Fleetwood Mac Rocks On

The legendary band talks to USA Weekend about Christine McVie's surprise return and their new tour.

 

USA Today (Sept 26-28)

 

 

Fall's hottest tour: Classic Mac is back!

Christine McVie's return sets the stage for fall's hottest tour

Edna Gundersen

USA WEEKEND

 

"I feel like a lemming going over the cliff with the parachute not quite open," Christine McVie says about her surprise return to Fleetwood Mac after a 15-year absence.

 

With the fan-favorite singer and keyboardist back on board, the storied band's classic lineup is together once more and will be able to unpack its full range of hits when the On With The Show tour kicks off Tuesday in Minneapolis. It's the first tour by this stellar cast since 1997.

 

Despite her initial trepidation, "it was the right decision," says McVie, 71. "The feedback from the public is thrilling. I'm looking forward to the camaraderie, the audience, the noise. I'm not looking forward to the packing and unpacking."
 

Although McVie and singer/guitarist Lindsey Buckingham have written and recorded new songs, Fleetwood Mac is taking to the road without a new album.

 

"The validity of the tour comes from the fact that Christine is back and we're revisiting the full body of work from the three writers (McVie, Buckingham, Stevie Nicks) in a way we haven't done for many years," says Buckingham, 64. "The only song of hers we did without her (on past tours) was Don't Stop, as an encore. For this tour, 90% of the set list is a no-brainer.

 

In August, the band — including bassist John McVie, Christine's ex-husband, who had been battling cancer — convened in Los Angeles to rehearse and cherry-pick its fat catalog for a career-spanning set list. Fans can expect a few rarities and surprises atop a bedrock of 10 or 11 landmarks, including Rhiannon, The Chain, Go Your Own Way, Big Love, Stand Back and McVie's Say You Love Me, Little Lies and Hold Me.

 

Fleetwood Mac certainly didn't suffer without McVie: The band ranked 10th in Billboard's tally of music moneymakers last year with earnings of $19.1 million. "We spent 15 years making Fleetwood Mac relevant without her," Nicks says. "But with her, we were a force of nature."

 

Nicks recalls her reaction last year when she heard from Christine McVie while vacationing at a monastery on Italy's Amalfi coast: "I get a call from Chris, saying, 'How would you feel if I decided to come back to the band?' I'm like, 'Seriously? Have you just downed a bottle of wine?'

 

"When she left in 1998, she said, 'I don't want this. I don't want to fly anymore. I'm having panic attacks. I'm too old. I'm too tired. I am done.' I knew there was no way we could change her mind. As the years went by, when people asked me about her, I said the world would fly off its orbit before Chris would rejoin the band."

 

"It's been quite profound and painless," McVie says of her return to the fold. "I left to go chill in the English countryside. I realized it was not what I wanted in the end. It was boring. This is where I belong. I'm starting to live again."

Fleetwood Mac welcome Christine McVie back in the fold, and plan a British return.

"It's all about you, Chris," says Stevie Nicks...
by Piers Martin
Uncut Magazine - November, 2014

The newly reformed 1970s blockbuster lineup of Fleetwood Mac starring Christine McVie will head to the UK for shows early next summer, singer Stevie Nicks tells Uncut, and their first ever Glastonbury is not being ruled out. "Chris is excited to come back to London. It'll be soon, probably May," says Nicks, as a rejuvenated Mac prepare to head out on their first US tour with the classic Rumours lineup since October 31, 1982, when the troubled five-piece played the final show of their Mirage tour. "Glastonbury? You never know. You have to weave festivals in [to the tour]. It's being discussed."

McVie, who quite the group in 1998, joined her former bandmates onstage for an emotional encore of "Don't Stop" during their shows in London last September and became an official member again in January when the new tour, dubbed On With The Show, was announced. "The second people saw she was coming back, the tickets just sold," says Nicks, "and I tell her: 'It's a good thing you're in really great shape and you're happy about this, because it is all about you.' It's fun to see it through her eyes, her being gone for so long, because she's so excited."

With the band not getting any younger, Nicks admits McVie's return has plenty of benefits. "It's less work when it comes down to it as Lindsey [Buckingham] and I don't have to sing 50/50. Now we do a third each so it's less singing and a little less physically difficult, so that's nice. Her music is very different too, so it adds to everything."

McVie, who at 71 is the oldest member, brings eight songs to the new set including "Say You Love Me", "Little Lies" and "Everywhere", which haven't been played in concert since the Mac's one-off live special, The Dance, in '97. Christine may have been gone for 16 years but she sure didn't forget anything," says Nicks of the band's seven weeks of rehearsals which began in LA at the start of August. "I look over at her and she looks exactly the same as she did when she left. And when she counts in the songs, she goes: 'A-one, a-two, a-three' in her English accents and she sounds exactly the same! It's been a lot of fun as she has a raucously funny sense of humour that my serious singing partner and I don't have. And then the other two English people in the band pick up the gauntlet and the whole thing becomes much more easygoing."

Earlier this year Buckingham confirmed McVie had been involved in sessions in LA for a new Mac album - song titles include "Red Sun" and "Carnival Begin" - which Nicks missed partly due to solo commitments in Nashville where she recorded her latest LP, 24 Karat Gold - Songs From The Vault. "I don't know what Chris has written but she's an amazing writer and she's probably got 16 years of pent-up poetry," says Nicks.

"That's probably why she started to think: 'Why the hell am I out here in this castle, 40 miles outside of London, gardening and cooking? I'm a rock star.' So I think she just got up one day and thought: 'This is crazy - I'm going back to work.'

"I'm just glad she's back," Nicks adds. "I've missed her very much."

Fleetwood Mac's North America tour begins in Minneapolis, MN September 30th and runs through December 20th. Tickets at Ticketmaster

Stevie Nicks immerses herself in her past, gathering 16 of her long-lost songs together like errant children

Stevie Nicks
24 Karat Gold - Songs From The Vault
Fleetwood Mac star heads to Nashville, chasing the songs that nearly got away.
by Piers Martin (Uncut Magazine, November, 2014)
Rating: 7/10

As if Stevie Nicks hasn't done enough soul-searching during her 40 years in one of the world's biggest bands... On her eighth solo album, Nicks immerses herself in her past, gathering 16 of her long-lost songs together like errant children and dressing them in traditional costume - the billowing robes and gypsy shawl - before sending them out, fully Nicksed, into the world.

24 Karat Gold - Songs From The Vault finds the 66-year old getting her memories in order with the help of longtime associates Waddy Wachtel (he first played with her on 1973's Buckingham Nicks) and Dave Stewart, producer of Nicks' last solo set, 2011's In Your Dreams, and a band of hired hands in Nashville who knocked out new versions of Nicks' old songs in 15 days last May.  In Your Dreams, somewhat tarnished by Dave Stewart's sweet tooth, took 14 months.  Fleetwood Mac records take far longer.

The songs in question stem from demos Nicks wrote at various stages in her career between 1969 and 1995, intended for her solo or Fleetwood Mac albums. One ballad, the bonus track "Twisted", written in 1995 with Lindsey Buckingham for the film Twister, she felt deserved a wider audience. "When songs go into movies you might as well dump them out the window as you're driving by because they never get heard," she tells Uncut.

Many of these songs will be familiar to Mac devotees, having appeared online and on bootlegs or boxsets in one form or another.  Indeed, Nicks' main incentive for the project was to record definitive versions of those unauthorized tracks floating around online that her assistant had drawn to her attention.  Nicks hates computers and was once so worried about internet piracy that she didn't release a solo record between 2001 and 2011, so this principled stance represents some sort of progress; if you can't beat'em, join'em. "Just because I think computers are ruining the world, I can't expect everyone to be on my wavelength," she reasons. But to most, 24 Karat Gold is effectively a brand new album, albeit one that one occasion has the luxury of revelling in the twists and turns of a vintage Nicks number like "Lady", formerly a fragile piano demo from the mid-'70's called "Knocking On Doors" that's now a footstep away from "Landslide".

With these demos newly upholstered as mid-tempo soft-rock ballands by a solid Nashville outfit, it's tempting to view the collection as an alternative look at Nicks' life in music, each song offering a slightly different take on key moments in her colourful career.  Nicks, too, her live-in voice stained with experience, seems to relish the chance to reacquaint herself through her lyrics with the girl she once was. The earliest cut here, a corny speakeasy pastiche called "Cathouse Blue", was written by a 22-year old Nicks in 1969 before she and Buckingham, who played on the original, moved to Los Angeles. By "The Dealer", a mustky Tusk-era tumble, she's already worldweary: "I was the mistress of my fate, I was the card shark / If I'd've looked a little ahead, I would've run away", runs the chorus.

On Bella Donna cast-offs "Belle Fleur" and "If You Were My Love", Elton John guitarist Davey Johnstone reprises his original role and plays on these new versions. Her trusted foil, Mike Campbell of the Heartbreakers, rolls up his sleeves for AOR james "Starshine" and "I Don't Care", trakcs he just about remembers writing with Nicks in the early 80's. "Mabel Normand", a moving parable based on the tragic life of the 1920s silent movie star, came to Nicks when she herself was dancing with the devil in 1985. Following the death of her godson from an accidental overdose in 2012, the song has a more profound resonance today.

As befits a compilation of songs that weren't up to scratch first time around, 24 Karat Gold contains a few tinpost tracks that even the Nashville boys couldn't fix. Most, too, spill over the five-minute mark. but as fresh testament from one of Rock's great survivors, it makes for a facinating listen.

24 Karat Gold - Songs From The Vault will be released October 6th in the UK.

Q&A STEVIE NICKS

How did you end up recording in Nashville?

The last album I did was with Dave Stewart in my house and we let it take a year because we were having so much fun. So I called him and said, "Dave, I know we spent a year doing In Your Dreams, but how can we do a record in two months?" And he said, "Go to Nashville. Those guys are on the clock." So you go to Nashville and hire six or seven of the best players in the workd and give them your 16 demos and they give you 15 days. You do two songs a day, which is unheard of in the way that we record, usually, but they are union people so they get there at nine in the morning.

How did "Hard Advice" come about?

Hard Advice" was a lecture Tom Petty gave me on his way through PHoenix one night. I was having a littel problematic moment in my life and he gave me one of his seriously hard advice lectures. He looked at me straight in the eyes with those big clear blue eyes and said, "This pain's gone on too long. Go home, light up your incense and your candles and go to your Bosendorer and write some real songs."

This could be an alternative greatest hits.

Or a greatest hits that never came out. Somebody said at one point, "If you took the last line out of this chorus it would be so much more of a hit record," and I just flat out said in front of the record company and everybody else: "I'm not trying to make a hit record here, I"m trying to make a great record." Hit records don't even sell anymore, anyway. Records don't sell anymore.

Sleeve Notes
Recorded at:
Blackbird, Nashville; Rock A Little Studio; Weapons Of Mass Entertainment Studio; Village Recorder, LA

Produced by: 
Dave Stewart, Waddy Wachtel, Stevie Nicks

Personnel: 
Stevie Nicks (Vocals), Dave Stewart (Guitar), Waddy Wachtel (Guitar, bk vocals), Mike Campbell, Davey Johnstone (Guitar) Ann Marie Calhoun (Violin), Sharon Celani, Lori Nicks (bk vocals) Tom Bukovac (Guitar), Michael Rhodes (bass), Dan Dugmore (Banjo), Chad Cromwell (Drums), Benmont Tench (Keyboard), Lenny Castro (Percussion).

Mick Fleetwood "he's led rock's most volatile band through drug binges, bankruptcies, affairs, and feuds"

Fleetwood Mac's Mad Hatter

By Stephen Rodrick  Oct, 2014

For 50 years, he's led rock's most volatile band through drug binges, bankruptcies, affairs, and feuds – and he's still having the time of his life.

Lengthy article/interview.  Check it out at Men's Journal

Stevie Nicks Sets Free "24 Karat Gold"... [Official Lyric Video]

Man... with each song released, it just keeps getting better and better.  Check out the title track from Stevie's new album "24 Karat Gold" at Parade.com (or below). It's pretty much everything!

Stevie Nicks - 24 Karat Gold [Official Lyric Video]  

STEVIE NICKS "24 KARAT GOLD - SONGS FROM THE VAULT"

Pre-Order from Stevienicksofficial.com Available October 7th.

New Danny Clinch Coffee Table Book Includes Stevie Nicks

Danny Clinch to release a new coffee table book titled "Danny Clinch: Still Moving.  The book
features the artists he's photographed and the stories behind them:

Stevie Nicks:

"Well, look, everybody loves Stevie Nicks [laughs]. It would be hard to find somebody who doesn’t. The way I had the opportunity to photograph her was pretty amazing. I work with the Foo Fighters a lot and Dave Grohl had done that Sound City documentary [with her], and they were doing some press for that. I got the opportunity to photograph the two of them. And so while we were there I asked if I could do some individual portraits of her as well. We were just trying to keep it really simple. I was shooting for a cover of a magazine so I wanted to make it really about her. And I’ve seen a lot of photographs of her where she’s very theatrical, which is fun: It’s fun to be theatrical and it’s fun to photograph someone who presents themselves that way. This was just an opportunity to be looking more inward instead of being theatrical. There’s something more sort of inward and soft [about the picture]. She’s still just really beautiful and has a great sense of style. What I do recall about that is how thrilled she was when she saw the photographs, as I was shooting the Polaroids as well as shooting digitally. It made me feel good that she was really digging them. And that actually turned into me getting to photograph all of Fleetwood Mac. A couple months later I got a call saying, 'Hey, you want to shoot Fleetwood Mac? Christine McVie is coming back in the band and I have the whole original band.'"

Pre-order via Amazon

Source

STEVIE NICKS "24 KARAT GOLD - SONGS FROM THE VAULT"

Pre-Order from Stevienicksofficial.com Available October 7th.