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FLEETWOOD MAC<\/b><\/h1>\nFLEETWOOD MAC<\/b><\/h1>\nThese days the road has never been smoother for the Hall of Fame rockers \u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n
Fleetwood Mac has been\u00a0virtually synonymous with two things\u2014classic songs and internal drama. Both aspects were epitomized on the group\u2019s 1977 multiplatinum album Rumours<\/i>, but only recently has their legendary volatility\u00a0been stripped away.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you go back to 2003, when we were coming off the making of Say You Will<\/i>, there was still a bit of tension between Stevie and me,\u201d says Lindsey Buckingham of his Fleetwood Mac foil, singer-songwriter Stevie Nicks. \u201cThat polarity worked onstage and made for an interesting show. By 2009 when we toured again that tension had sort of been neutralized. Now it\u2019s swung completely the other way\u2014we\u2019re getting along great.\u201d<\/p>\n
That camaraderie has been playing out to perfection on tour and in the studio. Prior to hitting the road, Buckingham, Nicks, Mick Fleetwood and John McVie (Christine McVie left the band in 1998) cut eight songs with producer Mitchell Froom. Four of those tunes\u2014three by Buckingham, one by Nicks\u2014were compiled onto an EP titled\u00a0Extended Play<\/i>. \u201cI thought it would be great to cut some new stuff,\u201d says Buckingham. \u201cIt was a great experience.\u201d<\/p>\n
Meanwhile Fleetwood Mac\u2019s shows are drawing more fans than at any time since the early 1980s. \u201cI take that as evidence people not only have a renewed appreciation of what we\u2019ve done,\u201d says Buckingham, \u201cbut also that they\u2019re fully accepting of the band in its present incarnation.\u201d In a candid conversation, Buckingham delves into the band\u2019s inner dynamic and the future of Fleetwood Mac.<\/p>\n
How did you write for the EP?<\/b><\/p>\n
The way I write for the band has cross-pollinated with how I write as a solo artist. With solo work you could make an analogy to painting, where you\u2019re sitting one-on-one with a canvas. Writing for the band, especially in the old days, was more like moviemaking\u2014you bring in a song the same way you have a script before you start rolling cameras. Over the years those two ways of working have entered the same arena for me. What defines a song as a Fleetwood Mac song isn\u2019t so much the song as it is simply having John and Mick on it. They put a stamp on the song that\u2019s quite individual and distinctive.<\/p>\n
And Stevie?<\/b><\/p>\n
Stevie writes lyrics and then puts them away. Later she\u2019ll pull them out and begin trying to attach melodies. It\u2019s a slightly less free-associative thing compared to the way I do it. What makes the whole thing work is that her process and her style don\u2019t necessarily fit with mine. You could make that case about Fleetwood Mac. The members don\u2019t necessarily belong together\u2014but it\u2019s the synergy of these things that makes it work.<\/p>\n
Why bring in an outside producer?<\/b><\/p>\n
I produced Say You Will<\/i>, and it created a certain tension with Stevie. Her perception of that album was fairly negative, and she wasn\u2019t happy with me when we got to the end of that process. I didn\u2019t want to put myself in that position again. I wanted someone with the ability to mediate the situation.<\/p>\n
What\u2019s touring like now?<\/b><\/p>\n
It\u2019s great. We take these breaks, and everyone\u2019s individual lives wind their way down the road, and when we come back together the equation is slightly different every time. When you\u2019ve been doing this for a while, the perception from the audience shifts a bit. Both those things have changed for the better on this tour. It\u2019s sort of a lovefest onstage now. Plus, in the past three years, the crowd\u2019s appreciation of the body of work seems to have ramped up. And the audiences are skewing younger.<\/p>\n
What\u2019s changed without Christine?<\/b><\/p>\n
The way things evolved when we got with Mitchell Froom wasn\u2019t significantly different from when Christine was there. When Christine left, what it did for me, ironically, was allow me to be more of who I am, which is kinetic and connected to the physical and emotional side of what I\u2019m doing onstage. When Christine left, suddenly we were dividing the material more or less down the middle. That gave me the impetus to explore things\u2014guitar pieces and so forth. Having two writers has allowed me to grow a lot within the context of Fleetwood Mac.<\/p>\n
Any lessons learned over the years?<\/b><\/p>\n
There was a point at which the success of Rumours<\/i> became not about the music, but about success itself. At that point you\u2019re not only functioning in something like a tabloid world, you\u2019re functioning in an area that has a danger of eating you up and encouraging you to lose the sense of who you are and why you\u2019re doing what you\u2019re doing. There\u2019s an axiom in the business that more or less says, \u201cIf something works, run it into the ground and then move on.\u201d But what we did in the post-Rumours<\/i> environment was to make the Tusk<\/i> album. That was my brainchild\u2014I\u2019ll take the credit or the blame. That album confounded everyone\u2019s expectations, but it also represented a choice toward risk-taking, a choice to take the high road in terms of why you\u2019re doing something.<\/p>\n
Is a full-length album expected soon?<\/b><\/p>\n
The way we do things in Fleetwood Mac is always a political minefield. If it\u2019s not Stevie, it\u2019s me\u2014someone is always causing trouble. [laughs<\/i>] I know Warner Brothers is dying to get an album from us, even though we\u2019re not signed to them anymore. Stevie needs to come to the table with some material. She has one song on the EP, but it\u2019s not a new song. In order to contemplate a new album, Stevie has to want to do it. We\u2019ve talked about it in general terms and decided we would just go out on the road and do this. When this year is done, we\u2019ll have to figure out our 2014.<\/p>\n
Does Stevie have reservations?<\/b><\/p>\n
It\u2019s a little complicated for her. She\u2019s coming off the project with Dave Stewart a couple of years ago. She had a wonderful experience making that album. She watched me take three years off to do Under the Skin<\/i> and\u00a0Gift of Screws<\/i>, and she\u2019s seen how that helped me grow. Plus, she doesn\u2019t just toss songs off the way I do. She hasn\u2019t said this\u2014this is just me\u2014but knowing Stevie, she\u2019s probably thinking, \u201cIf I have to write five new songs, do I want to give them to Fleetwood Mac?\u201d And that\u2019s fair enough. I think she\u2019s feeling a bit protective and territorial about the experience she had doing her solo project. And I can totally relate to that. But at some point we have to be a band and we have to make commitments. I think the key with Stevie is not to push her too much. She doesn\u2019t want to feel she\u2019s backed into a corner.<\/p>\n
Are you optimistic about the band?<\/b><\/p>\n
Absolutely. I don\u2019t know how you could not<\/i> be, when you look at the business we\u2019re doing, the reception we\u2019re getting, and how well we\u2019re playing. There seems to be something afoot that\u2019s quite remarkable this time around. It would be a shame not to play that out. There are a lot of things we could do next year\u2014an album or more touring. This band has a great history. It\u2019s worth dignifying.<\/p>\n
\u2013Russell Hall<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
FLEETWOOD MAC These days the road has never been smoother for the Hall of Fame rockers \u00a0 Fleetwood Mac has been\u00a0virtually synonymous with two things\u2014classic songs and internal drama. Both aspects were epitomized on the group\u2019s 1977 multiplatinum album Rumours, but only recently has their legendary volatility\u00a0been stripped away. \u201cIf you go back to 2003, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[23,7],"tags":[5261,7093,5263],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11032"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11032"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11032\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11104,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11032\/revisions\/11104"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11032"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11032"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11032"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}