Chicago Sun-Times article
 

CONCERT PREVIEW | Buckingham: 'There are still things for us to work out emotionally'

March 3, 2009

BY THOMAS CONNER tconner@suntimes.com

Lindsey Buckingham is attempting to explain why his on-again, off-again megastar band, Fleetwood Mac, is on the road again without an album to support. Nothing to sell. Just the classic band (himself, Stevie Nicks, John McVie, Mick Fleetwood -- still no Christine McVie), together again, playing the hits. He provides lots of deeply considered reasons, yadda yadda -- but then he says something extraordinary.

"Maybe someone came to the conclusion that it might not be a bad time to go out and do some dates to use as hang time, as a proving ground," he says. "It's an inverted model, for sure, but there's something to it."

Tickets: $49.50-$149.50

Phone: (312) 559-1212

Proving ground? What could Fleetwood Mac -- author of one of the biggest-selling albums of all time, 1977's "Rumours" -- possibly have to prove at this point?

Buckingham chuckles. He's used to people straining to square his massive insecurities with his equally massive successes.

"In a general sense, every time you get together to do something new, you have to start thinking after all these years there are still things for us to work out emotionally, historically. We are a band of couples who broke up and got through it living in various states of denial and never getting closure -- at least from my perspective -- and it leaves a lot of stuff hanging out there.

"I took off in '87 to regain my sanity, and the band died a slow death without me. That didn't make me feel too bad," he snickers. "Without sounding too vindictive, it was nice to know they needed me. ... But we're still a work in progress in terms of those interactions. There are still things that need to be worked through."

Kind of amazing, isn't it? More than 30 years after Buckingham and Nicks split up at the dawn of the band's success, the "issues" remain that palpable between them. He still considers the band a "band of couples who broke up." And that was always part of the appeal -- the telenovela-like drama and tension between two of the fiercest artistic personalities in Southern California.

Buckingham, at least, still hopes to harness that tension for more musical magic. He and the other members seem to be viewing this tour as a casual way for the quartet to settle a bit, to get back into some kind of rhythm that would produce a new record.

It's the elephant in the room that each member treads carefully around.

"There have been discussions, for sure, that we would love to make some more music," said founding drummer Mick Fleetwood, during an earlier teleconference with the band. "I think it's really down to the whole sort of biorhythms of how everyone is feeling and what's appropriate."

They're still so careful when speaking of each other, except Nicks, who remarked -- with discernable astonishment -- how well they were all getting on so far and added, "Lindsey has been in incredibly good humor since we started rehearsal. When Lindsey is in a good humor, everybody is in a good humor."

They still look to him, take their cues from him, and he remains the band's creative linchpin. The last few Mac albums he was on -- you know, the successful ones -- each began as Buckingham solo projects that the record label and the band begged to turn into band efforts. "Tango in the Night" sounds like his crystalline solo work with a few warmer Nicks and McVie songs added. Buckingham had asked Fleetwood and bassist John McVie to back him on another solo album that, with the addition of four Nicks songs, became Fleetwood Mac's 2003 comeback CD, "Say You Will."

But he'd like that pattern to change.

After "Say You Will," Buckingham told the band to leave him alone for three years, during which he exorcised two back-to-back solo discs: the quieter, almost indie-rock outing "Under the Skin" in 2006, and last year's slightly harder rocking "Gift of Screws." As a result, Buckingham says he feels refreshed and at the height of his creative powers.

"Having accomplished what I wanted to do with both solo albums, I'm really in the best place I've been artistically," he says. "I tapped into things I wanted to get to for a long time. And I have a lot of new material -- I could drop another solo album at any time -- but no one's talking yet about a new Mac album, at least for a while. Still, I'm pointedly not fleshing out my new stuff, so that I might be able to show it to the band and let it take on a life in the context of that.

"The way we used to do it, we'd each have rough ideas and would get together and the songs would get formulized and brought into some sort of life for the first time through a set of Fleetwood Mac eyes. More often than not, over the last few experiences it's been my solo material that had to be slightly altered to make it feel more Fleetwood Mac-like. So I'd really welcome the chance to come to these people with things a little less fleshed out, something that might be born as Fleetwood Mac rather than being just ... painted like it."

So he speaks of this tour as a "way to create a level of ferment" among the band again, and adds uncharacteristic optimism of "bringing things to light in a more organic way by being together without a real reason."

The question is: Do you want to pay $50 to $150 for a ticket to watch four grizzled but talented music makers "hang" and "ferment"? Buckingham says the band is not using the tour as an expensive woodshed.

"We've very pointedly stuck to catalog for this tour," he says, adding, "There is still validity in looking at this body of work, the irony being that this is what most people want to hear from us, anyway. I figure, let's make our mantra just hanging and working on the rough edges in terms of personal interactions with band members. That in itself will be part of the preparation for making an album, whenever that does happen."

Good idea. Maybe that's why SYW wasn't quite right. I still love the album, and I think it's good. But it is somehow missing some of the magic of the older albums, and I think LB just hit the nail on the head. I guess I never realized it until he actually said the words. Makes total sense to me now.

That did make LOTS of sense.

Wow, Lindsey... tell us what you really think! :rolleyes: I mean, I have to begrudgingly admit that he is probably correct in feeling this way, but there is also a lot to be said about humility. I could just imagine how well this little gem is going to down with the others. If memory serves correctly, FM didn't really fall off a cliff until Stevie left. Sure, BTM was not the best FM album ever, but it is/was a solid batch of songs.

Hey, "painted like" Fleetwood Mac is really good. Way to use your favorite analogy in a fresh way, precious.

Talking about biorhythms makes me remember the seventies. It's like mood rings and disco balls. Does anyone remember getting your biorhythm chart? I think it had 3 colored lines on it and it told you how you were going to be feeling in the future. Like you could look at next week's chart and see whether the lines were up and down and see whether it was going to be a good week for you. Cheesy. But I remember going to a fair when I was a teen and paying to have my chart done.

Michele

What a pompous, self-worshipping, classless asshole.

I used to adore this guy, but now he just makes me sick.

Well, he's not totally wrong. However, to still bring it up & "snicker" about it over 20 years later? Nice. :rolleyes:

Why? He was an even more pompous, classless and self-worshipping asshole during the times you worshipped him. :shrug:

That's what he said: died a slow death, not in an instant.

That "snicker" makes me laugh -- even snicker. Makes me think of the dastardly villain tying the helpless damsel to the train tracks and then twiddling his mustache in satisfaction.

Just can't create that image with "chuckled."

Michele

:lol: Point well taken. Chalk it up to those rose-colored glasses of my youth. ;)

But his fallacy is that he seems to feel that he alone was singularly responsible for the slow death of FM, which is just simply not true (although I can totally understand why he would feel this way). I think FM would have endured and prospered if Mick hadn't written the tell-all book and been such a numbnut with regard to "Silver Springs." Sure, they wouldn't have been nearly as interesting, but they could have had more gold albums and toured arenas forever...

Did Stevie say on the Tusk documentary, "This band will never die a slow, long, painful death" or something like that?

Sorry to be off topic...but...

That was very clever, classic and appropriate.

That's what I find so appealing about the Ledge. What quick wit people have.

I come here inbetween bouts of stress at work and you guys make me smile.

(Michele's description of the "villain tying the helpless damsel to the train tracks and then twiddling his mustache in satisfaction." is worthy of mention too.)

You guys crack me up.

I'm happier with this article than the Tribune article, that's for sure. However, I'm tempted to bring a sign to Allstate Arena saying NO MORE INTERVIEWS.

Sounds like something she would say ala Planets of the Universe

"but i will die a slow death"

Selective memory. BTM and SYW sold about the same. OOTC and Time also sold about the same, only Time had less than minimal promotion and the band didn't actually fork money into touring after the album came out. What's his excuse? It would appear his own career had also died a slow death and he needed them just as much. He should grow up and realize that.

What about the sales differential between Tango in the Night and BTM or Time? Try inserting songs from OOTC into a early/mid 90s Fleetwood Mac album. His solo career was never in a state of slow death, at least no more than Stevie's was.

What about the sales differentials? Tango In The Night was by the Rumours incarnation of Fleetwood Mac. Lindsey was basically saying that, without him, Fleetwood Mac died a slow death, but he brought it back to life, which shows how much they need him. In reality, they did as well with their first post-Lindsey effort (Behind The Mask) as they did with their first post-Christine effort (Say You Will). Both albums featured two out of three singer/songwriters from the Rumours era, so it's a valid comparison. Take any one person out of the equation, and it becomes a different equation.

OOTC, Street Angel, and Time were released in close proximity. Combined they didn't crack 500,000. I'm not convinced if they had released an album in 1995 with Christine, Lindsey, and Stevie that it would've sold 500K, at least without Warner Bros., Clear Channel and Viacom on their side.

The bottom line is that Fleetwood Mac (regardless of incarnation, save for the Peter Green years) had become a joke by that point. Surrender The Rain, Blue Denim, and I Do were never going to be relevant in the era of Smells Like Teen Spirit. No, Mick, John, and Christine weren't having success with a new Fleetwood Mac. Lindsey and Stevie weren't having success as a solo artists, either. They needed each other, otherwise their collective careers were in the toilet, and the knew it (except in Christine's case, where she was probably more interested in the big, happy ending to her time in Fleetwood Mac).

Try inserting Christine's songs from Time or In The Meantime into Say You Will. Would it have helped? Probably.

While I really don't like Street Angel, I have to say that it sold about two to three times as many copies as OOTC and Time combined.

But wait a minute, hasn't Lindsey always been this way? Come on! You adored him and you weren't clued into his very large egomaniac tendencies? And he was frigg'n worse back then...

Yeah, he's completely stuck on himself. His songs, for goodness sakes, are pretty much all one-sided, and I bet he could probably talk about his art and all it's unique coolness for days on end. Not untypical of most brilliant, creative, genius people.

And to be honest, Lindsey has never really gotten his deserved recognition. Yeah, music critics have given him the retrospective nod, most of his peers are on to how incredible he is, and of course he has an (awesome) loyal fan base. But it's very low-key and, for all his contributions, I think the general public kind of looks at him as a really good guitar player who sings Go Your Own Way and used to date Stevie. I mean, that may be a little extreme, but most of the people I have ever brought up Fleetwood Mac to (and that has been quite a lot) think of him that way. And others get him mixed up with Christine of all people (WTF?)...

Yeah, so let him toot his own horn. Sorta used to it now. Aside from all the talk, he doesn't come across as some arrogant jerk who walks around wanting people to worship him. And when I met him I honestly think he was the most humble musical artist/famous person I have ever encountered. Really, really, really sweet. He's just a little rough around the edges...

I don't mind that he toots his own horn, but does he have to do it at the expense of his bandmates?

I'm pretty sure, at this point, they've all had their say at the expense of their bandmates. And I'm pretty sure the bandmates care far less than we do, at this point.

Agreed. You'd have to imagine that after this many years, they're used to the jabs. Especially Lindsey's.

Lindsey's over inflated ego is his worst feature.

He's such a dick.... decent musician but a dick... that is my impression of him... And as much as he preaches the same crap about him and Stevie growing up... I haven't seen it from his/her comments.... Time and BTM were solid albums musically...

Agreed. I don't own Time but I've always loved BTM from start to finish.