Gentleman Reg has created a touching tribute to Stevie Nicks by covering not just her song “Wild Heart,” but recreating an intimate backstage moment captured during a 1983 Rolling Stone photo shoot that took YouTube by storm last year (we posted it last February).
This video cover of “Wild Heart” is extremely faithful to the original Stevie Nicks YouTube video, down to singer Reg Vermue’s facial expressions and shy giggles in between phrases. !! omg blog !! is thrilled to be premiering it on the Internet, as we are confident that Reg shares Stevie’s ability to capture hearts over the YouTubes.
Here is what Reg had to say about the process and motivation for creating this video:
“The [original Stevie Nicks] YouTube clip was shown to me by my musician friend Jim Guthrie. And it was shown with this kind of ‘you HAVE to see this’ sort of enthusiasm. There’s something about it being spontaneous and totally live that just makes it easy to connect with. It has a singing in the shower privateness to it. You almost never get that kind of a glimpse into any celebrity’s life, and especially not one like her. She’s so in her element here. Needless to say, the [Stevie Nicks] album version of the song is completely different, way over produced, has way too many lyrics, and really makes me feel nothing.
So i came up with an interpretation of the song based on this clip and we’d been playing it in our live show over the last year, and people seemed to like it so we recorded it and put it on our e.p. that came out in December. And then in February we just had some time, and thought, let’s take it a step further and cover the actual clip.”
You can find Gentleman Reg’s recording of “Wild Heart” on their Heavy Head E.P., available for purchase on iTunes.
See the original inspiration: Watch the full Stevie Nicks clip here.
Whenever I hear about Stevie Nicks I have to relate a story that shows her true colors to be nothing more than Hollywood trash. I was working at a veterinary hospital in Sherman Oaks, CA during the 90’s and she came in one late night after hours. She was working late at night at a recording studio and her little dog (now the dog was cute…which turned out to be perfectly fine, by the way) accidentally got caught in a closing door. She wreaked of alcohol and acted like she was coke’d up as well. She was obviously impared, having to be helped out of her long white limo. Long story short, she said she didnt have any cash on her and just to send her the bill. Not only would she pay it, but she’d send us an signed copy of the album she was working on. Well multiple letters were sent, multiple calls were ignored and I finally gave up. The $60.00 emergency fee was not worth going through small claims court. To this day, however I never miss the opportunity to let people know about the real Stevie Nicks. I’ve had quite a few experiences like that while growing up in Hollywood. You cant hear a few nice chord progressions and come to the conclusion that a person is “classy” You still owe me $60.00 you old piece of dried up Hollywood leather!
Also, who wouldn’t kill to sing backup? I’m done now.
That was fifteen kinds of glorious.
That is terrific! I hadn’t seen the original video, which I just watched in a state of breathless ecstasy. And this video is equally amazing! I even bought the EP.
actually it was completely fucking fantastic!
That was terrible.