Neil Finn: New video interview for Variety
 

Neil and Liam Finn Premiere First Father-Son Music Video (EXCLUSIVE)
The Finns talk about how why they were able to make a joint album when most father-and-son musicians go their own ways... and how they're navigating a little side project of Neil's called Fleetwood Mac.
By Chris Willman

https://variety.com/2018/music/news/...eo-1202850806/


There have been a few father-son dynasties of note in rock, but not many who’ve actually made an album together as equals. A new entry into those rare annals is arriving in the form of Neil and Liam Finn’s debut as a duo after many solo albums (and, in Dad’s case, albums with Crowded House and Split Enz), “Lightsleeper.” The September release is being heralded with their first music video, for the song “Back to Life.”

Variety has an exclusive premiere of the clip, filmed at Los Angeles’ Largo club in an afternoon leading up to their recent album-preview show there (watch it above).

Variety sat down with Neil and Liam while they were both in town for the show and video shoot — a rare confluence since Liam, 34, now lives in L.A. with his wife and their baby, while Neil, who just turned 60, is a commuter from their native New Zealand. The dad of the duo will be spending most of the coming summer in L.A., though, getting to spending time with his new grandson as a pleasant consequence of having joined the quintessential California band, Fleetwood Mac, to everyone’s surprise, most of all his.

In a wide-ranging interview, Liam and Neil talk about how they became fast friends with Mick Fleetwood over in their home country, getting him to sit in at length on “Lightsleeper.” They’re not too upset that the Mac tour, which ironically had its germination in their album sessions, is playing a slight bit of havoc with any immediate ideas they might have had for hitting the road as a duo behind the new record.

Any fans who want to see Finns even more than Fleetwood will have to make do for a while with the “Back to Life” clip, which director Kristofski says “was so last minute, [in] such a small window before Neil and Liam had to sound check for their performance that night.” The Finns describe the video as “a little piece of theater representing the way we try to summon up the gods of our songs, like Orpheus — challenging them to bring life to those loved ones who have departed. But alas, the gods seem listless and unconcerned, trapped in their own cycles of drama and intrigue.” Sounds like backstage at a rock and roll show, all right.

Variety: When Neil got the new gig, it was fortunate that you didn’t yet have a tour booked behind this album that you would have had to think about canceling, wasn’t it?
LIAM: We had routings proposed for our stuff. But to be honest, I was more encouraging of him taking that gig than of us getting to tour our record, just because it would be ridiculous not to go and have a jam with Fleetwood Mac. Dad was a bit spun out by the proposition at first, because we were in the middle of doing one of his shows in New Zealand, but we were all like, “You’ve got to go and do that!”

NEIL: Yeah, [Liam said], ”You can stand in a room and play great songs with Fleetwood Mac and have a sing with Stevie and Christine; you’ve got to do that.” It was a delightful thing to be asked to do, and enormously flattering, but it did spin me out for a few days. And it makes a different trajectory for our project, which we are pretty excited to finally put out there, because we put a lot of work into it. It’s been a couple of years in the making, as well as almost a lifespan of playing together, but we’d never decided that writing together what we wanted to try before now.


What was the trigger for finally writing and recording a duo album?
LIAM: Because we’d started doing shows playing both of our songs for the first time, it just made sense that we’d made some songs together to have as a focus of a set. And so in a way, because we’ve achieved that, it doesn’t really matter if we don’t do a traditional kind of album campaign. Because in the end it’s kind of more of an art project for us — something that we get to indulge any kind of idea we have for making a video. We did this tour of New Zealand, of small, rural halls, places that we never even knew existed in our own country, and we made a film about that along the way that’ll come out later in the year. I feel like nobody knows what’s going on in the music industry anymore. So we just kind of want to make stuff we’re really proud of and that we would want to listen to or watch, and also create memories for us, because we’re a pretty close family, and since doing this kind of stuff, we’ve actually gotten to spend more time together. And it’s been pretty valuable with me having a kid. It was coincidental: We’d planned this before my wife got pregnant, but it became a very auspicious thing to be making an album with my dad while going through that with my wife. And then we literally finished tracking it and finishing the vocals in the week leading up to the birth.

NEIL: We didn’t know what sort of record we should make together. There might have been some vague initial impression that it would be possibly based on Liam’s predilection for sonic wildness, and that we might have done something quite raucous. But in the end we kind of got attracted to these things that we were jamming that were quite lyrical and almost cinematic. So it turned into “sultry lounge” — that’s what we kind of thought of it as our genre.

What did your dynamic as collaborators turn out to be like?
NEIL: We were good at curbing each other’s excesses, but when I think about it, we actually encouraged each other’s excesses a little, I think out of supportiveness. That’s good with family, because those kind of things maybe end up being quite infuriating within bands sometimes… Liam’s got a body of work which I’m incredibly impressed by and proud of on his behalf. He’s written hundreds of really good songs, and he’s been doing it since he was 16 years old. So I kind of feel like at this point we can come together more now as equals than we would have if we tried to do that when he was 18 and needing to establish his own identity, while I was very much being consumed and defined by my career. It’s a really good time for us to do it.


Neil, you’ve been through so many years and incarnations of working with your brother, in Split Enz, Crowded House and the Finn Brothers. Does that set you up to work with a son, or is it just a completely different animal?
NEIL: In some ways, there are similarities, because some of the family sensitivities run very deep. You can’t even unravel them sometimes. There are weird little buttons that get pushed, and you kind of get this slightly breathless feeling about the mysterious stuff that bubbles deep within – the same with Tim as it was the same with Liam. But with both Liam and Tim, there’s an overwhelming sense of preserving this very important familial thing that we’ve got, and that chemistry that you get from playing with a family member is undeniable. So, you know, just keep that front and center and preserve it, and lift that up, and other **** doesn’t need to be talked about.

Can you guys even think of a model where a father and son made a record together? There aren’t many examples.
NEIL: I know that Richard Thompson made a record with Teddy. In fact, the whole family did a record together (2014’s “Thompson”), including Richard and [his ex-wife] Linda [reuniting], which God knows how that [worked]. … And Jeff Tweedy made a record with Spencer, his son [2014’s “Sukierae”]. In fact, Jeff will probably think we ripped him off! I don’t know why there’s not many because a lot of kids have followed the family trail. But maybe it’s just a bridge too far for families to delve into.

Is there any significance to the title “Lightsleeper”?
LIAM: We had been throwing around titles for even a band name for a long time because there are a lot of pros and cons that go along with naming an album after your own names or whether you have a band name. It was quite a long process to come around to being “Neil and Liam Finn.”[Laugh.] But the album title kind of came after we’d started making the album artwork, and I had a sleeping eye of my child from a photo that I took, suspended in the clouds. And it’s sort of evocative of an album where a lot of time I was kind of trying to conjure up that feeling of that sort of almost half-state you’re in as you’re about to go to sleep. I like the idea of making music that inhabits that space, so you don’t know whether it’s real or it’s synthesized… So anyway, Dad looked at this cover image and said, “How about Lightsleeper,” at first maybe even a band name — and I liked it because we’re both bad sleepers!


NEIL: Particularly now for Liam. As any person with a baby knows.

And Mick Fleetwood is in the band on the record, right?
NEIL: Mick is playing drums on four or five songs. I had met him a couple of times years ago, and then we met up at the New Zealand Music Awards, funnily enough, had dinner, and he said, “If you want me to play on anything, just give me a call.” When people say that, it’s often just one of those things that never happens. But when we were going to do this recording, I said to Liam, “What do you reckon — Mick says he’d be up for playing, should we?” And he went, “F— yeah, of course!”

LIAM: You never go to awards shows. And I can’t believe Mick was at the New Zealand Music Awards.

NEIL: He sat there the whole night. That’s very indicative of him, though, because he is patient, and he really likes people. What is remarkable to me is that most people who spend their life as major stars have a withdrawal mechanism, where they don’t really want to have to deal with people. I think Mick is the most generous [of that class]. I’ve hung out with him and he gets recognized a lot, for obvious reasons, including that he dresses so well. He’s got time for everybody that I’ve seen, anyway, and he’ll be very charming and talks in the same manner to anyone he meets. That’s super impressive, to me.

LIAM: He came down [to New Zealand] and did two weeks of recording and hanging out with us, and no one really knew he was in town. But I had a show at the end of the session in this beautiful old picture theater, and [bandmate] Connan [Mockasin] had sung a Peter Green/Fleetwood Mac song, “Need Your Love So Bad,” at my wedding, so I was like, wouldn’t it be awesome to ask Mick if he’d be into doing that song? I was actually really like, “Is this out of line for me to ask?” But he was so excited that he was going to get to play a really old Fleetwood Mac song that he said he hasn’t played in 30 years or something, that some younger guys wanted to do.


NEIL: That [live video footage] was the first thing that came up for people when it was announced I was joining Fleetwood Mac. We actually had got to be good friends, and there was an immediate connection with the family during the course of recording. We felt very at home with him by the end of it, and Liam went and stayed with him in Hawaii just after the baby was born. When the call came from him, it was like a friend ringing up — as you would when you’re young and starting bands in your 20s — and say, “Hey man, our drummer just left, would you come and have a play and see how it feels?” That invitation was a lovely one, and based on friendship. And I guess he probably had already figured out that something about the way I sang potentially could work with Stevie and Christine, and so they assembled, and this guy [Neil nods toward Liam] encouraged me to give it a crack. So I went to cracking, and it actually felt really good, and that was the defining thing. At the time, whenever I thought about the wider implications of it and the perception and what this person and that person will say, it kind of freaked me out. But if I just thought, “Hey, I get to play with one of the best rhythm sections ever, and sing with two of the best voices ever, and sing songs that are really pretty amazing,” there was no issue. It was just like, of course — what an invitation, what a gift.

Do you know if you’ll be singing any of your own songs as part of the set?
NEIL: They say they would like to, so I don’t know. There was no insistence on my part. I get to play my own songs a lot. And I will again. There’s nothing that’s ended through this. This is only just a new chapter, but…

LIAM: You could play one of my songs!

NEIL: Now that I know that they think Liam’s even funnier than I am, you can do my jokes. Anyway, I suppose there’s quite a good chance that there’ll be one or two floating around, yeah. But I don’t care. I sort of welcome the diversion. I’m kind of thinking that I’ve been in the front at whatever level – albeit humbler level – where I’ve been the focus of attention for most of my adult life as a musician. It’s really nice not to be the main focus of attention. Maybe apart from Lindsey’s fans. [Laughter.] I’m not anticipating too much problem with them.


LIAM: Luckily, it doesn’t seem like [Buckingham fans] are necessarily angry at you.

NEIL: No, they’re not. They might be a bit sniffy or scornful of it, but I’m not getting the blame or anything. Which is kind of fair, because it wasn’t my idea. I really like him, too! Hey, he’s amazing.

When you were doing your album preview show at Largo in L.A., you guys invited Mike Campbell on stage to do “Man of the World” (a Peter Green Fleetwood Mac song from 1969). That was an interesting choice. Because Stevie did an interview where she said this new iteration of the band might be a chance to revive some pre-1975 stuff…
NEIL: I hope we pulled it off. I love that song so much, and I only marginally knew it before this, but I have started to listen to some of that [earliest Fleetwood Mac] stuff. I doubt that in the end of the wash, there’ll be a lot of songs from that era, because everybody wants to put Fleetwood Mac across in its most glorious, popular form as well; that’s a really important thing. But the band has had a massive history, and there’s some amazing music from back then, and I think [the core members] all see that as an opportunity as well. You know, Mike and I gravitated towards that, and I think we pulled it off. I think we’ll get it even better, but it’s a great song.

Had you spent much time with Mike Campbell prior to playing that night?
NEIL: We had a couple of little sessions a few days apart with just Mick and Mike and me, and John came to one of them as well, where we did a scroll through a few of the old songs and pulled out the ones that we thought would be fun to play with two guitars… Everyone’s so up for it. They’re all really eager to be a band that has fun and can redefine itself and move forward, and it’s not a mercenary mentality going on with that band. It’s “what else could we create? This is Fleetwood Mac; we can do anything.” And there was a great moment when we rehearsed the other day where Mick went for a really big fill at some point — which, in the end, he didn’t quite pull off — and he said, “Ah, man, I was going for a teenage fill.” And I thought, how great is that? This guy’s been doing it for 50 years or something, and he’s going for teenage fills, still.


You’re such a great guitarist that you could probably fill that role (in Fleetwood Mac) all by yourself, but it’s fun hearing great guitarists together.
NEIL: I’m actually not an eager lead guitarist. I can hit a good solo from time to time, but also, I’ve got a fairly high error rate as a lead guitarist. Sometimes that’s good.

LIAM: I think you’re a great guitar player. But I like that on our record, we found ourselves on piano and bass for the majority of the record.

NEIL: Yeah, I was mostly playing piano on the album. I think I’m gonna get to play a lot of guitar in this new [Fleetwood Mac] role. I’m excited about that because actually playing with two guitars is not something I’ve done a lot of. I’m not going to play any piano. I’d love to think that in the course of this new version that Christine gets to play a little more at the front of the sound on a few occasions, because she is a great piano player and a really good B3 player as well. I think it’s awash with possibilities.

Besides “sultry lounge,” is there any additional way you’d characterize the “Lightsleeper” sound?
LIAM: We weren’t trying to write hits. Probably the biggest factor is the cinematic quality. It gave us so many ideas for visuals that we wanted to put to it. And we thought there wasn’t any better visual description to what we did than to film this tour movie in our home country. Whether we mean to or not, there’s an element of New Zealand in what we do and in all New Zealand music that has something unique about it.

NEIL: And it’s very Finn-like… No, we’re post-genre… (Thinking back on a recent description:) Am I really chill-alt?

LIAM: There is such a thing as Dad-wave.

NEIL: Is there father-and-son wave? Anyway, it’s going to be a slow-release rollout of the record. So it has already been a tantric album. [Pauses.] Maybe that’s a good genre.

Thanks for posting this, fuzzyplum. Neil Finn sounds like a really nice guy, and so does his son. I loved reading how much he fell in love with Man of the World. I also appreciated his honesty about the set list for the upcoming tour. Sounds like he doesn't think there will be that many songs from the pre-Rumours era on the tour, and I'm fine with that.

He said he wasn't expecting to do any piano playing. I had wondered if they would use him to give Christine a little break here or there. I guess not. He sounds really excited about the whole thing. I'll be interested to see how it goes.

I don't have any inside information, of course, but I can't imagine the band touring without a backup keyboardist. That's their touring configuration since ... forever. Even on the 1980 and 1982 tours, Sova was backstage triggering Oberheim patches for Tusk and Hold Me. The bigger question is whether the band's going to bring a backup guitarist, now that it has a lead guitarist and a rhythm guitarist. Rick and Billy were lead and rhythm respectively, too, but I don't remember whether someone else played guitar on the back line.

Apparently Neale Heywood is still on board.

And, didn’t Ray Lindsey play on GYOW on the 1987 tour?

If Neale Heywood is still aboard, Brett Tuggle should be back as well.

Brett decided not to participate.

I like how he acknowledges the backlash from Lindsey fans, but notes that they don't seem to bear him any ill will. "They might be a bit sniffy or scornful of it, but I’m not getting the blame or anything. Which is kind of fair, because it wasn’t my idea. I really like him, too! Hey, he’s amazing."

I too love Lindsey, but Finn is another favorite of mine, so I'm eager to hear how this sounds. He doesn't give much indication just how long he plans to remain a Mac Member, though - unlike in the CBS interview, this makes it seem more temporary. He welcomes "the diversion" of not being the lead guy on stage - that and other statements make it sound like he's jumping on a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity rather than making a permanent change. But I may be reading more into it than is actually there.

I wonder if they will play one from “Lightsleeper” since Mick is so heavily involved on it.

I only skimmed through the article, but I got the same impression- this is a one and done deal.

Hard to say what’s going to happen. It could very easily be a one-time thing. The language they’ve been using makes me wonder. However, I could also see it going somewhere. Time will tell.

I haven’t been anticipating an opening night this much since 2003 and the say you will tour. That was the first tour I was a fan for plus there were so many questions about the set:

1. Which new songs
2.what Chris songs if any
3. What rarities- in hindsight they Fu**ed this up bad in all of the non Christine years. And since I’m talking just say you will tour I’ll give them just beautiful child and much improved Eyes of the World since they had a new album, but boy did they blow an opportunity in 2009 to do a lot more cool things if they put the slightest effort into it.

So there’s a similar up in the air vibe for this tour. And not just “what” they play but “how” they play whatever they’re going to play. I’m really sorry half of those board, but I find Mike Campbell to be a FAR better guitar player then Lindsey, especially live. How much his playing will change these songs is really exciting for me to find out. Plus:

1. How many Lindsey songs
2. How many songs pre-75 (and I’m sorry no offense at all to Neil Finn, this is just a fact that I know is true...He is going to have next to no input on this set list beyond how well or not well he is able to sing a song the rest of the band have told him they’re rehearsing. He’s not or at least I really hope he is not making suggestions considering he was just learning 80 percent of the catalogue after being asked to join which he never actually said exactly but that’s what it comes off as. My whole point in even saying all that is I don’t take this interview with Neil making a prediction as to how many songs will be played from every era. He barely knows which songs are in which era.
3. Are there going to be drastically more songs then we’re used to? Mick keeps talking up how this tour will be quite a bit longer then previous tours. I really hope they follow through, and I’m hopeful since Stevie played a significantly longer set in both song count and time (and that’s more songs WITH all those annoyingly long stories) if the Mac can keep her to a minimum maybe we get a 30 song set? Unlikely I know, but mick keeps pushing this longer set.
4. Plus I can’t wait for the primary discussion on this board to be about the quality of this new Fleetwood Mac. Good OR Bad, but I hope they’re good enough for most to feel good about the new line up eventually. But if not I’d much rather hear discussion about how you feel the band sucks without Lindsey with something to critique, then the endless boring discussion of who fired who and who got who fired or quit and how many tines and how far
Did Stevie shove her broom up Lindsey’s ass to get him fired blah blah blah...


To quote John Mcvie “can they start playing soon?”

And let me add to that, even just one New song released to Spotify in the next few months can give us something real to judge. The

I feel like Mike Campbell also alluded to that---I think it was in the statement he released? But I could be wrong....time/ticket sales/reception will tell I guess.

It also depends on whether or not the chemistry is good. I think it could be. Obviously, Mick works well with Neil, while Stevie and Mike have a long history of collaboration.

Fair point and agree. The wild cards are how Stevie gels with Neil on the songs that have Lindsey's DNA all over them ( they should drop Gypsy, Dreams and Silver Springs) and how Stevie, Chris and Neil all gel together. Mike will hang back a bit I think (a la John) but his presence will be known.

They can keep Dreams but Gypsy and Sara most of all have got to go. And I'm already positive Silver Springs will never be performed again. Not by any FM lineup or by Stevie herself.

This is mean for obvious reasons, but I think it would be hilarious if Stevie finally did Fireflies on this tour.

Neil Finn Says He Needed Convincing To Join Fleetwood Mac: 'How Do I React To This?'


Following his shock appointment to the Fleetwood Mac line-up this past April, Neil Finn has revealed he needed some convincing to join the legendary band.
Appearing on last night's Interview with son Liam, the Crowded House frontman recalled getting the call from Mick Fleetwood about possibly joining Fleetwood Mac as he was heading off to sound check for a concert in Auckland that night.

"I just had this big goofy grin on my face and said, 'I'll have to let you know tomorrow, Mick. I've got to do a show.'"

He continued, "I was kinda nonplussed initially thinking, 'How do I react to this?'"

Liam said of convincing his Dad, "I was like, 'You've gotta go and see this out. This is amazing.'"

Finn revealed it took two days of jamming with Fleetwood Mac for things to click.

"… We had two days playing and it was, you know, I wasn't sure," he said.

"The first day, I kinda thought well… but the second day everyone came in a very more relaxed mode and we just sounded good straight away.

"The voices sounded good together and I'd done a little bit of homework and I knew the songs that they'd ask me to sing. It didn't feel that strange even. It felt like being in a band."

Finn again reiterated that he is indeed a permanent Fleetwood Mac member and will continue on with the group following their US tour.

"I've joined the band, I'm a new member. It's a new band. That's how they're seeing it, anyway," Finn explained.

"It feels like they're up for it. They're really hungry to make new music, they're hungry to be as good a band as they can possibly be and above all, they're hungry to have fun."

As TV Tonight reports, Interview was watched by 483,000 viewers. Watch last night's episode here.


http://themusic.com.au/news/all/2018...-i-wasnt-sure/

Let's hope it's true that they continue after this tour, and make new music.

I say **** all of you! Time for that is over as far as I'm concerned.

#LINDSEY!!

I don’t know.

I don’t really care if Stevie is on board with a new album. LBCM should have been credited to and supported as Fleetwood Mac.

However, keeping in mind that a Fleetwood Mac album with Stevie and Lindsey was never going to happen again, if this creates an environment where Stevie agrees to do another Fleetwood Mac album and that ultimately gives us another album with Mick, John, and Christine together, I’m fine with it and I can’t imagine them having anyone better than Neil or Mike if they can’t have Lindsey.

It won’t be a classic, but neither were SYW or LBCM.

So what you are basically saying is that you agree with Mick dumping Lindsey because that was the onlty viable way for the band to continue on with the Golden Goat! Boo!

It’s the only way Fleetwood Mac will possibly continue as a band making new music. I don’t agree with it. I didn’t agree with it last year.

However, it is what it is. The only way there will be another Fleetwood Mac album is if Stevie is on it, as we saw happen last year. The only way Stevie will be on it is if Lindsey isn’t. If Lindsey isn’t on it, at least they have competent, respectable guys to carry on. My primary interest in the band is Mick, John, and Christine. If this is the only way I get one more from those three, I can absolutely live with it.

I stand with principle, integrity, and respect. Do the right thing. And I stand with my initial response of **** you all!

And they did that last year with LBCM, NOT Fleetwood Mac.

The fact that they are going to make new music is such a slap in the face to Lindsey. F all of them!

“It feels like they're up for it. They're really hungry to make new music, they're hungry to be as good a band as they can possibly be and above all, they're hungry to have fun."

The fact is making music with Lindsey wasn’t fun for Stevie and by agreeing to release a Fleetwood Mac album as LBCM and play along with the whole duet album thing last year, Lindsey accepted on some level that any project credited to Fleetwood Mac would have to have Stevie’s participation, and Stevie’s made it clear that she won’t make a new album with him.

With who? The man who wouldn't join FM unless she was included? The man who produced songs like Gypsy? That man? Can't stand that OLD GOAT.

Except for Dave Stewart with IYD (and who knows how that's changed since she hasn't said a word about him since 24KG and it seems as if their working relationship is dunzo), Stevie practically never has fun making music with anyone. She's clashed/fallen out with almost all of her producers and has complained about other people she's worked with. Jimmy Iovine, Rick Nowels, Keith Olsen, whatever went down with Rupert Hine, Glyn Johns etc etc. She called Kenny Loggins a slave driver, Lindsey an ayatollah, she even complained about Don Henley. I even heard an old Lindsey interview where he was talking about working with Stevie on her IYD album and he talked about how she was happy during that record and she hadn't been happy on her last solo records, which means she probably wasn't even too thrilled with her bestie Sheryl! But the thing about all of those people is that Stevie could choose to work with Don or Kenny and she had the power to fire her producers/they had the ability to walk away from the project (both of which happened). But she could never do that with Lindsey since he was a member of the band too-- and he was the member who got most of the work done-- so she had to stay working with him for years because she didn't have the power/ability to fire him. Until now it seems.

Again, look at my signature. THAT should be the current lineup.

It’s not.

Lindsey even gave up on it and ultimately made a Fleetwood Mac album that wasn’t credited to Fleetwood Mac.

Stevie should have been gone a while ago. It didn’t happen, it won’t happen, and the band is playing on with her, without Lindsey, and with good artists. That’s the reality, and it could be worse, at least from the perspective of the band ‘67 to today.

I’ve certainly never credited her with being a professional. She’s a brilliant backing vocalist, but I don’t think she works well with anyone who sees her less than a legend on par with, let’s say Bob Dylan.

And, by calling it LBCM instead of Fleetwood Mac and saying it just felt like a duet album, he gave her that power.

Lol Lindsey wasn't the one that gave her that power. Stevie earned it herself through her popularity and had it sealed in the post-Dance era. After that point in time, there's no record company/promoter/manager/anything that would support a 'Fleetwood Mac' anything if Stevie was choosing to sit it out. I'm pretty sure that if Lindsey was able to call it Fleetwood Mac he would have. But that just was never going to happen and anyone who genuinely thought that was possible is delusional. Mick crying to the press about his band being totally dead because Stevie was obsessed with her solo career and didn't want to tour in 2012 should've made that very clear. You can make a case for Lindsey going along with the 'this was never supposed to be a FM album' thing in the press but by then it was already done anyways and that was just probably so they wouldn't get too many questions that would leave them on tricky territory. If you listen to the full audio of the Rolling Stone interview, at the end of it the interviewers are talking to each other, one of them very directly says that the last time he talked to Lindsey, Lindsey had said he wants to do a Fleetwood Mac album but Stevie is holding it up because she doesn't.

Yes, she completely earned being a successful artist outside of Fleetwood Mac all on her own. It’s not like she sang on a hugely successful duet with Kenny Loggins. And, apparently we’re supposed to forget that her first “solo” hit was a TPATH song she overdubed herself on, followed up with a duet with Don Henley. But, it’s all Stevie.

And, it’s not like Christine wasn’t retired for the better part of a generation, but we’re not supposed to talk about that, either, right? We’re totally supposed to forget that the 2014-15 tour was bigger than the 2013 tour, right?

Christine and Lindsey didn’t focus so much on being seen as entities outside of Fleetwood Mac. Why would they? Christine had the lion’s share of hit singles.

Yes, Atlantic would much rather have released LBCM than a Fleetwood Mac album that featured 4/5 of the classic lineup, including the band’s primary hit writer.

I don’t disagree. But if we’re being puritanical, he should have just quit and gone his own way if it wasn’t going to be credited to Fleetwood Mac. Really, he isn’t any further along right now.

Except that Christine, who had half of Fleetwood Mac’s top 40 hits, and 3/5 of their top 5, was still retired at that point. When she came back, all bets should have been off.

Completely agree. Doesn’t make it right, or ultimately beneficial to him. What did he gain by not simply being honest? LBCM suffered by not being credited to (rightfully) Fleetwood Mac, and Lindsey still got fired though he never called out Stevie during the pressers. Someone, ultimately Mick, but probably with the input of lawyers and industry types, discouraged it, and Lindsey lost a little credibility as a result.

He said something about grabbing the bag of money and running, too.

I dont know how to quote all of this separately and I'm really tired of posts like this but anyways:
First of all I wasn't making a statement about how Stevie became so popular. Just that she did become that popular, more so than the other members and she is. She by far had the most successful solo career and to most people, she's the main 'recognizable' person that represents Fleetwood Mac. I'm not even saying that I think that's how it should be, but it is and that's why she has power. Because she puts butts in seats more than any other member. Christine coming back obviously was a great thing for lots of people which helped make the last tour such a hit. But the tours without her also did very well. A FM tour without Stevie would not sell that way. That's why promoters were willing to axe Lindsey if it meant making Stevie stay. Because they can do okay with another member gone again and they did in the past, but they won't sell they way they want without Stevie.

And yes they absolutely would lol. All a record company will think about when they imagine an FM album without Stevie is the people who won't buy it and the people who would if it did have Stevie. Because for all those casual fans, when they see an album titled under 'Fleetwood Mac' and they don't see Stevie, they're going to be confused because to them Stevie is like the Mick Jagger of FM. They wouldn't buy a Rolling Stones album without Mick and so they won't buy a FM album without Stevie. But an LB/Chris duet isn't called Fleetwood Mac. It doesn't have that problem. It's going to have a very similar buying group and probably sell less yes, but in the end, they don't have to worry about 'This Fleetwood Mac album would've sold way better had Stevie been on it', because they didn't call it Fleetwood Mac and didn't market it as FM either-- probably a big part of why they kept repeating over and over the 'this was never supposed to be a FM album' line.

And I totally disagree that Lindsey should've just quit the band lol. He's given so much of his life to that band, while he was no doubt frustrated about how things were going, he's like 70 years old and to have left at the point would've just 'tarnished the legacy' as he said. But maybe had he known that he'd get kicked out and it would be tarnished in a much worse way anyways, he might have. Who knows. That's a big 'what if'.

And Lindsey was talking about the Classics shows when he said that. I'm not sure what that has to do with any of this. There's a pretty big difference between those shows and an album. Those shows got a lot of bad reviews all of which basically said 'this feels like an oldies cash grab' so it's really not a surprise Lindsey wasn't happy during them. I was actually surprised when I saw how many negative reviews the whole thing got. But it's not like he's gonna quit his damn band over two shows. Hence why he just said, referring to that situation, take the money and go. But that comment from the RS interviewers shows he wasn't exactly hiding the fact that he did want an album and Stevie was blocking it.

If you type "Fleetwood Mac" into Google and then do a "news" search, the only new information that comes up is Neil-Finn based. Little bits of him saying the same thing over and over about the surprise of getting the call. These micro-stories are trickling in alongside news of HIS upcoming album.

Ironically, FM appears to be on complete hiatus until Finn has worked out his solo commitments, etc. So, no touring, no new music, no stories, no clarifications, no side collaborations (ie: LBCM 2)--instead, these aging people are languishing through yet another year without much momentum or new work.

The most disappointing part of all this for me is Christine's silence. When she reemerged from retirement, she claimed to have "dozens" of songs, a claim backed also by Fleetwood and Nicks. Well, the first LBCM was delightful. But, ultimately, I'd really like to hear 10-12 new Christine songs on a single album before, well, she gets too old to record or dies. How else could I say this politely?

The best chance for some of those new Christine songs to see the light of day would be if Neil focuses his attention on producing and helping write a Fleetwood Mac album.

Let's hope they can make some time to get together soon to at least put a couple of new songs together. The tour stops close to me are still so far off that I haven't purchased my tickets yet. Some new music in the coming months would be great!

Sugar Mouse.... As an aside what are your thoughts on Kristen confirming that Lindsey never wanted to delay the tour at all? I assume you have seen her messages on Instagram?

BECAUSE SHE’S THE ONLY ONE WHO SOUGHT A VIABLE SOLO CAREER!!! Why would Christine invest energy on a solo CAREER when she already had seven top 40 singles with Fleetwood Mac, an entity she was much more invested in and much more successful in as a songwriter than was Stevie?

But not as well with the tours WITH her. Ticket prices and butts in seats say otherwise. I remember hearing how a tour WITH Christine so soon after a tour without Christine would completely bomb. Didn’t happen, and was quite the opposite.

Not suggesting otherwise. It WOULD have done better than LBCM, though.

Yes. Who do promoters want, the big name or the guy who only had three hits with the band? Duh.

You clearly know nothing about branding. Fleetwood Mac is a brand. The most recognizable voice with most of that brand’s best known songs is Christine McVie. She had half of their top-40, and three of their top-5, two being actual duets with Lindsey and the other “Little Lies,” so this notion that Atlantic world rather release LBCM over FM is completely laughable. Eighty percent of the band and eighty percent of the voices of eighty percent of Fleetwood Mac’s biggest hits did an album together. Sure, let’s call it something else. Because people are willing to give something new a try. And, if Stevie’s right and people don’t buy albums anymore, why would it really matter?

LOL!!! Mick sang like all but a few RS songs. Stevie didn’t even have the most hit singles with Fleetwood Mac, not by a long shot. That analogy is a complete fail. If anything, she’s the Neil Young of CSNY. Now, CSN is still a viable entity without Neil, just not AS viable.

Sure. Because Fleetwood Mac never released an album without an active, principle member of the band before. Let’s just jam out to Jeremy’s songs on “Then Play On.” Oh, wait…

Not his legacy. He could have just said he refused to compromise. If it wasn’t going to be Fleetwood Mac, ESPECIALLY after all he had done, he was done. EFF a bunch of that!

Really? Promoters (including his now ex-manager) are trying to sell overpriced tickets for a crappy knock-off festival and one of the artists kind of takes a verbal dump on it, saying it’s only about the money, and then plays the show accordingly (per reviews), and you don’t get it?

By agreeing to settle for calling a Fleetwood Mac album something other than Fleetwood Mac, by talking down upcoming Fleetwood Mac shows, by giving less than stellar performance at what had to be Fleetwood Mac’s biggest paydays of the year, and by suggesting a concurrent solo tour, Lindsey had already given up on Fleetwood Mac.

Jesus ****ing Christ even this forum has to be taken over by the bitter assholes?