Circus Magazine
April 14, 1977

Fleetwood’s Future Is Just Unfolding, Their Potential Barely

It is what it is at the time. Whatever comes out is what Fleetwood Mac is,” says John MeVie, that’s always been the way.”

And, probably, it always will be the way. Fleetwood Mac has traveled the roads of rock and roll a for almost a decade — spanning a musical range from electric blues to soft rock, surviving various personnel changes and a management burn that booked a bogus Fleetwood Mac on tour, and, finally, rising to “success-dom” in midst of some very heavy emotional difficulties last year. Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks joined Fleetwood Mac in 1975 after Bob Welch left the band to form his own group. The Buckingham/Nicks combination seemingly provided a refreshing impetus to Fleetwood Mac’s ongoing longevity. A few short weeks later, Mick Fleetwood, John McVie, Christine McVie, Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks went into the studio to record.

The result was Fleetwood Mac (WB), the album that took the temperately successful Mac and catapulted them to the top of the charts, an album that was still on Billboard’s charts after 90 weeks. But, there’s a paradox in being successful in rock and roll. Once a rock band does meet with success, everytime they pass “GO” on rock’s Monopoly board, they’re attacked by critics for being commercial. “No one ever sits down and says “This seems to be popular, so let’s do this.’ It’s just whatever it is, which is really healthy and which, I think, has a lot to do with the longevity.”

“I think we just had a product,” says Christine, Mac’s keyboardist, of the last album, “that everybody wanted at the time. It was a very versatile album and on stage the band projected a kind of exciting image — a new sort of image that’s never really happened before. I think it was unique to have two women in a band who are not just back-up singers or just singers period. Stevie sings, sure, but she also does other musical-movement type things that are aesthetic. The five characters on stage definitely became five characters as opposed to just a band.” Rumours, their ninth album, proves Fleetwood Mac could meet expectations

The lawsuit over the Clifford Davis creation of a “new” Fleetwood Mac in 1973 without the consent or even the knowledge of the real Fleetwood Mac is still pending with a trial date set sometime this spring. Now, Seedy Management — Mick Fleetwood and John McVie — has taken over and hassles no longer exist. “We thought we knew ourselves better than the rest of them. We understand the vibe and the feeling of the music and the way it should be presented. When you get burned once, you don’t do it again. t’s a very human trip once,  says John, noting that Mick is the more active half. “It may take longer to get things done, but they’re done in a much nicer way.” 

For being a part of rock’s multi-billion dollar conglomerate world, it’s almost ironic that there’s a very uncorporate feel to Fleetwood Mac and their Penguin organisation. The end result of their approach stems from an attitude. “It all kind of fits into a pattern,” says Lindsey. “There’s no calculation happening. There’s a lot of love involved with this band and there’s a lot of energy, talent and creativity. It’s all a family. We’re just doing it and going along as we go and that’s the way the music is and the way the business is run.”

Last year’s tumultuous triumph for Fleetwood Mac opened up their lives on a personal as well as business level; for more than a year the group was, and probably will continue to be, at the mercy of rock’s gossip mongers. The break-ups of couples within the band developed into rumours of the band breaking up; a rumour that had Fleetwood Mac vying in some circles for 1976’s top rumour with the Beatles are-they-going-to-get-back-together-again speculations.

But, Lindsey analyses the emotional traumas last year as a sort of cleansing. “If Stevie and I, and John and Chris had remained as couples, the stability of the band would not have been very good. It was like that was a necessary thing to go through to eliminate all those weird vibes. And, we respect each other a lot more now.”

Says Stevie, “That two hours on stage is beautiful and always was even in the midst of the worst times. And, really, each one of us was way too proud to and way too stubborn to just walk away from it. We like touring. We like making money. And we like being a band. But, it’s like a marriage — you’re married to five people sometimes you’ve just got to have some space.”

Rumours seem to go hand-in-hand with the rise to the top and Stevie, usually singled out and labeled as the group’s sex symbol, seemed to get the brunt end most of the time. For a while it was funny. “Then,” Stevie says, “I really started to angry. I mean I’m having all these relationships with all these guys that I don’t know, that maybe I’ve met once, that I don’t want to know and there’s nothing I can do about it. All of a sudden I’m picking up these papers and I’m the Siren of the North.” In reality, Stevie lives, as do Mick, John, Chris and Lindsey, on the other end of the spectrum. “In the last year,” says Stevie, “I’ve begun to realise what a tremendous power trip rock and roll people are on. I don’t like rock and roll stars. I especially don’t like men rock and roll stars, mainly because they’re just too egoed-out. And, I don’t need it. I’ve gone through it and I didn’t like it and I won’t do it again. I’m really a very quiet lady and I love being at home and so does Chris.”

Christine is spending most of her spare time these days remodelling her Hollywood Hills home and specifically transforming an outside guest room into an art studio loft for her artistic endeavours. “I’m enjoying the success,” she says, “and the freedom it gives me. It’s enabled all of us to realize a few dreams that we just would never thought would happen. But, I think I’ve kept pretty much in perspective. I mean life does not begin and end with Fleetwood Mac. Lately, I’ve been mixing with some people that are not involved with rock and roll, that know nothing about rock and roll and don’t give a shit about rock and roll. That’s been very stimulating to meet people from other walks of life. There’s only so much you can talk about in rock and roll and, sure, I get bored with it. Maybe that isn’t a really wonderful thing to say, but at least it’s realistic.”

John says he enjoys being a musician. But he doesn’t enjoy the name game, “People will ask “What’s it feel like to be a rock and roll star? There’s no rock and roll stars. They’re all dead. Who makes people who play in rock bands non-human? It’s the p.r. people, it’s the managers, and that’s the set goal. But, rock and roll is not the beginning and end of all life. It’s 95 per cent bullshit. I mean rock and roll in the 70s is boring. It’s not happening. In the 60s rock and roll was a change of attitude-a drastic change which I think the Beatles were hugely responsible for, praise the lord. Their influence was just phenomenal. In the history of going out and doing a gig, making money was the furthest thing from most minds.  That’s sort of true now with Fleetwood Mac. Of course we get paid and we play the game. I’m making more money, but then I’m spending more money too.”

Money, as the saying goes, isn’t everything. Stevie reflects on Mac’s fan mail — baby announcements from people who’ve named their daughters Rhiannon (after Stevie’s Welsh witch song) and letters of gratitude for their songs. “That.” says Stevie, “is the sum total of why I write. It’s so wonderful to know that something you wrote made a difference. These things that I say that meant so much to me seem really to mean a lot to other people. And it’s just because it’s real.” 

Stevie remembers seeing Janis Joplin (when a band she and Lindsey were a part of in San Francisco several years ago opened Joplin’s show). from that show saying, “I walked away from that show saying ‘Okay, Stevie, there’s your competition. If you ever, ever do anything good, then you’re going to have to try and at least capture the feeling that she gave out.’ I could never be like Janis and I wouldn’t want to be like her. She was her own, unique self, but I do want to capture the charisma she had. And I think maybe I’ve touched the surface of it and I will continue that is the goal. I want to make films on record. If I say I wish you were mine/I’ll give you up even though I’ll never hold you again’ I want people to go ‘Oh yeah, I know how that feels? That’s really all I want to leave behind. A little bit of a good memory in people’s heads so they don’t just write it off as something that went by.” 

The potential of Fleetwood Mac, says Christine, doesn’t ever stop. “There’s endless things we can do. Lindsey, Stevie and I all write individually, very different styles. Lindsey and I are just learning to write with each other an exciting possibility that would be more of a rock and roll thing. Lindsey and I work very much alike. We’ll fool around with chords first and work out the words later. Stevie’s more of a poet. She’ll write the words first — and it is poetry — and then struggle with the melody later. Fleetwood Mac’s a very organic band and very songy. That’s the way we write. This band will never digress from playing songs.”

And, for some reason, Fleetwood Mac is one of the few bands that can get away with technical breakdowns and mistakes on stage. “I think a lot of people who go to see us,” says Christine, “hope something goes wrong. It’s a bit of a comedy show. There’s no way you can look seriously at Mick grasshoppering around the stage with his African drum. That is not serious. You’ve gotta find that funny or you have no sense of humour at all.”

“It’s possible,” says Lindsey, “we have just scratched the surface as far as potential goes for what these five people could do musically. The strength in this band is in the fact that there’s a lot of talent and sometimes a lot of tension and it all works off of each other.”

“It’s amazing, cause sometimes when we’re on stage,” Stevie contends, “I feel like somebody’s just moving the pieces. Lindsey’ll move back I’ll move forward, Christine will smile. Mick, then John, look over. I’m just going ‘God, we don’t have any control over this. And that’s magic. That is the appeal of this band and that is what will make this band never boring.

If Mick and John can keep our work schedule to a point where Christine and I can live through it — that’s where the crux of the matter lies — then we could tour for years. We’ll never run out of songs. W’ve got libraries of songs. Musically as we do get to know each. other, it can only get better. It’s really a potential forever band.”

Fleetwood Mac is successful. There’s no question of that. “It’ll probably be the most successful band in the world this year, I think,” says John. “It’s a good live band, it’s a good recording band and it’s got charisma. That’s not ego. I hope it isn’t.”

It’s only rock and roll. “And,” says John, “in the scheme of things, rock and roll is so unimportant.”