Ken Caillat Seeks Input for Book

[Peestie]

Originally Posted by gldstwmn

I'm sorry Peestie. I was just playin'.

I guessed that, but I was a bit drunk and not in the best mood when I sent that reply. My apologies to you for being snappy.

[jbrownsjr]

Originally Posted by kencaillat

You are a genius! But that's the beginning and ending of my book, the majesty of it all!
KC

Thank you Ken... and while it's true I'm a genius.. I didn't produce or engineer one of the most successful albums in our history...

I'll wait for my answer after I buy your book.. .and yes that may be a little easy or kiss ass... but again.. the end result of your work produced 16 million units in the first year.. and I was 8 years old and i played it over and over and over again until that 8 track tape broke...

Many thanks John from Northridge, CA

[gldstwmn]

Originally Posted by Peestie

I guessed that, but I was a bit drunk and not in the best mood when I sent that reply. My apologies to you for being snappy.

No worries. Erin go bragh!

[nodmod]

Hey Ken

Thanks for reaching out to the fan community for input into this great sounding book, would you consider bundling the book with the unreleased DVD-Audios that you did for Fleetwood Mac (white album) and Tusk.

Such a shame that these never saw the light of day!

[Erin]

Originally Posted by gldstwmn

No worries. Erin go bragh!

Why are you talking about my bra?

[kencaillat]

Originally Posted by wetcamelfood

OK thanks Ken, I just could've sworn either you or Richard said "24" minutes per side in the Classic Albums doc was all.

John

No, if you want to go longer than 22 minutes you have to start dropping to overall volume of the whole album 3, 4, 5 db! We couldn't have that!

kc

[kencaillat]

Originally Posted by MoonWaterPoet

So it sounds that you've already finished your BOOK... AND GREAT DETAILS... so why should our (fans) point of view matter now?


Donnie Wayne ~

Wow, nice attitude. First the fans point of view always matter and it was a long time ago and I'm trying to put as many details back together as possible. Remember we worked 12 hours a day 7 days a week, sitting in a room together, working things out. My book is not finished, I wrote a 130 page outline and now I'm finding the people who were there and have disappeared.
kc

[strandinthewind]

Ken

Thank you for doing this. Things like this THRILL the fans on this board. It is safe to say you made several days here

I think it would be cool if you included in your book not only why songs got cut in time, but what was cut out of them - Songbird being a great example. There is a demo floating around with the following lyrics, which were omitted from the final product:

You smile, and you make feel good inside...it's a feeling, and it's so hard to hide.

I can't post the demo. here because it is an officially released product.

Anyway - everyone's a critic - but stuff like that is manna for the fans!

[brysondt]

Ken,

Maybe this has already been said, I'm not sure. Sorry if it has. But I was thinking...what might be really, really interesting in this book, is to kind of touch on the actual personalities of the band. I am 24, so I have NO IDEA what to even ask about the making of Rumours, although I love it so much(great job, btw). But as far as the fans go, the people who are going to buy this book and love it so much, we really are interested in getting to know who Stevie, Lindsey, Mick, Chris, and John were/are, you know? Not that I am saying make this a biography, that is NOT what I mean. I just mean, Fleetwood Mac is kind of like a little mystery to us all. As a Stevie fan, I must say, we find her very mysterious, haha, if that is what she was going for, it worked.

I'm just saying, it might add some spice to your book to include maybe some personality traits about the band that are lesser known to their fans. We love them and we love hearing about them. And thanks so much for caring what we silly fans think, haha. Oh, and I love Colbie! Thanks again, Ken.

[kencaillat]

Originally Posted by Peestie

"Flop" in comparison to the mega-selling Rumours, hence the "" marks. I don't consider it a flop at all (double platinum for a double album, right?) but Lindsey has said it was considered a commercial disappointment after selling 16million for Rumours.

It's easily my favourite Mac album so I'd love to see it get more attention but it does seem to get somewhat forgotten about sometimes. I'll be looking forward to any of your books, especially the Tusk one.

Lindsey is often touted as the "Architect of the Fleetwood Mac sound" and I was wondering if that was true of Rumours or if Tusk was where he became more prominent.
Let's see if I can insert answers--Well, there are a lot of things that go into the sound of a record, as engineer, I had a lot to do with that. However much of that album is the overdubs or additional instrumentation and those were Lindseys. During Rumours we went for clean sharp guitar sounds. On the first day of Tusk, Lindsey said he didn't want to make another repeat of Rumours like the Eagles did with Hotel California (almost mockingly) and then he had me make his guitars sound dark and distorted. That was his thing, he liked distortion, the more the merrier. So Tusk went darker...

When it came to arrangements of songs was Lindsey the one with most of the ideas and vision for how it should sound or was each band member heavily involved in arranging their own and other songwriters' songs?

The guitar layering was lindsey, keyboard layering Chris or Stevie.

I imagine Christine had a pretty good idea about her songs, even if Stevie allowed Lindsey to take her songs off and work on them. Did you and Richard Dashut help much with arrangements or were you both there for the more technical points of the production and recording?

Dash and I were there for everything, but lindsey was a genius guitar player, we could make suggestions or keep him from losing ideas which we always tried to do.. give the band a good listening experience to see (hear) the songs grow.

Was there much head butting between, say, Lindsey and John over how a particular part should be played?
I noticed that on the Rumours 2 disc release a few years ago the demo of Second Hand News has a totally different bass line to the final version. Who would have made the decision as to which bass line worked best to go on the album?
Not at first, but as we did the later albums, Lindsey would sometime insist that John play the bass the way he heard it. John often refused and this became an interesting standoff, particularly if drinking was involved

Sorry, that's lots of questions.

Lindsey is often touted as the "Architect of the Fleetwood Mac sound" and I was wondering if that was true of Rumours or if Tusk was where he became more prominent.

Let's see if I can insert answers--Well, there are a lot of things that go into the sound of a record, as engineer, I had a lot to do with that. However much of that album is the overdubs or additional instrumentation and those were Lindseys. During Rumours we went for clean sharp guitar sounds. On the first day of Tusk, Lindsey said he didn't want to make another repeat of Rumours like the Eagles did with Hotel California (almost mockingly) and then he had me make his guitars sound dark and distorted. That was his thing, he liked distortion, the more the merrier. So Tusk went darker...

When it came to arrangements of songs was Lindsey the one with most of the ideas and vision for how it should sound or was each band member heavily involved in arranging their own and other songwriters' songs?

The guitar layering was lindsey, keyboard layering Chris or Stevie.

I imagine Christine had a pretty good idea about her songs, even if Stevie allowed Lindsey to take her songs off and work on them. Did you and Richard Dashut help much with arrangements or were you both there for the more technical points of the production and recording?

Dash and I were there for everything, but lindsey was a genius guitar player, we could make suggestions or keep him from losing ideas which we always tried to do.. give the band a good listening experience to see (hear) the songs grow.

Was there much head butting between, say, Lindsey and John over how a particular part should be played?
I noticed that on the Rumours 2 disc release a few years ago the demo of Second Hand News has a totally different bass line to the final version. Who would have made the decision as to which bass line worked best to go on the album?
Not at first, but as we did the later albums, Lindsey would sometime insist that John play the bass the way he heard it. John often refused and this became an interesting standoff, particularly if drinking was involved

[Ghost_Tracker]

I think this is a GREAT idea, getting help from the Ledge.

Here's some questions that occur to me at first blush...

Mick indicates in his book that there's multiple reasons that Silver Springs was left off of Rumours. However, only one has been discussed in detail. It might be interesting to explore what those other reasons were; at least as far as what might be acceptable to the band members to publish.

The story about having to put all of Rumours together "without a sync track" is VERY interesting; and some further details about how that was accomplished, who did it, how long it took etc. would be great to hear.
And just how close was the album to NOT happening, because of this?

How did you and Richard Dashutt come to be associated with the album?
(The details, I mean.) Were there others who were considered? How do you feel you personally influenced the album? Did this influence continue to show in later albums?

How and where did you learn to Engineer records? Do you have suggestions for those who want to get into this aspect of the business?

What was the best part of working on the album? The worst?
What was the funniest thing that happened?

Is there a specific day that really stands out in your mind?

When did you first know that this was gonna be REALLY big?

Who first suggested that the album be called "Rumours?"
Were other possible titles discussed?

How did making this record differ from the way it might have been today?

Looking forward to the book!

[Moz]

Originally Posted by Ghost_Tracker

Who first suggested that the album be called "Rumours?"
Were other possible titles discussed?

I'm not Ken (obviously) but I heard that it was to be called "Don't Stop" and John commented that the whole album sounded like a bunch of rumours.

[JeannieKartis]

Originally Posted by kencaillat

Wow, nice attitude. First the fans point of view always matter and it was a long time ago and I'm trying to put as many details back together as possible. Remember we worked 12 hours a day 7 days a week, sitting in a room together, working things out. My book is not finished, I wrote a 130 page outline and now I'm finding the people who were there and have disappeared.
kc

thanks for doing this Ken and btw, I did not know that colbie was your daughter! She was just here in Virginia Beach and I'm sorry that I did not make her show, hopefully she will return.

[David]

Originally Posted by Ghost_Tracker

I think this is a GREAT idea, getting help from the Ledge.

Here's some questions that occur to me at first blush...

Most of your questions are addressed in the Q&A Ken gave us a few years ago.

http://www.fleetwoodmac.net/fwm/inde...146&Itemid=166

I recommend everyone read it, & then try to think of new questions for Ken.

[Ghost_Tracker]

Originally Posted by kencaillat

Remember we worked 12 hours a day 7 days a week, sitting in a room together, working things out. kc

This actually raises an interesting question itself - -

Who determined the hours? Who chose the start time, when to call it quits, etc.? Who got others motivated or let them know if they needed to "step up" a little more? In other words, who were the "real leaders?"
And what did you guys do about food, etc? Did you just usually order take-out? Or did you pretty much have enough time for a "normal" three square meals a day, outside of the studio? Who picked what to order? (etc. - might be some stories there...)

Also, were there any "signs of greatness" in Stevie that you could see yet? Would you have believed that this person would still pretty much be a "superstar" in the year 2009, with a solid fan base? Or was she kind of "mousy" and not very assertive, etc. at that point? Could you see her growing and learning? How about the rest of the band, also?