of someone or something,” explains guitarist Kristan Dawson. “There’s beauty in that commitment somewhat. In a world full of distraction, discourse, instancy and demand, patience seems hard to attain. In patience, there is peace, one thing society is short of. The title serves as a call of reflection, relying on the present moment, remembering what truly matters. I think the notion of patience being haunting is quite a contrast and that’s certainly reflective of the album musically.”
Within such deep sonic exploration and shared emotional understanding, and despite its bleak outlook on things, Will You Haunt Me With That Same Patience still strives to represent that lingering presence, that hope, that reminds us that this isn’t the be-all and end-all of this existence. That things can change for the better, just like we can change for the better with it, and persevering through such separation will bring us back around eventually. We just have to weather the storm and trust in that feeling to pull us through.
To have allowed themselves the time and space to reach this point of comfort and confidence now feels like a starting point for everything that the band will do in the future. Expanding their empire in all corners of the world and delivering their biggest statement of intent to date is the beginning of a whole new chapter in the story of one of the most devastating and dedicated assets to British heavy music.
“To Dream, To Forget” “Villain Arc” “Wasteland” “What If I Burn” “Forever The Night” “Waiting” “Silence Isn’t Helping” “Found No Throne” “Yōkai” “Let Go” “Paradox”
Texas Hippie Coalition has announced a slew of new tour dates, which will see the band rocking stages across America from February through June 2025. Confirmed venues are listed below.
Tickets and VIP Packages are available now at this location.
February 14 – Wichita, KS – The Cotillion 21 – Fort Worth, TX – The Rail 22 – Baytown, TX – D’s Irish Tavern
March 26 – Harrison, OH – Blue Note Harrison 28 – Cadillac, MI – The Venue Event Center 29 – Fort Wayne, IN – Piere’s
April 1 – Lincoln, NE – Bourbon Theatre 2 – Sioux City, IA – The Marquee 3 – Kansas City, MO – Knuckleheads Kansas City 5 – Wyandotte, MI – District 142 6 – Hobart, IN – Hobart Art Theatre 19 – Oklahoma City, OK – Diamond Ballroom
May 2 – Pittsburg, KS – Kansas Crossing Casino 3 – Springfield, MO – Southbound Bar & Grill 16 – Fort Smith, AR – TempleLive Fort Smith 17 – Shreveport, LA – Bayou Thunder Saloon 18 – New Orleans, LA – Southport Hall Live Music & Party Hall 22 – Huntsville, AL – Shagnastys 24 – Clearwater, FL – OCC Road House 25 – Fort Myers, FL – The Ranch Concert Hall & Saloon 29 – Knoxville, TN – Open Chord Stage 30 – Greenville, SC – The Radio Room 31 – Hickory, NC – Wayneo’s Silver Bullet
June 1 – Leesburg, VA – Tally Ho Theater 5 – Albany, NY – Empire Live Albany 6 – Syracuse, NY – The Song & Dance 7 – Campbell Hall, NY – Private Show 8 – Buffalo, NY – Rec Room Buffalo 11 – Grand Rapids, MI – The Intersection 13 – Unity, WI – Monster Hall Festival Grounds 14 – Fountain, MN – Beaver Bottoms Saloon 15 – Sioux Falls, SD – Bigs Bar
Lone Star State rockers, Texas Hippie Coalition, have issued the hilariously entertaining animated video for their recently released track, “Bones Jones”. The video was directed by musician Edsel Dope and co-directed by David Perada, and animated by Makinita Silva. The video tells the crazy story of the character Bones Jones, with the heavy riffs on the tracks setting the manic mood.
“In our hometown, there was a guy named ‘Bones’,” says frontman Big Dad Ritch. “He was about six-foot-seven-inches tall like Lurch from The Addams Family. I’d get weed from him, but he sold everything you could think of. Just weed for me though,” he chuckles.
Texas Hippie Coalition released their new album, Gunsmoke, via MNRK Heavy on October 4, 2024. This time, Big Dad Ritch and his crew wholeheartedly embrace their country and Southern rock stylings as well as a lifelong passion for westerns.
With drinks poured, fists raised, and smiles wide, Texas Hippie Coalition (THC) always know how to have a good time. A collective of tried-and-true rabble-rousers and dyed-in-the-wool storytellers, the Texas quintet – Big Dad Ritch [vocals], Cord Pool [guitar], Nevada Romo [guitar], Rado Romo [bass], and Joey Mandigo [drums] – spike ass-whopping hard rock with a kick of country swagger and a whole lot of Texas grit and gusto.
Gathering tens of millions of streams, logging thousands of miles on the road, and energizing countless fans, they deliver ten anthems tailor-made to simmer and scorch on Gunsmoke. “In terms of the lyrics, the vibe, and where THC come from, we definitely went home on this album,” says Ritch. “It represents the wild west Texas-Oklahoma area. You’ve got a little red dirt country spilling over into the storytelling and metal. It’s a return to the dirt where we came from.”
“Deadman” “Baptized In The Mud” “Bones Jones” “She’s Like A Song” “Droppin Bombs” “Gunsmoke” “Eat Crow” “Million Man Army” “Test Positive” “I’m Gettin High”
newshard rockraritiesac/dcqueenpink floydprofessor of rock
Professor Of Rock has released the new video below, along with the following introduction:
“The year 1980 was a fascinating time for music. The decade was ushered in by some bold songs by artists who pushed their own boundaries to stay relevant and challenge their fans. It’s also a year that gave us some of the most influential & timeless tracks of the rock era. Including two of rock’s greatest bands, Pink Floyd and Queen releasing disco-influenced tracks… by rock’s most progressive band in ‘Another Brick In The Wall, Part Two’ and ‘Another One Bites The Dust’ by Queen, who stole the iconic bass line from disco group, Chick, but everyone claimed Chic ripped Queen off. Then there’s Kenny Loggins’ ‘I’m Alright’ that has a mystery vocalist that shocked people when they figured out who it was, as well as ‘Call Me’ by Blondie that we’ve all sung for years even though it’s about a male… well ya know… And AC/DC’s classic song ‘You Shook Me All Night Long’. It’s all coming up next as we countdown the Top 10 Songs Of 1980 on Professor Of Rock.”
Stadium rockers, Kissin’ Dynamite, and Estonian folk-metal band, Metsatöll, are the latest acts confirmed for the 2025 edition of 70000 Tons Of Metal, taking place January 30 – February 3, 2025. Metsatöll will play songs from their debut album Hiiekoda, as well as a varied second set.
This year’s cruise will take fans back to an absolute favorite port that hasn’t been visited in a decade – Ocho Rios, Jamaica!
60 Bands, 4 Days, 1 Cruise Ship, and only 3000 Tickets. This is 70000 Tons Of Metal, The Original, The World’s Biggest Heavy Metal Cruise!
70000 Tons Of Metal 2025 roster: Arcturus, Benighted, Beyond Creation, Candlemass, Crownshift, Decapitated, Delain, Emperor, Ex Deo, Finntroll, Flotsam And Jetsam, HammerFall, Ihsahn, In Extremo, Kalmah, Kissin’ Dynamite, Majestica, Metsatöll, Mork, The Kovenant, Samael, Septicflesh, Sepultura, Sonata Arctica, Stratovarius, Subway To Sally, Swallow The Sun featuring Finnish Ballet, Tankard, Symphony X, The Zenith Passage, Trollfest, Trouble, Twilight Force, Unleash The Archers.
On 70000 Tons Of Metal you get unrestricted festival access to all 120 live shows on board, 70000 Tons Of Karaoke until sunrise, Jamming In International Waters – the Official 70000 Tons Of Metal All Star Jam which writes heavy metal history every year, clinics and work-shops with the musicians, our infamous belly flop contest, shore excursions with your favorite artists, and much more.
Organizers: “Everyone on board is a VIP, we don’t have assigned seating (this is a heavy metal cruise after all), and most importantly the bars on our ship never close – you heard us, bars that never close! On this life changing adventure you will spend five days and four nights at sea mingling side-by-side with your favorite artists in this incredibly fan-friendly scenario that has no comparison. It’s like having an All-Access backstage pass!”
Innovative guitar visionary, Marty Friedman (ex-Megadeth), has shared a new single, “A Prayer”, from his latest solo album, Drama. The new track is being released as a digital single that includes a “Guitar Karaoke” version of the track as a B-Side. “A Prayer” is accompanied by a visualizer, available below.
Marty comments on the new single: “‘A Prayer’ was one of the first songs I wrote for Drama, It is an unapologetic tearjerker, and it set the melancholy tone for the entire album. I always wanted to do a full album of wistful songs like this, but only recently have I developed the ability to put together elaborate arrangements like this that sound deceivingly simple and uplifting.”
Marty Friedman’s presence in the world of music, the world of guitar, and Japanese pop culture is mystifying, bizarre, and nothing short of inspiring. From his groundbreaking beginnings with Cacophony, alongside the legendary Jason Becker, to his pivotal role in propelling Megadeth to its peak of popularity with his breath-taking range and unorthodox melodic sense, Marty has solidified his status as a unique guitar icon.
Drama only slightly revisits the atmospheric elements of his acclaimed 1992 release Scenes, elevating them to a modern and exotic collection of epic, extravagant, and unapologetically emotional mini-symphonies.
Tracks like “Illumination” and “Mirage” transport listeners to captivating realms, evoking sudden tears and chills. The entire album spotlights Marty’s mesmerizing melodies, game-changing arrangements, and heart-tugging motifs, even more than any of his previous work.
Recorded in Italy, where Marty had access to a treasure trove of vintage guitars along with his modern signature models, Drama is a pure delight for anyone who appreciates music that stirs emotions.
Friedman’s 2025 US tour, in support of his Drama album, will kick off on January 25 in Las Vegas and wrap up on February 22 in Los Angeles.
Marty comments on the tour: “My three band members from Japan, Chargeeeeee, Wakazaemon, and Naoki have created the ultimate setting to perform music from all stages of my career. If you’ve seen us live before, you know what to expect. If not, you are in for a unique treat. You will remember my band’s performances on this Drama tour for a long time. Our last two USA tours have left an unforgettable impact on them. We are all beyond excited to cross the pond and play for my home country again!”
Marty Friedman Live Drama 2025 dates:
January 25 – Las Vegas, NV – Count’s Vamp’d 27 – Denver, CO – HQ Live 29 – St. Louis, MO – Off Broadway 30 – St. Charles, IL – Arcada Theater 31 – Westland, MI – Token Lounge
February 1 – Columbus, OH – The King of Clubs 2 – Cleveland, OH – The Winchester 4 – New York, NY – The Loft at City Winery 5 – Boston, MA – City Winery 6 – Derry, NH – Tupelo Music Hall 7 – Annapolis, MD – Ram’s Head on Stage 8 – Pawling, NY – Daryl’s House 10 – Philadelphia, PA – City Winery 11 – Leesburg, VA – Tally Ho Theater 13 – Greenville, SC – Radio Room 14 – Nashville, TN – The Basement 16 – Houston, TX – Bronze Peacock at House of Blues 17 – Austin, TX – Antone’s 18 – Dallas, TX – Granada Theater 20 – Albuquerque, NM – Launch Pad 21 – Phoenix, AZ – Rhythm Room 22 – Los Angeles, CA – The Whisky
Tickets, Exclusive Meet and Greet VIP Packages, Stage Played Guitars, and more are available at MartyFriedman.com.
Billboard is reporting that Steven Tyler’s sixth annual Jam For Janie Grammy Awards Viewing Party has been announced, with the star-studded charity event to kick off on February 2 at the Hollywood Palladium.
Hosted by Grammy-winning comedian Tiffany Haddish, the evening features a powerhouse lineup of performers, including Billy Idol, Joan Jett, Joe Perry, Tom Hamilton, Linda Perry, Matt Sorum, and Nuno Bettencourt. A special highlight will be a reunion performance by members of Aerosmith.
The event supports Janie’s Fund, the rocker’s nonprofit aiding young women and girls who have survived abuse, and expands its philanthropic reach this year to benefit the Los Angeles Fire Department Foundation and the Widows, Orphans, and Disabled Firefighter’s Fund. The event will welcome more than 100 firefighters who have been at the forefront of combating the California wildfires, to celebrate the major night in music.
“What the Los Angeles community has endured with these wildfires is unthinkable. Music has healing powers and we hope to bring a moment of joy and levity to our first-responder firefighters and those most affected by the fires,” Tyler said. “The trauma experienced by the girls we work with is also unthinkable and we will continue to shed light and support the amazing work of Janie’s Fund.”
A trailer for the highly-anticipated movie about pioneering Sly & The Family Stone founder Sly Stone has been released. Sly Lives! (aka The Burden of Black Genius) was directed by Roots drummer and Tonight Show bandleader Questlove, and will begin streaming via Hulu on February 13.
According to a press release issued by Hulu, the film will examine “the life and legacy of Sly & The Family Stone, the groundbreaking band led by the charismatic and enigmatic Sly Stone. The film captures the band’s rise, reign and subsequent fadeout while shedding light on the unseen burden that comes with success for Black artists in America.”
“It [the film] goes beyond saying that Sly’s creative legacy is in my DNA,” said Questlove in 2021. “It’s a black musician’s blueprint. To be given the honour to explore his history and legacy is beyond a dream for me.”
Sly Stone emerged with 1967‘s Dance To The Music, demolishing socio-cultural boundaries by mixing funk with psychedelia and rock. Triumph at 1969’s Woodstock festival put him on the road to becoming one of the first major rock stars of the early 1970s, but battles with mental health and addiction would slow his trajectory.
Multiple attempts to revive Stone’s musical career faltered and failed. His most recent release, the 2011 solo album I’m Back! Family & Friends, was his first since 1975, and contained just three new songs. The last interview he gave was in 2007, although he surprised many by publishing a memoir, Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin), in 2023.
Sly Lives! (aka The Burden of Black Genius) features interviews with Andre 3000, D’Angelo, Chaka Khan, Q-Tip, Nile Rogers, Jimmy Jam, Terry Lewis, George Clinton, Ruth Copeland and Clive Davis, as well as band and family members.
SLY LIVES! (aka The Burden of Black Genius) | Official Trailer | Hulu – YouTube
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A sensitive behemoth, hulking yet graceful, Mogwai’s 11th album arrives with the Glaswegian band bearing a higher profile than at any time during their three decades of delicacy and disruption.
Its predecessor, 2021’s As The Love Continues, became a UK No.1 hit, which they found “totally surreal.” Recent documentary If The Stars Had A Sound wisely chose not to analyse what it is about the band’s noise which moves so many so deeply. Mogwai aren’t the types to pontificate earnestly about creating effervescent rainbows of liminal meaning or somesuch. The key to their alchemy is to not overthink what they do.
Any lyrics are half-heartedly, almost sheepishly, mumbled, all but inaudibly, and the musical structures ebb and flow as they see fit, rather than following conventions. Mogwai’s progressive instincts have always taken an intuitive path. It’s seen them labelled as everything from post-rock to shoegaze to “epic prog rock without the widdly-woo solos.”
Ironically, there’s actually one rather startling widdly-woo guitar solo here, on the atypical track Lion Rumpus; but it’s tackled with such mischievous venom that it enters another dimension, conveying something between a cry for help and a feral cat clawing its way out of the speakers.Truth is, the sound of the quartet is progressive in a primal way – a healthy counterpoint to mainstream conservatism.
Mogwai – Fanzine made of Flesh (Official video) – YouTube
They’ve also developed a side hustle with soundtracks, scoring off-centre films and TV series. The experience gained on those projects informs the fuming, fluttering The Bad Fire, which, like them, swings between the sinister and the sanguine. Their 2024 remix of The Harmony Codex for Steven Wilson’s Harmonic Divergence experiment us the most intense thing on there, and hosts a similar seriousness of DNA to spells herein.
American producer John Congleton doesn’t fix anything that isn’t broken
This album doesn’t try to “reinvent” Mogwai at all; it very much does what they do. Where other bands may have thought an unlikely chart-topping feat required lurching into a new chapter to prove some kind of point, or throwing their curtains wide to the daylight and welcoming the world in, Mogwai double down on their curiously uplifting dourness. They retreat, here, to their discomfort zone.
Neither does American producer John Congleton – who’s worked with everyone from The War On Drugs to Explosions In The Sky to Blondie – fix anything that isn’t broken. As the opening track God Gets You Back confidently builds as only Mogwai build – one can never quite predict what’s coming – it moves a keyboard motif reminiscent of Ryuichi Sakamoto’s Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence theme into a forceful rumble of what’s undeniably shoegaze. These flavours of My Bloody Valentine or Slowdive resolve, up to a point, in sludgy bass nuances.
“The bad fire” is a Glaswegian expression for Hell, and the band have spoken of tough personal times since Covid. William Blake was apparently an inspiration. Mogwai’s music, much as it strives for otherworldly transcendence – whether they’d admit it or not – doesn’t attain the states of rapture found in the work of Sigur Rós, a group with whom they’re often aligned. But there is relief amid the gravitas.
As an actual song threatens to materialise, it’s deliberately buried in the mix… the background, for Mogwai, is the foreground
Hi Chaos hugs Banshees-style goth, with John McGeoch-style guitar lines, though they become shrill and excitable as the track scorches to its climax. What Kind Of Mix Is This? marches steadily into gloom until a two- note piano motif chirrups like a small bird traversing its cloudy skies.
There’s a blast of buzz-saw guitar as Fanzine Made Of Flesh kicks in, but then as an actual song threatens to materialise, it’s deliberately buried in the mix, with emphases placed instead on the entrance or exit of various guitars or keyboards. The background, for Mogwai, is the foreground.
Mogwai – God Gets You Back (Official video) – YouTube
There may be a lick of PFM or Tangerine Dream in the pensive washes of Pale Vegan Hip Pain, but the lengthy If You Find This World Bad, You Should See Some Of The Others shifts from gentleness evoking The Durutti Column or Steve Hackett’s pastoral side into an abrasive eruption more akin to King Crimson at their most aggressive, before settling into a folky respite.
The last phase of 18 Volcanoes is within touching distance of a white noise drone, while Hammer Room – one of the upbeat detours – channels John Carpenter after too much fizzy pop. Lion Rumpus, though, is the real tempo-raising barnstormer, roaring until it skids off into a reconstruction of a car crash.
Fact Boy, the finale, is the band’s doggedly nebulous sound at its most shapeshifting – committed to not committing, a distant descendant perhaps of Floyd’s Echoes. As it unfolds, a high voice can be heard among the crunching ice floes, possibly an angel emerging from the rubble. Heaven or Hell, the bad fire, as lit by Mogwai, always offers a flame of hope.
Chris Roberts has written about music, films, and art for innumerable outlets. His new book The Velvet Underground is out April 4. He has also published books on Lou Reed, Elton John, the Gothic arts, Talk Talk, Kate Moss, Scarlett Johansson, Abba, Tom Jones and others. Among his interviewees over the years have been David Bowie, Iggy Pop, Patti Smith, Debbie Harry, Bryan Ferry, Al Green, Tom Waits & Lou Reed. Born in North Wales, he lives in London.
Aerosmith are returning to the stage, but it’s for one night only.
The band, who announced their retirement from touring in August last year and cancelled their Peace Out: Farewell Tour dates, have been confirmed as one of the acts to play at this year’s Jam For Janie Grammys Benefit, the annual show frontman Steven Tyler puts together to raise money for Janie’s Fund. The charity, which was named after Aerosmith’s 1989 hit Janie’s Got A Gun, was founded by Tyler in 2015 and supports vulnerable girls who’ve suffered abuse and neglect.
This year, the event will also raise money to support the Los Angeles Fire Department Foundation and the Widows, Orphans, and Disabled Firefighters Fund, as wildfires continue to rage in Southern California.
“What the Los Angeles community has endured with these wildfires is unthinkable,” says Tyler. “Music has healing powers and we hope to bring a moment of joy and levity to our first-responder firefighters and those most affected by the fires. The trauma experienced by the girls we work with is also unthinkable and we will continue to shed light and support the amazing work of Janie’s Fund.”
Joining Aerosmith at the show, which will be held at the Hollywood Palladium on February 2, will be Billy Idol and Joan Jett – who’ve just announced a tour together – as well as Linda Perry, Matt Sorum and Nuno Bettencourt. Tickets for the event range from $3000 for an individual seat to $100,000 for a VIP table for 10 guests.
It’s unclear whether Aerosmith drummer Joey Kramer, who hasn’t played with the band since 2019’s Deuces Are Wild residency in Las Vegas, will be appearing at the Jam For Janie event.
Aerosmith made the decision to halt touring after it became clear that Tyler was unlikely to fully recover from the injury sustained to his vocal cord in 2023.
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“I woke up three days later, in France, in this stupid castle, and I’m thinking: ‘What just happened?'”: How Stevie Nicks escaped the chaos of Fleetwood Mac and soared solo
(Image credit: Fin Costello/Redferns)
It’s September 1980. From the deck of the Pacific Palisades home that Stevie Nicks was sharing with her new boyfriend, producer Jimmy Iovine, you could hear the hypnotic push and pull of the ocean.
Inside, among the tropical plants, Persian rugs and paintings of dragons and gypsies, there was the even more alluring sound of three siren voices dovetailing in perfect harmony. Stevie and Lori Perry and Sharon Celani, her two closest friends, would spend hours around the upright piano, singing everything from old country and western covers to Stevie’s new songs.
It was here that the seeds took root for Bella Donna, the breakout solo record that forever changed both the dynamic in Fleetwood Mac and Nicks’s life as an artist. Exhausted from the previous two years of high-stakes drama around the recording and touring of Fleetwood Mac’s epic double album Tusk, the 32-year-old singer welcomed the laid-back setting and easy camaraderie with her girlfriends.
“In Fleetwood Mac there’s always a chaos,” Nicks told me in 2003. “It’s not easy for us. It never will be. It hasn’t ever been. Whenever we get back into a room together and start working, we don’t agree on a lot of stuff. And we’ve fought through every single record we have ever made.”
Part of that fight was getting songs on a record. Having three songwriters in Mac meant that after six years in the band Nicks had built up a backlog of unused top-drawer material.
“When we’d do an album, they’d hear fifteen of my songs and invariably pick the two that were my least favourite,” she complained. “Some of my favourite songs wouldn’t get used.”
Iovine agreed to work with her on a solo project with an approach that would replace the Mac’s careful deliberations with a more live sound. His previous credits included John Lennon, Meat Loaf and Bruce Springsteen. But it was Iovine’s records with Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers that really grabbed Nicks. She told him she wanted a “girl version” of Petty’s sound.
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Fleetwood Mac backstage at Wembley Arena, London, June 1980, with sales awards for Rumours and Tusk. L-R: John McVie, Mick Fleetwood, Christine McVie, Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks (Image credit: Michael Putland/Getty Images)
Outside of Fleetwood Mac, Nicks had been flirting with a few projects. She wrote a song cycle around the Welsh mythological goddess Rhiannon for a film (despite having the screenwriter for The Man Who Fell To Earth attached, it never got made). She also sang on Kenny Loggins’s Whenever I Call You Friend and Walter Egan’s Magnet And Steel, both hits. But the idea of releasing an album under her name was still somewhat scary.
“It’s a big deal the first time you do a solo record,” Benmont Tench tells Classic Rock. The Heartbreakers’ keyboard player was tapped by Iovine to act as “musical director” for Bella Donna. “And remember, back then, if somebody in a huge band made a solo record, your first thought was: ‘Wow, is the band breaking up?’ It was really unusual and risky to step away.
“But Stevie may have just gone: ‘Look, I’ve got these songs, let’s do a record without the family baggage there was around Fleetwood Mac.’ Stevie, Christine [McVie] and Lindsey [Buckingham] only got three songs per record. That’s why Silver Springs didn’t make it on to Rumours. Give the woman a fourth song, for God’s sake! [laughs]”
Tench had met Nicks briefly when the Heartbreakers backed her on a recording of Outside The Rain the year before (the track ended up on Bella Donna). But he admits he revised his first impression of her.
“I had seen Fleetwood Mac play, and with Stevie I just didn’t get it,” he says. “She could sing, oh hell yes. But I didn’t know what was going on with the top hat and the twirling and the witchy stuff. But then I bought the single to Go Your Own Way and flipped it over, and there’s Silver Springs. Good Lord, what a song. The second I heard that, I went: ‘Now I get it. That’s Stevie. She’s not faking. She’s for real. She’s not a poser in the least. She’s a creative perpetual-motion machine. This is somebody I’d really love to play music with.’”
For two months, Tench, Nicks and her girlfriends rehearsed five days a week. “We were like Joni Mitchell and Crosby, Stills And Nash, living in this great house and making music,” Nicks remembers. “It was one of those real rock’n’roll experiences that you can never forget.”
“It was song after song after great song,” Tench recalls. “I think she had enough for her first three solo albums and beyond. Lori and Sharon were so instinctive and so intuitive. They were all so tuned in to each other. At the drop of a hat they’d break into a cappella versions of old songs like Chapel Of Love. They loved each other and loved to harmonise. They stood behind me at the piano, and when I heard their three voices together it was just: ‘Wow’, goosebumps.”
With most of the songs chosen, recording sessions started in November at Studio 55 in Los Angeles. Built in the 1940s by Decca Records, it was the studio where Bing Crosby recorded White Christmas. Working from late afternoons into the small hours, Tench settled in with the all-star team that Iovine had assembled, full of what Iovine called “band guys” rather than session players: E Street Band pianist Roy Bittan, Elton John’s guitarist Davey Johnstone, and Linda Ronstadt’s drummer Russ Kunkel, bassist Lee Sklar and guitarist Waddy Wachtel.
“Jimmy pulled members from all these iconic bands to come and make music for Stevie,” Russ Kunkel tells Classic Rock. “What a genius idea. He was the first producer I ever worked with who came out on the floor with the musicians during the rehearsals, sat there with headphones, dialling in a great mix for us. That inspired us and brought us to the take quicker.
“Even during the take he stayed in the room with us, dancing around. He was part of the vibe. So there was never that pregnant pause after a take, where you wait for the producer’s voice from the other side of the glass, saying: ‘Let’s do another one,’ and you’re immediately rejected [laughs]. Jimmy was out there with us. That’s a huge thing.”
“Jimmy knew how to run sessions, and make things happen quickly,” Waddy Wachtel adds. “The luxuriant approach of taking a year to make a record like Tusk is kind of an aberration. And I think Stevie was glad to be working in a more spontaneous way. Jimmy was great at getting performances out of the band and out of Stevie. He had a really intuitive sense about songs, lots of enthusiasm and energy.”
“We recorded all the songs essentially live,” Tench says, “with the whole band cutting at the same time, and Stevie, Lori and Sharon singing with us on the floor. We captured a beautiful feel. The ambience of the studio was gorgeous, aesthetically pleasing. Stevie brought the ambience, not necessarily in items from her house, but just the spirit. The same mood that was in her house made it to the vocal booth.”
At the heart of the sessions was the flowering personal relationship between artist and producer. “Jimmy and I were totally in love,” Nicks wrote in the sleeve-notes for the Bella Donna reissue. “The record was our love story unfolding.”
The feeling and camaraderie came through on the title track’s moody, ribbon-like reverie, the top-down West Coast pop of Think About It, the Nashville twang of After The Glitter Fades, and Leather And Lace, a chart-topping tender-but-tough romantic duet with the Eagles’ Don Henley (Nicks originally wrote it for Waylon Jennings and Jessi Colter).
And throughout, Perry and Celani’s voices were there, weaving counterpoint and harmony around Nicks. The strength they gave their friend is reflected in the album’s lyrics, which never tip towards wallowing or weakness. The solo Nicks refuses to play a victim of anything, be it love or interpersonal power struggles. She’s less witchy woman, more warrior.
The two monster hits that made Bella Donna a juggernaut arrived late in the sessions. And one almost didn’t make the album. It was no secret that Nicks was a Heartbreakers fan. She’d even fantasised in the press about quitting Fleetwood Mac and joining them. Short of being in the band, Nicks convinced Petty to write her a song. He came up with Insider. But after they recorded it together, Petty liked it so much he decided he didn’t want to give it away. Nicks understood. Out of what Petty called “terrible guilt”, he played her a few cast-offs from the album he was making, Hard Promises, and she jumped at Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around.
“Jimmy knew that that song could be a hit for Stevie and could help launch her album,” Tench recalls. “But I think Tom assumed they’d re-cut it rather than keeping our original track.” The song’s irresistible swampy groove, punctuated by Mike Campbell’s searing guitar stabs and Tench’s Booker T-like organ fills, brought out a sassy repartee between the singers, even if their virtual duet was concocted in secret by Iovine.
Petty’s initial reaction was not enthusiastic. “He plays me Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around, the same track, with her singing,” Petty said in the documentary Runnin’ Down A Dream. “I go: ‘Jimmy, you just took the song?’… His comeback was, like: ‘This is gonna buy you a house.’ But it pissed me off because it came out at the same time as our single [A Woman In Love], and I think ours suffered.”
Strangely enough, Nicks was also against the song, because she wanted all the material on the album to be her own. When Iovine suggested she record a duet, she stormed out of the studio. “Then I stormed back in and said: ‘Okay, you’re absolutely right. I’m sorry for being so bitchy about this, it’s just that I’m so protective of my songs.’ And because of that song, I have a solo career to this day.”
Equally as important was Edge Of Seventeen. The evocative title came from a misheard comment. Nicks had asked Petty’s then-wife Jane when they met, and she replied: “At the age of Seventeen.”
“Jane had a southern accent, and I heard ‘edge’,” Nicks told me. “I wrote the title down. And the song was written right after John Lennon died. A week later, my dear uncle John died. My cousin and I were with him when he passed. Between John Lennon and my uncle, the song came out of that. ‘Oh I went searching for an answer, up the stairs and down the hall/Not to find an answer, just to hear the call of a nightbird singing… And the nightbird is the bird of death, really.
“So I can get up on stage and sing Edge Of Seventeen and still feel just as traumatised today as I did then, when I first sang it at my piano. It’s just so heavy. I use that word a lot. I know that it’s an old hippie word, but it just really seems to be the right word. Some of the songs are so heavy.”
And ‘heavy’ was the feeling Wachtel wanted on guitar when he heard the demo. Iovine asked him to play the part using an echo effect.
“I said: ‘No way, I’m not doing that.’” Wachtel says. “He said: ‘What do you mean?!’ I said: ‘It’s too light with the echo effect. It needs some muscle behind it.’ I played them that rhythm with a pick, and they said: ‘Yeah, let’s do it that way!’”
“Waddy’s part is like a steel hammer driving the song,” Kunkel says of the line that would later be sampled for the Destiny’s Child hit Bootylicious. “And it allowed me to play around it. I remember [engineer] Chuck Plotkin coming out, standing in front of my drums and stomping his foot on these off-beats. I was thinking: ‘Are you having a coronary?’ [laughs]. It took me a minute to get used to his suggestion, but it’s one of the things that makes the song so unique.”
With the recording finished, Nicks tapped photographer Herbert Worthington III (who’d done Rumours) for the cover. His photos forever crystallised Nicks as the mystical woman in chiffon.
“What I’m wearing is the exact opposite of my black outfit on Rumours,” she told Rolling Stone. “Over that it says: ‘Come in from the darkness…’, which is the dark side of anyone, the side that isn’t optimistic, that isn’t strong.”
Of the shaded meanings of the album title, Nicks wrote: “It meant beautiful woman, but also poisonous root. People use it [the belladonna plant, aka deadly nightshade] for healing, but if you take too much you can die. I thought: ‘This is the perfect double-edged sword title for the record.’ And there was another double-edged sword: would I have a successful solo career and would that make Fleetwood Mac look good, or would I have an unsuccessful solo career and would that make them look bad? Or would they be petty enough to want it to not go well so they’d know they’d always have me?”
Bella Donna was released in July 1981 on Nicks’s own imprint Modern Records, via Atlantic (set up by her manager Irving Azoff, it was a forward-thinking move), to mostly positive reviews and tons of airplay. Within three months it was a platinum-selling No.1 album. With Tench and Wachtel in her band, Nicks did a 14-date tour full of what she called “spectacular moments”, but then was yanked back into Fleetwood Mac world when they started recording Mirage in France.
“I woke up three days later, in France, with no ice, no air-conditioning, in this stupid castle, and I’m thinking: ‘What just happened? Did I dream the entirety of that record?’” Nicks wrote. “And Lindsey was not in a very good humour because I’d just made this solo record and I’ve brought my new producer boyfriend with me. They almost got in a fight. Jimmy was meant to be there for ten days but he left the next morning, he was so pissed off.”
The first of Nicks’s seven solo albums, Bella Donna remains the most influential and resonant. Its ripples can be felt in records by Lana Del Rey, Florence And The Machine and Belle Brigade. And whenever female musicians fight for creative independence – think Kelly Clarkson overruling Clive Davis to make My December, or Taylor Swift breaking out of her country box with 1989 – Nicks is there as a guiding light.
She worked with Jimmy Iovine on two more records before they split as a couple. Both Sharon Celani and Lori Perry (the latter now married to Nicks’s brother) have stuck with Nicks (they even toured with Fleetwood Mac in 2019). Ironically, Nicks’s solo flight probably helped keep her in Mac (she left briefly in the early 90s), if only because it gave her another means of expression and put a kind of ‘get out of jail’ card in her back pocket.
In 1981 she told US magazine: “It’s difficult to be a girl in a big rock’n’roll group for six years. You’re very protected and dependent. For so long you’re not allowed to make your own decisions, that suddenly you don’t want to any more. Doing my solo album was the only step I could take to show I still had control.”
Twenty years later, Nicks told me: “My solo career is very precious to me. But it can never be like Fleetwood Mac. For each of the members of the band and everyone surrounding us, it’s so much more heavy. There’s that word again. When I’m working by myself, it is by myself. I’m very inward and very much a loner, but Fleetwood Mac just overwhelms everything, takes everything. Everybody in the band is possessive and jealous. I don’t know what else to say about it. It makes my whole face turn red. I get a fever.”
Waddy Wachtel, who’s been in Nicks’s touring band since Bella Donna, and is working on an album with his group the Immediate Family, says: “The fire that was in Stevie at that time was remarkable. She and I always got along, but she had this thing where she’d say: ‘I know you don’t like what I do’ and laugh.
“Early on I didn’t really get her. When we went out on the road to tour Bella Donna, I remember we had a great first night, and we were all sitting around and toasting. I said: ‘I’ve got to tell you that I’m really impressed by what you did tonight. I don’t use this term lightly, but you are a fucking rock’n’roller, girl.’”
“I’m amazed by how contemporary the album still sounds,” says Russ Kunkel, who is also in the Immediate Family. “That’s really the true test, isn’t it? If it still sounds contemporary forty years later, then you did something right.”
Benmont Tench, who is finishing his second solo album, says: “Stevie had never made an album where it was all on her shoulders, with the pressure that comes with that. Also with the freedom that comes with that. And she just nailed it. Her vocals are incredible. If you were a singer in a group with harmony, like the trio she had with Lori and Sharon, then you have got to have great pitch. You couldn’t do anything back then about fixing pitch.
“You might be able to punch in a line, but you couldn’t mess with it electronically. So when I listen to Bella Donna now, I think: ‘Yeah, Stevie is a total badass.’”
Bill DeMain is a correspondent for BBC Glasgow, a regular contributor to MOJO, Classic Rock and Mental Floss, and the author of six books, including the best-selling Sgt. Pepper At 50. He is also an acclaimed musician and songwriter who’s written for artists including Marshall Crenshaw, Teddy Thompson and Kim Richey. His songs have appeared in TV shows such as Private Practice and Sons of Anarchy. In 2013, he started Walkin’ Nashville, a music history tour that’s been the #1 rated activity on Trip Advisor. An avid bird-watcher, he also makes bird cards and prints.