Mick Fleetwood on Jimmy Page, Bill Clinton, Rod Stewart, Jimi Hendrix and more | Classic Rock

Team Classic Rock
by Henry Yates
23rd Aug 2016

He got the boot from the Bluesbreakers, helped Bill Clinton into office, played the fool with Arnold Schwarzenegger and nursed sore heads with Keef. He’s Fleetwood Mac mainman Mick Fleetwood

Mick Fleetwood (photo from Mark Metcalfe / Getty Images)
Mick Fleetwood (photo: Mark Metcalfe / Getty Images)

No wonder Mick Fleetwood has the best stories – he has the best view. For the best part of 50 years, the six-foot-sixer has looked down on rock’n’roll landscape from his lofty perch on the Fleetwood Mac drum stool, observing the great, the good, the drunk and the doomed – and frequently hopped off to partake in the festivities. Like many of his vintage, Fleetwood has weathered the personal storms of bankruptcy, divorce and cocaine addiction. But he’s emerged with his band, his humour and – critically – his memory intact. Good thing too, as Classic Rock intends to take him back to a time when a fresh-faced Cornish tub thumper arrived in 60s London to cut his teeth on the club circuit…


Rod Stewart

Rod was a star then and he’s a star now. He turned himself out like nobody else. And although I was by no means the dandy that Rod will always be, I’m sure that’s where I inherited my love of a well-cut suit. We were in Shotgun Express together [in 1966], and we soon learnt that Rod was not about to get his clothes messed up unloading the van. He would invariably pick up one microphone: “Is that alright?”

Our feathers had been ruffled a few times, but we were okay with that, because we realised Rod had to be deluxe when he hit that stage. He would put lemon juice in his hair to make it stick up. And if he’d been stood in the rain in the middle of winter we wouldn’t have had ‘the star’ looking good on stage. He wasn’t just some old gigster, he was always suited to being a star.

Peter Green

This is a confession from someone who is the biggest advocate of Peter Green’s playing. In 1966 Peter auditioned for Peter B’s Looners, the band I was in with Peter Bardens and Dave Ambrose. He walked in with big sideburns down his cheeks, plugged in his Les Paul and started playing. After he’d left, like an idiot I said: “Well, he doesn’t play very much.” Luckily my opinion didn’t count for much. Peter Bardens said: “Mick, you’re so wrong. This is going to be one of the greatest guitar players to come out of England.” And within days, I just couldn’t believe how I’d missed the point. It was his tone. I’d never heard anything like it. He was the master of less-is-more. Continue reading Mick Fleetwood on Jimmy Page, Bill Clinton, Rod Stewart, Jimi Hendrix and more | Classic Rock

Fleetwood Mac hope for album, 2-year world tour | Team Classic Rock

Team Classic Rock
by Martin Kiely
August 4th, 2016

Mick Fleetwood says there’s another album and world tour in store for Fleetwood Mac – if Stevie Nicks will commit

5cc5c7f0-4bde-4793-9da0-acff6d60c849
Mick Fleetwood says Fleetwood Mac have another album and a tour in them – if Stevie Nicks will commit to both projects.

If it goes ahead, the record would be their first since 2003’s Say You Will, and the first since the return of Christine McVie to the band in 2013.

But while the road trip seems likely to happen in some form next year, recording plans are less certain.

Fleetwood tells Rolling Stone: “We’re all dedicated to getting together about a year or so from now and doing another two years of touring all over the world, probably.

“And we also have a huge amount of recorded music. A huge amount. None of it’s with Stevie, or very little. Some of it’s very, very old stuff that Lindsey Buckingham maybe did with her years and years ago. We’re not quite sure what will happen with it.”

He adds: “Doing this band is a huge investment. We’re only off the road for less than a year, and when you add in the time it takes to put a tour together, do rehearsals, get it up and running, the whole thing, it’s three years that you don’t do anything else.

“Stevie has her own life and career and I think she just doesn’t want to spend the time right now. We’re quietly saddened about that but also I sort of understand.” Continue reading Fleetwood Mac hope for album, 2-year world tour | Team Classic Rock

Mick Fleetwood Talks Maui Gallery, Fleetwood Mac’s Future | Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone Magazine
By Richard Bienstock
August 3rd, 2016

“There really are dozens of songs,” drummer says of possible new studio album from ‘Rumours’ lineup

rs-mick-01-20cc0845-a570-4b90-8104-252b2e8e6299

“People always say that corny thing: ‘Every picture tells a story,'” says Mick Fleetwood. “Well, they truly do! That’s what I love about them.” The 69-year-old Fleetwood, it should be noted, is certainly a fan of a good story. During a recent evening at Fleetwood’s on Front St., his restaurant and bar situated on the west Maui shoreline, the drummer regales Rolling Stone with an array of tales, from a dinner party with Willie Nelson at the island home of “supermensch” manager and agent Shep Gordon, to accompanying his daughters to a Justin Bieber concert (“He’s got some drum chops that I don’t have – a total shredder”) to a long-ago post-gig blowout in Honolulu that ended with Fleetwood, his mother and former Mac producer Richard Dashut covered in a whole lot of cake frosting – the aftermath of which is captured in a snapshot of a young Mick and mum drenched in buttercream that is hanging on a nearby wall.

Regarding his interest in photos, Fleetwood is here to discuss his newest endeavor, a partnership with the Morrison Hotel Gallery that has brought an outpost of the New York–based rock photography showroom to Maui. The new space, which opened in late June with a showing from acclaimed lens man Henry Diltz, is housed below the restaurant and adjacent to Fleetwood’s General Store (where one can purchase plenty of signed Mac memorabilia, among other items). “It makes sense to me to have it here,” Fleetwood says of the gallery. “Because it’s so connected to where I come from. Morrison Hotel is all about music.” Continue reading Mick Fleetwood Talks Maui Gallery, Fleetwood Mac’s Future | Rolling Stone