The lead vocalist usually receives the greatest acclaim and attention in musical bands. This frequently occurs since the lead singer is the band’s public face and is portrayed in the vast majority of marketing and promotional materials.
In addition, the main singer frequently has the most captivating and powerful voice, which draws followers to them naturally.
In the case of Fleetwood Mac, Stevie Nicks was the member who was most visible. She is renowned for her alluring vocals, beautiful lyrics, and distinctive fusion of rock, folk, and country music.
She has been a cherished figure in the music industry for many years thanks to her compelling stage presence and her deep, soulful voice.
With songs like “Edge of Seventeen,” “Rhiannon,” and “Dreams,” among other well-known rock classics, Nicks has had a significant impact on popular culture.
Her long-running career in music has made her one of the most recognizable figures in the industry, and her songs and performances have been celebrated around the world.
She is a true icon of rock music, and her influence will be felt for generations to come. This was something she realized when she was in Fleetwood Mac.
She even created a unique onstage look with her bohemian style. That’s when she also understood her impact and the downside to being a frontman in a band.
While talking with Microsoft Music Central in 1997, she opened up about the negative aspects of being in the band.
There was also a positive aspect to it and the benefit, according to her, was that she assisted the band in becoming successful without jeopardizing their prior accomplishments.
Stevie Nicks afterward clarified that she didn’t pursue a solo career in order to establish herself or separate herself from the band.
The singer, as she had previously stated, didn’t want to be more well-known than the rest of the band.
She also said that the band didn’t release a new album very often and the songs she had written were piling up.
She had things to say about being Fleetwood Mac’s most visible member.
She said, “It would have been a worse downside if I had been a big flop, so the upside of it was that it was successful. The only reason I had a solo career was so I could do more songs. You can’t do many in Fleetwood Mac, doing an album every few years with three writers, so you get maybe three, four, or five songs at the most. I write all the time, and my songs get backlogged so much that I start to feel crummy if I can’t record them.”
“I didn’t have a solo career to get away from Fleetwood Mac or to prove anything to anybody. I just wanted to be able to be more of a writer.
I never wanted to be more famous than anybody else. The downside is that it didn’t make everybody else feel that good. So sometimes I didn’t get to really enjoy my success very much. I felt that it made other people feel bad, and I hated that.”
The frontman is usually in charge of doing the band’s promotion and booking shows, which may be very time-consuming and labor-intensive.
You are the face of the band and it can be a source of pressure and stress. More than that, for Stevie, it was a disadvantage because she had the impression that her friends regretted hiding in the background.
