Stevie Nicks will fuck you up—and she made the self defence book on how to
In the early 1980s, at the height of Fleetwood Mac’s velvet-wrapped, cocaine-frosted reign, the band employed a grizzled Australian bodyguard named Bob Jones. This was around the time they were recording Mirage – a tense, transitional record for a band already coming apart at the seams.
Jones wasn’t just a security guy, though. He had big side-hustle dreams, including a water-training contraption called the “swim-a-sizer” and, more significantly, a self-defence manual for women called Hands Off!.
The book was deadly serious, and it opened with a stark warning: “The laws relating to assault permit one to legally defend oneself against attack from another person, using only the minimum amount of necessary force. Use of excessive force may lead to charges against the defender. Some of the techniques in this book may cause serious injury and even death if applied with undue force. No responsibility can be taken by the publishers or author for injuries resulting from the employment of these techniques.”
This wasn’t novelty bookshop material for Jones, though, it was designed as a survival guide. He wrote about rape not as an act, but a continuum of trauma: “The physical act of rape… is merely the beginning,” he noted. “Court proceedings take the form of emotional rape… the degradation of having to tell and retell every detail… has driven many women to the thought and act of suicide.”
“Body scars can be repaired. Asylums are full of mental scars that will never repair”.
Bob Jones
“One day we were over at Stevie’s, and she’d asked how it was coming along,” Jones explained. “She was keen to understand the concept of how I intended to make it a train-at-home-alone manual.
‘What can I do to help?’
‘How about a photo shoot of you and me for the cover?’
Swear to God, I honestly meant this to be a throw-away line.
‘It all sounds fabulous! I’d love to!
‘Great Stevie, I’ll ring your publicist to do a photo shoot here by the pool’.”
And that was that. Nicks followed through on her commitment to do a shoot for Jones’ book. The book came out in 1983, and Nicks was, as promised, on the cover. Amazingly, the singer showed up for the shoot wearing her trademark flowy gowns and the most incredible pair of platform boots, which proves her to be highly skilled in the martial arts indeed.
Jones was floored by her energy and poise, as he explained: “This lady was a professional. In two hours I had a hundred of the most magnificent photos ever offered to the martial arts… On this day of the shoot… Stevie appeared, her hair done to resemble the mane of a lion. She was psyched up for some serious photographing.”
Nicks wore thick-soled, knee-high suede boots – elegant Swedish things paired with high rollover socks that drooped at her knees. “In these kicking-style photographs,” Jones said, “The sun also made her dress partially see-through: just enough to be artistically interesting.”
According to Jones, Nicks’ publicist professed to be astonished that Nicks had agreed to do the shoot, because she had recently fucked up his negotiations with “one of the world’s top monthly magazines” (ahem, Playboy) by turning down an offer of $250,000 for a photo spread. I’m guessing it wasn’t the fact of doing a “photo shoot” that had caused Nicks to object.
So yes, somewhere out there exists a self-defence manual featuring Stevie Nicks about to kick someone’s teeth in while looking like a warlock’s muse on a vengeance mission. It all makes you want to tremble at the very thought of getting your ass kicked by the singer in a dark alley, doesn’t it? She’d probably use witchcraft on you, too.
