By Max Bell
Classic Rock
April 2013
On the eve of Fleetwood Mac’s UK tour to celebrate the 35th anniversary of their astonishing 40-million-selling album Rumours, we catch up with drummer Mick Fleetwood to find out how the band survived drink, drugs and affairs to record it. “We were all fucked up,” he says.
First impressions of Mick Fleetwood are usually something like (to paraphrase the Harry Nilsson song): “Jesus Christ, you’re tall.” Fleetwood doesn’t so much inhabit his swanky Berkeley Hotel suite as loom across the available space. From head toe, he’s immaculately groomed: the silver hair, the Maui suntan, the crisp striped shirt and hand-stitched brown brogues are evidence of his post-psychedelic dandyism. His socks are box fresh and match his scarf. His trademark headwear — today it’s a burnt orange cap — lies on the table underneath a CD copy of his band Fleetwood Mac’s reissued Rumours — the elephant in the room. His ponytail, a reminder of longer-haired days, is constantly teased, as are the opulent Native American bangles on his wrists. He offers water. “Usually I’d have got through half a bottle of good wine by now, but since we’re about to go on tour I’m trying to stay fit.”
Mick Fleetwood has been an American citizen since 2006. He’s lived in California and Hawaii for 40 years, and understandably speaks with a transatlantic accent. Pleasingly, there’s a detectable trace of West Country burr. He was born in Cornwall in 1947 and educated at a public school in Gloucestershire, at one of those institutions where six-of-the-best corporal punishment was the norm — the bat and the cane. No wonder he became a drummer — taken out on those tom-toms.
Suggestions of a whistle-stop tour his life are met with: “Go ahead. I’ll talk about anything. As long as I can get through the jet-lag.”
Does he still see the old gang?
“Peter Green? Once in a while I’ll ring him. I may do once you’ve left. He doesn’t know it and won’t be expecting it.” Continue reading Tall Stories I Classic Rock Magazine I Apr 2013
Photo: PA
The 35th anniversary reissue of ‘Rumours’ recently hit the shelves and Fleetwood Mac are back to take it on the road. But before that Eve Barlow paid rock goddess Stevie Nicks a visit in Malibu to recall its making
But for all their success, away from the music their lives were a mess. All five were going through painful break-ups – mostly with each other.
Fleetwood Mac – from left, John McVie, Christine McVie, Mick Fleetwood, Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks – at the time of Rumours
Fleetwood Mac are to play live shows in the UK in the autumn, Mick Fleetwood has confirmed.
It was long rumoured that Fleetwood Mac would perform at this year’s Glastonbury Festival. However, the booking of a number of US dates on the same weekend in June appears to rule that possibility out.
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