(Credits: Jimmy Kimmel Live)
Wed 21 January 2026 19:07, UK
It’s hard to think of someone like Stevie Nicks being that dissatisfied with her place in the world.
Not every woman can claim to singlehandedly wipe the floor with every other songwriter in their band, but even when Nicks broke free from Fleetwood Mac, she was never out there to prove that she was the biggest and best songwriter of her time. In fact, her love for the band trumped nearly everything else she did, and she wanted to make sure that she never lost that sense of camaraderie in anything she did.
Because looking at her track record, a lot of lead singers could benefit from taking the approach that she did. Breaking off from ‘The Mac’ could have easily been one of the worst decisions anyone ever made, but Nicks wanted to make sure that she never lost her connection with her friends. They were all family by this point, and even if she saw them in between making records like Bella Donna and The Wild Heart, she wanted to make sure that every song she made sounded the best it could, both on her own and with the band.
But looking at how many times the band have reunited over the years, it’s safe to say that Nicks was more comfortable with her solo career. It definitely had its ups and downs, but ever since Trouble in Shangrila, Nicks has made sure to keep her eyes squarely focused on what could be done on her own while still finding time to play on albums like Say You Will. Then again, it would be a treat for her to play in another group as well.
After all, Nicks had said numerous times that she wanted a shot at being in Tom Petty’s band, and even if she was bestowed the honour of being one of the honourary Heartbreakers, Nicks wanted something more than that, she wanted to perform with the kind of people that could rock with the best of them, and while Fleetwood Mac weren’t exactly known for being the most energetic all the time, it must have been a trip for her to work with Dave Grohl on songs like ‘You Can’t Fix This’.
Nicks was no stranger to a heavy groove if you listen to songs like ‘Gold Dust Woman’, but there’s a lot more going on when Grohl gets behind the drum kit. This was supposed to celebrate everything great about the golden age of working on tape, but Nicks had her eye on something bigger when she started to see what Grohl had been cooking up with Josh Homme and John Paul Jones with Them Crooked Vultures.
The supergroup had felt like a band that was frozen in time since the mid-1970s, and Nicks said that she would love the chance to jam with them, telling Grohl, “We deeply would love for all these talented kids to be able to rise above and we would love to see a new Led Zeppelin come out of the wall. By the way, I’d really like to be in the buzzard group, too, just so you know. I just met John Paul Jones at the premiere of the [Led Zeppelin] movie [Celebration Day] and I’d never met him.”
But Nicks will probably have to get in line in between the countless side projects that everyone is working on. The fact that they could all get together for one record was a strange miracle in its own right, and while every one of them are clearly up to the challenge, it’s hard to manage everything when all three of them are among the most high-profile rock stars that the world had ever seen.
It wouldn’t be easy to find the time, but perhaps Nicks would be able to work her magic one more time in a Vultures reunion. It wouldn’t exactly be the smoothest fit or anything like that, but given how much she could go off every single time she sang ‘Rhiannon’, who knows whether she could bring those same chops to the supergroup?
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