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Never break the chainIt’s no rumour—Fleetwood Mac are back
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It’s not often you get a chance to talk to a legend, and the rather lanky sticks man behind Fleetwood Mac, Rock ’n’ Roll Hall of Famer Mick Fleetwood, is indeed a card-carrying member in the legendary set, having cut his teeth during the British blues explosion of the mid-’60s with John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers and then of course recording one of the biggest selling records of all time in 1977, Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours. Now in his sixties, Fleetwood is feeling a little bit nostalgic these days, having managed to get Fleetwood Mac’s most famous line-up back on the road (well, almost—keyboardist Christine McVie chose to tend to her garden instead). Fleetwood’s on the cusp of seeing the Rumours deluxe edition re-released, and releasing the Mick Fleetwood Blues Band’s Blue Again!, which revisits all the original Fleetwood Mac blues classics. “I really have nothing but amazing joy when I think of those days,” says Fleetwood. “We had such an amazing journey in such a short space of time, it blows my mind. I still consider myself more of a bluesman than a pop star and I think that the music we made back then still really holds up.” Hawking his new blues record and his new signature line of wine over the hour-long conference-call interview is all well and good, but the real reason that there are 30 interviewers from all over Canada hanging on the line is the Fleetwood Mac tour, which will touch down in Montreal this week. With McVie refusing to “I can see how some people would think that this band is a business arrangement, that we are just drawn together by music, but for us to do it at this point, we have to be pretty damn happy with each other. Stevie and Lindsey both see things in often very different ways but we really do know each other incredibly well. Stevie and Lindsey have known each other since they were 16 years old and when they take the baggage of days when they were very unhappy up on stage, they also bring days of when they were incredibly happy, and that’s kind of where we’re at now.” For the first time in their career, Fleetwood Mac are touring without a new record. This should come as good news for fans as the set-list leans heavily on their biggest radio staples, with a large portion dedicated to Rumours. Given the tumultuous time when it was recorded, with Nicks, Buckingham and the McVies (John and Christine) all breaking up while Fleetwood was having his heart crushed by his wife running off with his best friend, Rumours is heart-wrenching to listen to, but Fleetwood insists it’s rife with healing powers. “That album was made with all five people in a lot of pain. As bad as it got, none of us were going to walk away from the music because it was all-consuming and the music became our best friend. That body of work we did turned out to be a very important document and was really therapeutic. As hard as it was, I think we all feel lucky that we got to make that record.” AT THE BELL CENTRE ON WEDNESDAY, |
hit the road again and singer Stevie Nicks publicly expressing her distaste at getting the band back together without McVie by her side, not to mention her mercurial relationship with ex-boyfriend and FM guitarist Lindsey Buckingham, it would seem that even getting these soft-rockers in the same room together would be a Herculean task.