Campbell, of course, was a member of the Heartbreakers and co-wrote a number of Petty’s hits, including “Refugee” and “Runnin’ Down a Dream.” (Americansongwriter)
During the conversation, Nicks talked about almost leaving her band Fleetwood Mac for Petty’s group. The question arose from a friend in the business about her going solo, after potentially leaving Fleetwood Mac.
That’s where Nicks shared her thoughts with Campbell.
“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. 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.'”
As any Petty and Nicks fans know, the two worked often together, including on Petty’s fourth album, Hard Promises, which included his first duet, “Insider,” with Nicks. The two also worked on songs like, “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around.”
In 1981, three years after they first met, Stevie Nicks and Tom Petty first performed together on "Insider" off the Heartbreakers' album Hard Promises and the Overlooked Duet Tom Petty Nearly Gave Away to Stevie Nicks
Over the years, Nicks would become a frequent guest at Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers concerts, with Petty often lovingly referring to her as “The Heartbreakers’ little sister”. At one point during the ’80s, Nicks even asked to join The Heartbreakers during an especially tense period in Fleetwood Mac‘s notoriously torrid history, but Petty declined, telling her that there were “no girls in The Heartbreakers”.(Faroutmagazine)
Nicks joined the band for the final time at The Heartbreakers’ 2017 concert in Hyde Park, just three months before Petty’s untimely death in October of that year. “The loss of Tom Petty has just about broken my heart,” Nicks said as she accepted Fleetwood Mac’s 2018 MusiCares Person of the Year award. “He was not only a good man to go own the river with, as Johnny Cash said, he was a great father and he was a great friend, and he was one of my best friends. My heart will never get over this.”
In a revealing interview with Rolling Stone, 69-year-old Nicks recalled performing with Petty and The Heartbreakers in July at London’s Hyde Park before sitting with Shania Twain to watch Petty own the stage.
Nicks recalls her deep friendship with Petty and that day in Hyde Park. "We hadn't played "Stop Draggin'" since MusiCares.
“I just fell in love with his music and his band,” Nicks said in Petty: The Biography. “I would laughingly say to anyone that if I ever got to know Tom Petty and could worm my way into his good graces, if he were ever to ask me to leave Fleetwood Mac and join Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, I’d probably do it — and that was before I even met him!” (UCR)
Petty stuck to a strict "no girls in the band" policy, but he agreed to write a song for her. The result was "Insider," a tender tune that was intended for Nicks to use on her upcoming debut solo album, Bella Donna.
"When I wrote that song, I wrote it very quickly – I mean maybe in 10, 15 minutes," Petty told Melody Maker in 1981. "Aaah ... well, maybe give me another 10 minutes for the tune. I don't know. ... I just wrote it all down on paper and then I just picked up the guitar and tried to sing each line out. It took me maybe an hour to do that. It don't happen every day, fans! But the lyrics were real quick."
Petty could tell right away that it was a strong piece. "I thought it was one of my best songs to that point and I cut it there, just me and my guitar," he said in 2005's Conversations With Tom Petty. Initially, he felt the track was up Nicks' alley, but when it came time for her to begin work on the track, Petty started to get cold feet.
When I (Stevie Nicks) went into the dressing room before the Hyde Park show, it was me, the Heartbreakers, the Webb Sisters [Petty's backing singers on the 2017 tour], some other friends. We stood there and rehearsed it with [drummer] Steve Ferrone beating on the couch, everybody sort of humming their parts. Tom and Mike played guitar. Ron Blair dragged out a bass but didn't play it very loud because it wasn't plugged in. We went through it a couple of times. It was funny – you play a wrong chord, and everybody's eyes go straight up. We didn't know it as well as we thought we did .
It was interesting because Shania Twain had come to see me and to watch Tom. After I came off stage from my set, she came backstage. She was so funny. She said, "I'm going to be greedy right now. I need to watch this show with you." Shania and I watched Tom's show and sang at the top of our lungs. I look back on that and what a magical moment that was: Shania got to stand there with me and watch my boys."
Nicks and Petty’s relationship as friends and collaborators spanned decades. They first met in 1978 and within a few years began working closely together. They created their first duet, “Insider,” in 1981 and, later that year, recorded “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around” for Nicks’ debut solo album, Bella Donna.
