Cleveland Interviews

[michelej1]

The Plain Dealer
Lindsey Buckingham tour visits House of Blues

Friday, September 26, 2008 John Soeder, Plain Dealer Pop Music Critic

"This is probably the most rock 'n' roll album I've ever made," said Fleetwood Mac's Lindsey Buckingham, referring to his new solo effort, "Gift of Screws."

It's more visceral than his last studio album, 2006's largely acoustic "Under the Skin." Still, "Gift of Screws" is not without the endearingly quirky twists we've come to expect from this idiosyncratic singer-guitarist.

Demonic howls embellish the title track, inspired by an Emily Dickinson poem.

"We're always looking for things to rip off . . . in the public domain," Buckingham said with a laugh during a recent teleconference with reporters.

Dickinson "is making this analogy about making perfume and how it's not going to be just the sun making the flower grow," said Buckingham, 58. "You've got to take the petals and press them and turn the screw, basically. The gift of screws' is you knowing what you want to get out of it, turning the screw, getting the oil from the petals. . . . That was something that I related to very much."

Two of his Fleetwood Mac bandmates -- drummer Mick Fleetwood and bassist John McVie -- accompany Buckingham on a couple of his new tunes. They plan to reconvene next year with vocalist Stevie Nicks for another Fleetwood Mac album, although Sheryl Crow has not been recruited to replace the retired Christine McVie -- contrary to what Crow told a Web site this year.

"I think Stevie put out the feelers and asked if [Sheryl] would be interested," Buckingham said. "That's about as far as it got. It was a hypothetical. When Sheryl was doing press for her album, she took it upon herself to announce to the world that she was joining Fleetwood Mac. She had made a choice to announce something which had not been even decided, which was in itself inappropriate."

Buckingham's wife, Kristen, co-wrote two songs on "Gift of Screws." They have three children: Will, 10 (who came up with the hook for the album's opener, "Great Day"); Leelee, 8; and Stella, 4.

Domestic bliss suits Buckingham.

"It's allowed me to open my life back up," he said. "For years, the way I got by was to focus on the music and otherwise lead a fairly monklike existence.

"You find someone relatively late [who] you can share your life with, and you have beautiful children. It reaffirms that things go in cycles. It also possibly reaffirmed that maybe my karma was pretty good and I had made some good choices and that I should try to approach everything in a slightly more celebratory manner."

To reach this Plain Dealer reporter:

jsoeder@plaind.com, 216-999-4562

[michelej1]

Baton Rouge, The Advocate

FM Didn't Get All of Buckingham's Songs

By JOHN WIRT
Music critic
Published: Sep 26, 2008 - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

Solo recordings from Lindsey Buckingham — singer, songwriter, guitarist and producer for that famous British-American pop-rock collective known as Fleetwood Mac — typically appear at long intervals.

Buckingham’s new solo CD, Gift of Screws, is only his fifth solo project in 35 years of recording. Uncharacteristically, it’s also his third solo disc in two years, following the 2006 studio album, Under the Skin, and this year’s CD/DVD release, Live at the Bass Performance Hall.

While he’s away from his Fleetwood Mac band mates — Stevie Nicks, John McVie and Mick Fleetwood — Buckingham develops solo material. But songs intended for solo projects often are incorporated into Fleetwood Mac albums.

Production for “Gift of Screws,” Buckingham said during a teleconference with reporters, started more than 10 years ago.
“It really was only begun at that point,” he said. “Mick and I had been working together and then someone had the bright idea — it could have been Mick, actually — to say, ‘Let’s not have you do a solo album, let’s have Fleetwood Mac do a live album.’ ”
Buckingham was once again called to Fleetwood Mac duty.

“I consider myself a member of the band, even though I left for awhile in the late ’80s to kind of reclaim my individuality and sanity,” he said.

So Buckingham joined Fleetwood Mac for the 1997 in-concert CD, The Dance, and a North American tour, before returning to his unfinished solo project. It was near completion when the band called again.

“Fleetwood Mac came in and said, ‘Let’s make a studio album,’ ” Buckingham said. “So a large body of tunes, which were intended to be a solo album, got folded into the Fleetwood Mac album.”

Even after 2002’s Mac album, Say You Will, enough straggler songs remained for Buckingham to assemble two solo albums, 2006’s acoustic-oriented Under the Skin and its more rocking follow-up, Gift of Screws.

Some Gift of Screws songs, including “Wait For You” and the album’s title track, remained on the shelf for years.

“They were waiting to find a home and they finally did,” Buckingham said.

Gift of Screws evolved in the studio, unlike the acoustic-oriented Under the Skin, which began with a specific concept.

“Under the Skin was more of a boutique kind of thing,” Buckingham said. “It did not necessarily address the range of things that I do or that people might be familiar with.”

Gift of Screws dictated a new direction, he said. “That’s one thing you learn, that you follow the work, let it lead you. As soon as I got my road band into the studio, everything wanted to rock.”

Compared to sessions for many previous projects — especially Fleetwood Mac’s landmark albums, Rumours and Tusk, and their behind-the-scenes, intra-band struggles — Screws fell easily in place. Buckingham credits his belated marriage and fatherhood for that.

“I was very lucky to meet a woman, fall in love and have three children,” he said. “The personal side of my life has been greatly enriched. We used to joke about the adage that children are death to the artist, but I feel like I’m in the most creative period of my life.”

Several Gift of Screws songs feature Fleetwood Mac’s rhythm section, bassist McVie and drummer Fleetwood.

“I get in the studio with John or Mick and it is home, but home has been any number of things over the years for us.”

Fleetwood Mac, Buckingham said, “has always been a fairly convoluted situation. Our sensibilities range greatly. In a way, we don’t even belong in the same band. But it’s the synergy of that that makes it what it is.”

Following his fall solo tour, Buckingham plans to join McVie, Fleetwood and Nicks for rehearsals early next year.

“We’re looking for it to be something which is a little more blessed this time,” he said of the upcoming chapter in the life of one of music’s biggest-selling acts. “The agenda, I think, is for us to avoid things that maybe we blew out of proportion in the past and remind ourselves that we do know each other really well, we love each other and are great friends.”