The MAN speaks!

wondergirl9847 · #1 07-07-2003, 11:11 PM

From the Fan Club:

Did you ever plan on releasing the “Gift of Screws” material that didn’t make it onto “Say You Will” as a solo project?

Yes John, there was quite a lot of material that did not make it on the “Say You Will” album that is waiting in the wings to be used in some form or another. At this point I wouldn’t want to say for sure that Fleetwood Mac is going to do another album. I am hoping that they do, in which case that material would probably or some of it at least, would probably go on a subsequent Fleetwood Mac album. If that doesn’t happen then absolutely it would go on a solo album of mine, it’s just too early to tell how all this is going to work out, you know; so in any case there is a lot of material there and I am actually starting to write some new material as well, so we are looking ahead to the future one way or another.

What is your most absolute favorite Fleetwood Mac song to play on stage and why?

I enjoy playing, there are two songs that I like playing on stage the most, I enjoy “Big Love” because it is very much a presentation of a song that is in line with what I am interested in working on now, which is one or two instruments and doing the whole work of the song. And it really gets me back to the roots of my finger picking, so that’s one of my most favorites I think. And the other might be “So Afraid,” just because every night it is so different and many of our songs are structured in a fairly pop way and do not change much from night to night, and that is one song that not only myself, but the other musicians in the band, Mick especially can improvise and really reel out the musicianship on, so that would be another one that I like quite a bit, I think.

If you were not a musician, what career would you see yourself in?

Robert if I were not a musician, ha ha, I’d probably be in organized crime. No, I wonder sometimes if I were not a musician what I would have done; sometimes I think I would be in prison. I think I have kind of a renegade spirit. Sometimes I wonder how I manage to function in this band, which has been a really main stream proposition all the way through. I don’t know, if not in prison maybe a painter or some kind of artist.

After such a long hiatus from the road together, what will this tour mean to everyone?

Yes it has been quite a while. You know we did do a tour after we did the Dance album, but that album was not really a new thing for us, but basically a restatement of a body of work and I guess at that time the significant thing was just realizing that we enjoyed each other and could continue to work together after such a long absence. What is significant about what we are doing now is that, you know it ties into a brand new work that we all feel is some of the best work we have ever done. I think we are all thinking about the longer term proposition of having to find ourselves in a very fresh way, and what that means over the next 5 years in terms of recording work and touring work and that you know we are now hopefully meeting the challenge of presenting something that is new. Not just an old body of work, but something that the audience will enjoy and that will be challenged by and yet not be alienated by, at the same time, putting a show together which walks the line between being challenging and being familiar. We are having a great time. You know, I think in many ways there is a lot of healing going on, even since the Dance tour and that’s a fairly profound thing among all of us. We are just very excited to be here on the road.

First of all, I would like to thank you for being so daring in your musical career and giving us challenges as listeners. My questions is: When you reflect back on “Tusk” now, what is your favorite song off that album and why?

Well Sara, first I would like to thank you for having the perception that I have tried to be daring and challenging to the listeners and to myself most importantly, especially within the context of a fairly mainstream situation. You know success on the kind of level that we had, generally means that if something were to run it into the ground, I always try to not do that, because the more you kind of follow a formula the more you tend to forget what you got into the business for in the first place, which was love of music and the love of creativity and the kind of religious quality that being creative has. So I thank you for that perception first of all. When I reflect back on the Tusk album it is difficult to choose a favorite song, I would say that the Tusk album on the whole is my favorite album, not only for the music on it, but because it did follow that kind of idea that we didn’t follow Rumours with Rumours II. I think maybe the song “Tusk” would be my favorite, that was a big collaboration of all of us. I remember how that song was put together, it was basically a drum lead of Mick’s toms, that in those days you know you actually had to loop recording tape, I think we had about a 30 foot piece of tape looping around the room over and over again, so it got started in a fairly esoteric way and it finished up with a great idea of Mick’s, which was to put the USC Marching Band on and you know in many ways the song, which is a set, is the brand name for not only that album but for that way of thinking. So I guess that would have to be my favorite song off the Tusk album.

I love the song Peacekeeper! What was the inspiration for the song?

Rochelle I am happy that you love the song Peacekeeper. The inspiration for that song, was really just a kind of peace song first of all, although it seems to be interpreted in any number of ways. Quite honestly it is kind of a satire. It’s kind of a critical look at the arrogance and the sort of distance and disengagement that the mechanism that seems to be in charge of America today has for America as a whole, as opposed to America the few, and just how easy it is over a period of time to kind of rationalize away into any number of things. And how brutal acts in general become sort of something that we are more and more desensitized to as time goes by. And certainly, that mechanism is in charge of America which is completely desensitized to it and how it might have a tendency to fall back on itself, so it is all done in a kind of tongue and cheek satire way. I would think if you look at the words they are very dry. But it is almost humorous, so I guess the inspiration was just looking around and seeing what is going on in the world today.

I have been a long time fan of Fleetwood Mac and Lindsey. At the last Mac tour, I was just captivated by the solo guitar work performed by Lindsey. Lindsey, at what age did you learn to play and what/who has been your biggest inspiration?

Well Mark there is one guitar that I play a lot, especially on stage, ironically it is not the most useful one in the studio, but it is called a Turner. And just to back track - First, before Stevie and I joined the band, I was playing a Telecaster and I didn’t use a pick so I had this kind of finger picking style which is well suited to a Telecaster. When I joined the band, the sound of that guitar did not fit in with what existed between Christine, the keyboards, and the drums and bass, so I had to switch over to a Les Paul which was not very well suited to a finger picking style. So for a long time I looked at something that was sort of splitting the difference. Then I met a guy from Turner who made his own guitars, and I asked him to make a guitar like that for me, and he did. And that is the one I have used ever since on stage, it’s a kind of percussive sound but its very much like an electric version of an acoustic guitar. Very even sounding and that is really what I have used, really, since the late 70’s.

How did you develop your pick-less playing style?

Until the Beatles came up, there was quite a lot of folk music that was quite fresh and kind of interesting to me. I learned to play Travis Picking, which is a basic (part) of folk, and a little later I dabbled in the field of pedestrian level of musical band tell, and all of that sort of then transferred back, much later I had all that under my belt and then the one band that I was in for a few years, I actually played bass in, because I didn’t have the gear and I really wasn’t a lead player. And it was really only after leaving that band and meeting Stevie and wanting to reassert ourselves as duo that I started picking up lead playing, which would have been in 71. The lead style just sort of fell in to what I already had to offer as an acoustic player and I guess that is how that happened. I do use a pick in the studio sometimes, but I really was never interested in trying to convert over because it seemed to me that it was working for me. When it was a style that I could call my own, so it really was a kind of off shoot of folk music.

Lindsey, at what age did you learn to play and what/who has been your biggest inspiration?

Carol, I started playing very young, I can’t say I had an inspiration from any one person on the guitar, because I didn’t start to play until really quite late. You know, you find quite a lot of people who are interested in playing Clapton or Hendrix or somebody, but I was coming from a totally different place. I was listening to Scotty Moore who was Elvis’ guitar player who played sort of with a pick and a couple of fingers, and then I was listening to a lot of folk music which didn’t have electric at all, and that’s the signal for my style. I started playing at about age 7 and I didn’t take any lessons or anything I just learned by listening to my brother’s records all through the 50’s and early 60’s rock and roll which was so great. And I guess again you know, I wasn’t a lead player in a sense that I was thinking of it in that way, it was more about just being someone that would learn songs and appreciate songs and the musicality of what was going on and I am sort of like a very refined primitive in terms of my approach. I think that Mick is that as well, maybe not quite as refined in a sense. Not quite as much kid. Mick is all heart and I am sort of half hazard, half heart, but you know it’s just an instinctive intuitive thing that I fell into in terms of the style and hopefully it stays my own. I hope it is and that’s an important thing, trying to make something your own. And I think it helps when you start early, starting at age 7 certainly it helped having something that I can call my own.

Merf · #2 07-07-2003, 11:52 PM

Christy-- THANKS so much for posting those questions and answers

they were great! Gotta love hearing from the man himself!

xx Meredith

Smokin Joe · #3 07-08-2003, 08:08 PM

With all that is going on, do you think it is wise to post all this copywrited material here? I dunno--just a thought.

Mad4stevie · #4 07-08-2003, 08:58 PM

Prison?!? Good God! I hope you are jokin', Lindsey!

Boy he loves playing those solo guitar numbers. He loves the spotlight, for sure. I am surprised he didn't mention "Come" because he certainly plays that song harder in concert than either "Big Love" or "I'm So Afraid".

Cammie · #5 07-08-2003, 09:54 PM

Thanks Christy!!!Lindsey

is one cool Guitar Genius Guy!

He is one nice man who really seems to care when we as fans
admire and appreciate his musical talents! Cute:Lindsey is half
hazard and half heart! hahaha! I think he is ALL heart! Cammie

jwys_soapbox · #6 07-09-2003, 07:55 PM

Holy Crap! If these are the fan club questions, I'm pretty sure that the first question was mine! Back in the old days before the storm I posted that same question and whose name does he mention? John! I'm all a flutter!

John

Sugar · #7 07-09-2003, 08:28 PM

The only thing better than you asking it is Lindsey answering it! But when, Lindsey? The question is WHEN?

Interestering, though...he spoke about there being another Fleetwood Mac album with such conviction right after SYW was released and as time goes on he kinda keeps backing away from it. Not that it really matters to me...

wondergirl9847 · #8 07-09-2003, 11:01 PM

That's where I got them (SHHHHH!!!! LOL)....now if only I could remember WHAT the frick I asked Lindsey like 6 months ago...LOL

golddustwoman77 · #9 07-13-2003, 10:43 PM

Thanks so much for posting that! Really interesting. I was surprised that he said Sara was his favorite song on Tusk. Really neat.

wondergirl9847 · #10 07-14-2003, 09:48 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by golddustwoman77
Thanks so much for posting that! Really interesting. I was surprised that he said Sara was his favorite song on Tusk. Really neat.

He said that Tusk was his favorite song from Tusk. Where did you read it was Sara?

seteca · #11 07-18-2003, 06:52 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by wondergirl9847
From the Fan Club:

Did you ever plan on releasing the “Gift of Screws” material that didn’t make it onto “Say You Will” as a solo project?

Yes John, there was quite a lot of material that did not make it on the “Say You Will” album that is waiting in the wings to be used in some form or another. At this point I wouldn’t want to say for sure that Fleetwood Mac is going to do another album. I am hoping that they do, in which case that material would probably or some of it at least, would probably go on a subsequent Fleetwood Mac album. If that doesn’t happen then absolutely it would go on a solo album of mine, it’s just too early to tell how all this is going to work out, you know; so in any case there is a lot of material there and I am actually starting to write some new material as well, so we are looking ahead to the future one way or another.

p.s. Golddustwoman77, the name of the person who asked "what's your favourite song on the Tusk album" was evidently "Sara".....Lindsey addressed her in his response but then went on to say that his favourite song is the title track. I initially made the same mistake as you, thinking that his answer was "Sara."......lol!!!

shackin'up · #12 07-19-2003, 01:00 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by seteca

p.s. Golddustwoman77, the name of the person who asked "what's your favourite song on the Tusk album" was evidently "Sara".....Lindsey addressed her in his response but then went on to say that his favourite song is the title track. I initially made the same mistake as you, thinking that his answer was "Sara."......lol!!!

I don't know Christy and Seteca, but I just read that post of Golddustwoman77 more tongue-in-cheek. But maybe I'm completely wrong here, I just read it as a small cynical joke. Actually, it would have been nice if he (or stevie in her interviews) picked some of the gorgeous Steviesongs (on Tusk you find her finest work, I think)as a fave.

gerald

wondergirl9847 · #13 07-19-2003, 02:14 PM

I guess I didn't read it that way, maybe golddustwoman77 could clear that up for us. LOL

I deleted parts of the Q&A which gave the peoples' names and email addresses...so, seeing him use people's first names I guess reads as wierd.

I TOTALLY AGREE, Stevie's Tusk songs are GREATNESS and hearing BC in concert, was PHENOMINAL!!!! That is MY fave song on Tusk, btw.