Lindsey Buckingham talks Fleetwood Mac future tour and making music with Christine McVie
Updated June 29, 2017
Posted June 29, 2017
Story by Edward Pevos of MLive |
epevos@MLive.com
Two living legends are coming to a city near you. We just talked to Fleetwood Mac's Lindsey Buckingham as he and Christine McVie travel to Michigan for two big concerts.
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame members will be at the Fox Theatre in Detroit on Sunday, July 2 and at Soaring Eagle Casino and Resort in Mount Pleasant on Thursday, July 6.
The two just collaborated for their first ever album as a duo. The new music has received rave reviews.
BUCKINGHAM TELLS ME MAKING THE ALBUM WAS NEARLY A FOUR YEAR PROCESS
"You have to go back to before Christine rejoined Fleetwood Mac. I had just come off a couple of solo projects and touring. When I got off the road, I had a bunch of ideas for new songs. John and Mick were in town because we were nearing rehearsing for the Fleetwood mac tour. That was before Christine. I asked them if they wanted to cut some tracks with me. I hadn’t done that with them for so long. This was the beginning of 2013."
"We cut 5 or 6 things. I put them on the shelf. I never intended to do anything but put them on a solo album someday. Then we did the Fleetwood Mac tour. Right after that tour was when Christine reached out to Mick and said she was thinking of returning after 15 years. We said we'd love to have her back. I also said, if you come back you can’t leave again."
"Now we’re talking about the middle of 2014. Christine started sending me some rough ideas for songs from across the pond. She’s realized she wanted to start writing again. I started making demos of them at my house by myself. Mick and I thought it would make a great gesture to go into the studio and work on some of songs with her before rehearsing for the reunion tour in 2015."
"We thought we'd go in for a week. It ended up being 3 or 4. After 15 years, didn't know if we were going to have any connection left on that level. We found that our musical chemistry was better than ever. About a week in, we decided it should be a duo album. Then, we did the reunion tour for a year and a half. After the tour, we came back and finished those songs up. Then I included my songs, finished her songs, and that became the album. It was a 3 and a half year process done in 3 different stages."
THE SINGERS ALTERNATE LEAD VOCALS ON THE NEW ALBUM'S SONGS. SO, HOW DID THEY CHOOSE WHO TOOK LEAD ON WHAT?
"It’s usually the writer. The writer would tend to own the song more. We did more co-writing. Not on my stuff, but on hers. There's quite a few co-writerships that came from a process where maybe I'd bring a track in that I did in my studio as a demo, but without lyrics. She would take it and finish it off."
"Generally, if it's something which would be categorized as one of her songs, she's going to sing the lead. We knew right away this wasn't going to be like the Everly Brothers, kind of two part harmonies. That it was going to be one person or the other. The other person sings along, but there's more emphasis on one person or the other and that seemed to work very well."
BETWEEN FLEETWOOD MAC, EACH OF YOUR SOLO SONGS AND THE NEW ALBUM, HOW DID YOU COME UP WITH A SETLIST FOR THIS TOUR?
"We’re doing about a 100 minute show. I kind of thumbnailed it out myself. I didn’t want to fall back on the familiarity with the body of work too much. I wanted to almost take the risk of doing what might be perceived as too much new stuff. The way it seems to be playing out so far on tour, it seems to be just right."
"I just wanted to have a freshness and a newness. We are doing 8 of the 10 songs on the new album in the set. I started with those and tried to figure out how to break them up."
"In the same way the album sort of walks the line in sort of being familiar in many ways, I think the setlist does as well. One of the things I have been doing in solo shows is beginning with an acoustic portion. So, we're coming on and doing four songs with just the two of us. It sets up the whole feel for their being the two of us there."
"And then you bring the band on. Then it was a matter of choosing the songs from the body of work that works best with having established the*sensibility of having it sounding fresh, and we went from there."
WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE FLEETWOOD MAC SONG TO PERFORM LIVE?
"I’ll give you one that I really enjoy because it’s got a different role now than it used to. That would be the song "Big Love.”
"The reason for that is because that was a hit. It was the first single from the "Tango in the Night” album. The reason that I’m so engaged by that is because it began as an ensemble piece. It was a band song. But, soon after, it transformed."
"The idea of a single guitar with the finger style, kind of orchestra style that I have, doing the work of a whole track is something which you try to sort of look into and incorporate once in a while depending on the kind of album
"That song transformed from an ensemble piece to a single guitar piece. It kind of represented sort of the underscoring of that sensibility and caring about the idea of the guitar creating such an important role for itself. It’s now one of the highlights of a Fleetwood Mac show because it’s so seemingly successful of tapping into that sensibility. It’s part of the landscape of who I am as a musician."
WHEN MIGHT WE SEE ANOTHER FLEETWOOD MAC TOUR AGAIN?
"It originally was going to be a little earlier than what seems to be penciled in at the moment. Partly because we didn't know if we’d tour behind this album at first. Right now it’s only penciled in because we don’t know exactly how long this tour will go, but we may decide to do more shows."
"After that I have a solo album that's waiting in the wings that will come out. That’s penciled in for January, but we'll see how everything goes."
"But the Fleetwood Mac tour is a certainty. What's not a certainty is when. We're sort of waiting to see what kind of life all of these other things take on."