Word Magazine
December 2004

MUSIC: I listen to Coldplay a lot. I was playing them in the car today here in Hawaii – I’m out here with my wife and my twin daughters. I’ve got a house out here and it’s great. There’s something about the tempo of life that’s timeless and magical: it’s like Ireland with better weather. Coldplay are fantastic driving music. They’re melodic and really creative, they’ve a very strong emotional connection, especially with the vocals, very cleverly done. They’ve obviously done their listening – The Beatles and Pink Floyd by the sound of it – but they’re enough of their own property to sound individual. Everyone has influences, and it’s appropriate to use them. People look to their mentors whether they realise it or not. Marvin Gaye I love – he started off as a session player drummer in fact. If you were a square white guy – which I wasn’t as it happens – you understood Marvin Gaye a lot easier than the Wilson Picketts and Rufus Thomases. If you heard In The Midnight Hour you were either going to instantly get it or it was going to freak you out, but Marvin Gaye transcended a lot of barriers, his whole demeanour, the way he wrote, the elegance, the way he phrases. He covered so many bases. Incredibly handsome and loved this fairly cracked life but a man of style and taste. It was terribly sad when his father shot him. There was a side to him that was very dark. I met him in the 70s after a Radio City show. I want back to his hotel and was amazed to find him surrounded by security guards at this big old
dining-room table counting the money. I was a little taken aback. I don’t know what I rather foolishly expected to find, but in our world this sort of thing didn’t exist! He had this great big attaché case and was counting all the money. About an hour later he came out in his silk dressing-gown, like a prize fighter, and was thoroughly charming. Fleetwood Mac were Continue reading Mick Fleetwood: Word Of Mouth (Dec 2004) →