‘We were never too stoned to play’ Fleetwood Mac: the comeback interview
The Mac are back, with live shows, songs and a re-release. Will Hodgkinson meets Mick Fleetwood and Christine McVie
The Times
It is 36 years since Rumours, the soft-rock masterpiece by Fleetwood Mac, became the soundtrack to separation. Songs such as Go Your Own Way, The Chain and You Make Loving Fun articulated the new rules of relationships for the baby boom generation, capturing the reality of affairs, tensions, betrayals and break-ups and selling more than 40 million copies in the process. For much of the 1980s, arguing over who got the copy of Rumours was as much a part of divorce as lawyer’s fees and pretending to like each other in front of the
Rumours hit a nerve because it came from a place of truth. Fleetwood Mac’s keyboardist Christine McVie was divorcing its bassist John McVie. The singer Stevie Nicks was splitting with her childhood sweetheart, the band’s guitarist Lindsey Buckingham. Stuck somewhere in the middle was the drummer Mick Fleetwood, who was recently divorced from his wife. Everyone dealt with the situation in the only way rock stars in the 1970s knew how: by taking huge amounts of cocaine.
It should have ended there, but as Fleetwood says, “Rumours is the thing that would not go away.” While the album has just gone back into the Top Three, four of the band members are putting aside the pain of the past and, in one of the biggest break up and make up stories of all time, getting ready to go out on the road again for a world tour. Only Christine McVie, who left the band in 1998, is staying away. She’s been leading a reclusive, distinctly non-rock’n’roll life in a Kent farmhouse ever since, having no involvement with Fleetwood Mac and never giving interviews — until now.
Read the full interview/article at FleetwoodMac-UK
Looks like any dreams of Chris working with the band in the future have just been officially ended.
ReplyDeleteNot a surprise, but disappointing.
"“No, no, no,” says Mick Fleetwood, the band’s genial, pony-tailed giant of a drummer, when I ask him if McVie will actually return to complete Rumour’s two-warring-couples dynamic that, in Buckingham’s words, “brought out the voyeur in everyone”. “We love her, we miss her, but no. She’s left. Still, she’s a huge part of our story and I certainly hope that when we tour in September and October she makes one little excursion to a gig.”"
I wish more Christine would have been in this interview. We have plenty of FM interviews to fall back on within the last two weeks. Their press machine is kicking in really hard now - before rehearsals begin next week.
ReplyDeleteI wish he would have asked Chris point-blank: "Okay, okay. If you don't want to tour, can we at least have ONE more Fleetwood Mac album with you on it?"
Perhaps Mick and Chris were interviewed separately, maybe this interview was taken before Mick's had a chance to start campaigning to get her back (as he's been saying he plans to). It's early days, and she still has some time left in the States for Mick, John and Stevie to have a word with her.
ReplyDeleteIt's her first time back in the US since 1998, so this visit alone is big. Hopefully it's a baby step towards something big.
I'm sure Christine doesn't need the $$$ but let's face it, FM is a HUGE money machine and all the members get HUGE payouts for just one show on a tour.
ReplyDelete^^keep in mind that California, in an effort to not become the sinkhole that it already is, just raised the state incomes taxes for our favorite people's bracket to 13.3%--an all time high. Linds and Stevie will be forking over roughly 60-63% of their paycheck to big brother and Cali. Hawaii, is right behind CA in terms of high taxes so Mick and John will fair only a little better.
ReplyDeleteNot to mention each show has to be insured, setup, broken down, and transpo'd to the next state.
How does 13.3% equal 60% of a paycheck? Doesn't it equal 13.3%?
ReplyDelete