Did you know Stevie Nicks was on the verge of joining Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers?
The subject came up recently during a conversation between Nicks and Mike Campbell on Campbell’s monthly SiriusXM broadcast, The Breakdown with Mike Campbell, on Tom Petty radio.
Of course, Campbell was a member of the Heartbreakers and co-wrote several of Petty’s singles, such as “Refugee” and “Runnin’ Down a Dream.”
During the interview, Nicks discussed considering quitting Fleetwood Mac for Petty’s group. A buddy in the industry inquired about her becoming solo after maybe quitting Fleetwood Mac.
Nicks expressed her ideas with Campbell at that point.
“I said, ‘Well, basically I just wanna make a girl Tom Petty record.’ And I said, ‘Unless there’s some way that I could be, maybe I could be a member or maybe I could like talk to them,” Nicks told Campbell. “Maybe they need a girl singer.’ And he’s like, he looks at me and he is like, ‘You’re joking, right?’ And I’m like, ‘Well, I’m kind of joking, but not, not completely.’ [Laughs] And he goes, ‘You’d leave Fleetwood Mac for Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers.’
“And I said, ‘I might. [Laughs] I might.’ And so he’s like, ‘Okay, well that’s not gonna happen. So moving on, what’s your next thing?’ And I said, ‘Well, who produces Tom Petty?’ And he said, ‘Jimmy Iovine.’ And I said, ‘Well, can I like talk to Jimmy Iovine?’ And he goes, ‘Okay.’ He says, ‘I can set you up for a dinner with Jimmy.’ And I’m like, ‘Okay. Dinner with Jimmy. When?’
“So he says, ‘Okay, I’m calling him now. All right, you’re doing this Friday. You’re seeing him on Monday night.’ So I told Jimmy, I said, ‘What I really wanna do is I want to do a, I kind of wanna do a girl version of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.’”
Fans of Petty and Nicks will recall that the pair collaborated frequently, notably on Petty’s fourth album, Hard Promises, which featured his debut collaboration with Nicks, “Insider.” They also teamed on tunes such as “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around.”
Keep going for the full interview below: