Stevie Nicks Working On First New Album In 14 Years

Stevie Nicks never goes away. She tours constantly, and she serves as a persistent inspiration for younger stars like Taylor Swift and Lana Del Rey, both of whom have sung with her. In the past few years, Nicks has appeared on tracks from Miley Cyrus, Maroon 5, Elton John, Dolly Parton, and the Gorillaz. Last year, Nicks released her single “The Lighthouse,” did musical-guest duties on Saturday Night Live, and sang a Christmas song with Jason Kelce. But Stevie Nicks hasn’t released a new solo album since 2011’s In Your Dreams, which itself was her first in a decade. That’s about to change. She’s making a new one.

At the Pollstar Awards on Wednesday night, Stevie Nicks’ former producer Jimmy Iovine inducted her into the Pollstar Hall Of Fame, an institution that is new to me. In a long, charmingly loopy acceptance speech, Nicks told the crowd that’s she’s working on a new LP right now, though it’s still in the early stages:

I call it the ghost record. It just really kinda happened in the last couple of weeks because of, you know, the fires. I was sitting in a hotel for 92 days, and at some point during that last part of the 92 days, I said, You know what? I feel like I’m on the road, but there’s no shows. I’m just sitting here by myself because everybody else is at the house, doing all the remediations and everything, and it’s just me, sitting here. And I thought, You need to go back to work. And I did.

I have seven songs, and they are autobiographical real stories where I’m not pulling any punches for probably the first time in my life. They are not airy-fairy songs that you are wondering who they’re about but you don’t really get it. They’re real stories of memories of mine, of fantastic men! [To Iovine] You’re next! This is what I took.

She goes on to say that she wrote a song about Prince, who was a friend, and she tells a story about going to the Purple Rain premiere and freaking out and leaving the theater after seeing the scene where Prince slaps Apollonia. Afterward, she says she told Prince that the scene upset her, but she tried to give Prince a gold necklace as a gift anyway, and Prince told her, “I don’t want your necklace. You always bring me a gift. You never bring me you.” She says that quote is where her new album began. Sounds great! Sign me up! Watch fan footage of Nicks’ acceptance speech below.