Stevie Nicks has revealed that “there’s no reason” for Fleetwood Mac to reunite and tour again in the midst of Christine McVie’s unfortunate death because “you can’t replace her”. British keyboardist and singer Christine McVie died aged 79 in November 2022 following an ischemic stroke.
In an interview with Vulture, Nicks stated: “When Christine died, I felt like you can’t replace her. You just can’t, Without her, what is it? You know what I mean? She was like my soul mate, my musical soul mate, and my best friend that I spent more time with than any of my other best friends outside of Fleetwood Mac.”
Nicks also added: “Christine was my best friend. When I think about Taylor Swift’s song ‘You’re on Your Own, Kid’ and the line ‘you always have been,’ it was like, that was Christine and I. We were on our own in that band. We always were. We protected each other. Who am I going to look over to on the right and have them not be there behind that Hammond organ? When she died, I figured we really can’t go any further with this. There’s no reason to.”
Upon McVie’s death, Fleetwood Mac also released a statement in which the band called McVie “truly one-of-a-kind, special and talented beyond measure” later adding “She will be so very missed”.
— Fleetwood Mac (@fleetwoodmac) November 30, 2022
Born in Lancashire, United Kingdom, Christine McVie joined Fleetwood Mac in 1971, four years before Stevie Nicks joined the band. McVie’s debut as a full-time member was on the album Future Games, having already made guest contributions on albums prior and was married at the time to Fleetwood Mac bass guitarist John McVie.
Christine McVie became a consistent songwriter and singer for the band, writing and singing hits such as ‘Warm Ways’, ‘Say You Love Me’ and ‘You Make Loving Fun’. After a long tenure with the band, McVie retired from the band in 1998, before reuniting with the band in 2014.
Nicks described McVie’s influence and importance to the band as to why the band could never tour again, as she said: “And her songs, you take out all of those songs. Christine was the pop star. She wrote all those really super pop hits. None of the rest of us could write those songs. What would happen is we’d have to take the songs out, like we did when she actually retired for 18 years. We couldn’t re-create those songs. So we became a much more hard-rock band.”
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