"What happened is that it was absolutely discussed and [Sheryl] absolutely was invited to join the band. The reason was I wanted another woman in the band, because I missed Christine so bad that it was just really hard for me to be in the boys club. What happened was, really... everybody thinks it was just because Sheryl got really excited and told the world about it a little bit too early. That wasn't what it was. I started explaining to Sheryl what it was going to be like to be in this band. It's all-encompassing, and for somebody with a new baby...for a woman in her forties with a new baby, and as loving and as nurturing as Sheryl Crow is... if you know her, you know that she just is a caretaker. We had a conversation at the beginning of this year. I said, 'I rented a studio,' and it was around Mother's Day. 'You need to come in and we need to play music for two days, because we should. It's not an audition for us, it's not an audition for you, it's just us to play music. We'll set it all up and we'll be on a stage and have great monitors, and all your pianos and everything will be set up. We're just going to rock for two days, go out to dinner and hang out. We need to do that.'

She had all these really important plans, because it was her first Mother’s Day, and she was also on the road, so she had to escape out of that for three days. I said, 'You have to do it, you have to come.' That was on a Thursday. She said to me, 'Are you trying to talk me out of this by telling me how difficult this is going to be for me?' I said, 'I'm not. I'm just being truthful with you. Imagine this, when we went on the Say You Will tour,  we thought it was forty shows. It was 135 shows. Nobody knew that, but that’s what it was. And that was for an unhappy tour.'

'So it is kind of like joining the army. Personally, it's going to be very hard for you. I'm not trying to talk you out of it, I'm just trying to let you know what it is.' So she said, 'Okay, I'm going to think about it,' and she called us back two days later. We were in the car, on speaker, and she said, 'I think I'm going to have to pass.'

I said, 'Honey, as Stevie, your friend,' who spent three solid years with her working on Trouble in Shangri-La in ’98, ’99, and 2000, I said, 'I think you're making the right decision. As Stevie Nicks, I'm disappointed. But as your friend, I think this is the right decision.'

Sheryl Crow passed on Fleetwood Mac, and I want that out there, because people seem to be getting different stories about this. That’s what happened."

There you have it!!!