The Sunday Times: Excess all areas

[SpyNote]

Here's a new article promoting the upcoming UK tour. Mick's second autobiography called Play On is coming out next year. Christine's "rather lonely" in Kent, but still won't rejoin the band. She's still hinting at a cameo performance at one of the UK shows. There are some pictures in the article, which you can see here.

Excess all areas
The Sunday Times (UK) (subscription) / Matt Munday / Sunday, August 18, 2013

Mick Fleetwood has survived nearly 50 years in rock’s most dysfunctional band, Fleetwood Mac. Now they’re back on the road

Mick Fleetwood looks like a bohemian Santa with his bushy white beard, pastel shirt, black waistcoat and flat cap. Not all his tales from the rock’n’roll frontline are as jolly as his appearance, though. At one point he has to choke back tears of regret. He has lived a life of such abandon that he admits he is lucky to still be here. “I’ve inherited some good genes,” he explains.

It is often reported that Fleetwood put $8m of cocaine up his nose, and though this is an exaggeration, he says, if he hadn’t stopped consuming the drug so vigorously “the next stop would have been a wooden box”. His former bandmate in Fleetwood Mac, Christine McVie, had earlier told me that the men in the band used to rack out lines of coke like “blooming great rails” – whereas she and Stevie Nicks, the female contingent, would restrict themselves to “ladylike” portions, carried around their necks in jeweled buckles that had dainty silver spoons inside. “It was the 1970s,” she shrugged. “There was a lot going around.”

“I’m not advocating cocaine at all, but the truth is, I had a good time,” says Fleetwood. “But then, without realising it, you’re getting too out of it. You’re sleeping for three days, or you’re up for nine days or whatever. And eventually you don’t feel good at any time.”

He quit taking coke “a long time ago,” but the booze has been harder to let go. “I haven’t been drunk for five months now,” he announces. With a 46-date tour of America about to begin soon after we meet, followed by European dates including four in Britain in September, he has had to shape up. “I knew I was drinking too much,” he says. “And the more I don’t drink, the more I realise I was really drinking too much.”

‘I was still behaving like I was 32 years old, and you can’t be doing that ****. I suppose I was late getting off the bus’

Why still so excessive? Fleetwood is 66 — aren’t these meant to be the golden years, where living is easy? “We’re all still learning to take care of ourselves,” he says, “because Fleetwood Mac have worked really hard at pushing some envelopes. And of course you’ve got to change your behaviours, but I’ve had moments — really not that long ago — where I wasn’t getting it. I was still behaving like I was 32 years old, and you can’t be doing that ****. I suppose I was late getting off the bus.”

Perhaps it has also been the process of writing his autobiography, Play On, due to be published by Little, Brown next year, that has helped Fleetwood to take stock and start implementing some changes. Toning down his lifestyle has not been easy — playing rock’n’roll is practically all he has ever done (aside from dabbling as a restaurateur, with rather mixed results).

He was born in 1947 in Redruth, Cornwall, to a military family. His grandfather, John, had been killed at Gallipoli in the Great War, and his father, Mike, had served in the RAF in the Second World War. Like many army brats, Mick was sent to boarding school, but hated it because he was an undiagnosed dyslexic, and as a result “didn’t learn ****”.

This gave him a lifelong fear of structured learning. “To this day, I don’t know what I’m doing,” he confesses. “I actually don’t know what a verse is, or a chorus. You can sing a song and show me, but don’t give me a bit of paper and say, ‘Oh, you know that bit there…’ ”

He says he is nervous about the tour, and still suffers from severe stage fright. “I’m just hoping I don’t forget all my parts.”

It seems extraordinary that he still feels so shaky — despite having spent the last 47 years performing in one of the most commercially successful British rock bands since the Beatles.

“It goes way back,” he says. “So this is going to be interesting. I’ll have a glass of wine beforehand, but I don’t want to drink myself into a stupor just so I don’t get frightened. If I have four glasses of wine during a show, that’s cool — so long as I don’t get on the plane and finish off two more bottles.”

It is also surprising how raw he seems. I suspect he may be playing up to his own mythology a little — he is a self-confessed drama queen — but the disquiet seems real. I ask if his fear of not feeling is ultimately the fear of losing his creativity. “It’s more a fear of losing my life,” he says, dramatically.

Fleetwood left school as soon as he could, at 16, and moved to London to join the thriving blues scene. In this milieu he would meet bass guitarist John McVie, son of a west London sheet-metal worker, and they formed a band in 1967 with the guitarist Peter Green, who was a big star back then, but also a troubled soul who hated the limelight. So Green named the group after its rhythm section — Fleetwood Mac.

Success would follow, as did numerous line-up changes. Peter Green dropped too much acid and developed schizophrenia, and a series of other guitarists each had their own failings. One, Danny Kirwan, was highly strung and wept while he played; another, Bob Weston, was sacked after an affair with Fleetwood’s first wife, Jenny; and a third, Jeremy Spencer, popped out of a hotel in Los Angeles to buy a newspaper, joined a religious cult and never returned.

When things fell apart it was often Mick who rallied the troops and kept things going — he even became the band’s manager for a spell. “Mick would never let it end,” says Christine McVie. “Fleetwood Mac is his baby.”

Having moved to America with the band in the early 1970s after a career lull, Fleetwood met two penniless musicians in LA, Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks, then a couple, and invited them to join.

‘We’re totally driven by drama. I think we’re calming down a bit, but we’re terrified of not feeling. It’s sort of an addiction, really’

The first record they did together in 1975, Fleetwood Mac, was a hit that sold 5m copies. But their career zenith arrived a year later with the release of the follow-up, Rumours. To date, the album has sold more than 40m copies and is the ninth bestseller of all time. And it is still winning them new fans: it was reissued in Britain in January this year and went straight into the album chart at No 3.

What made rumours such a powerful piece of work was an almost perfect storm of dysfunction that engulfed its creators — and which still affects the band now. As they recorded the album in Sausalito, California, Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks’s 10-year relationship was ending; the eight-year marriage of the other couple in the band, Christine and John McVie, had just imploded; and Fleetwood’s marriage to the model Jenny Boyd, with whom he has two daughters, had also recently collapsed.

To make matters even more intense, their failed relationships became the subject of the bitter breakup lyrics, which were artfully juxtaposed with sweet soft-rock melodies. But despite the shared heartbreak (and mutual loathing, depending on who was in the room together), all could hear the music’s potential. Songs such as “Dreams” and “Go Your Own Way” would take them to the top of the charts in record-breaking style — “Michael Jackson territory” is how Lindsey Buckingham describes it. So they famously anaesthetised themselves with cocaine from an ever-present velvet bag to endure the recording. Keep numb and carry on.

“Imagine your relationship fell apart, but you had children, and you both have to put your **** away to some extent and make sure the children aren’t damaged,” Fleetwood says. “The band was our child. We got through it, and not without some damage emotionally. Plus, it was the only thing we knew.”

Well, almost. Fleetwood also knew how to party. The bandmate he is most similar to in this regard, he says, is Stevie Nicks — the witchy blonde rock goddess whose long, and ultimately successful, struggle with cocaine and tranquillisers is well documented. “We’re totally driven by drama,” says Fleetwood. “I think we’re calming down a bit, but we’re terrified of not feeling. So if nothing’s happening you’ll worry yourself into creating a drama — just so you’ve got something to react to. It’s sort of an addiction, really.”

And a highly lucrative addiction it has been, thanks to Fleetwood Mac’s ability to convert personal tragedy into musical alchemy. Rumours made the five members of Fleetwood Mac — the “classic” line-up — extremely rich. Estimates of the net worth of Lindsey Buckingham (guitar, vocals, production), Stevie Nicks (vocals, tambourine), Christine McVie (keyboard, vocals) and John McVie (bass) range from $45m up to $65m.

Estimates for Mick Fleetwood’s haul are markedly more moderate: around $9m. This is partly because he has not been as prolific a songwriter as other members: he’s the drummer, so earns more from touring than from royalties. He has also lost a fortune on bad property deals and failed restaurants, though this hasn’t deterred him from opening another, Fleetwood’s on Front St, on the Hawaiian island of Maui, where he lives (he recently separated from his third wife, Lynn). A “Mick’s Margarita” from the cocktail menu includes tequila, elderflower liqueur, fresh-pressed lime juice, agave nectar and is “capped with Mick’s Pinot Noir.”

For years after Rumours, the private-jet lifestyle kept running into turbulence. The band were papering over the cracks, which must surely have widened when Fleetwood and Nicks had a fling, although Buckingham, her ex, denies it caused a problem. “It was a reflection of the times we were living in,” he told me. “You can’t separate individual acts from the times. Stevie was prolific in that way, shall we say, and so was Mick — and so was I. So it never really bothered me at all. I had dealt with the hurt of losing Stevie long before that.”

But at least Mick was gentleman enough to tell Buckingham about the affair in person before the latter heard any, um, rumours. “He came over to my house and sat me down at my kitchen table and said, ‘Me and Stevie are an item,’ ” says Buckingham. “And I said, ‘Oh, OK.’ Because, really, should I have been surprised?”

The bubble was always going to burst. Christine McVie went on to date the Beach Boy Dennis Wilson — another renowned sybarite — before eventually burning out in the late 1990s, selling her LA mansion and moving to a Kent farmhouse to lead a “solitary life.” This, she told me, has recently become “rather lonely — apart from my brother and sister-in-law I still don’t know anyone down here.” She keeps in touch with the band, but insists she has no plans to rejoin and won’t be performing on this tour (she hasn’t ruled out a cameo appearance for the British dates, however). Buckingham, meanwhile, left Fleetwood Mac for nine years, before returning in 1996.

“We were Bonnie and Clyde, me and Stevie, and Lindsey got fed up with it,” Fleetwood says. “But he left out of fear — he didn’t want to be around us, because we were too stoned. Only recently, he admitted that he was really frightened that Stevie was going to die, and he didn’t want to be around it. That’s a really deep-rooted regard for someone. And that’s, ah…” his voice is suddenly trembling and his eyes are moist, but the British stiff upper lip fast reasserts itself. “That’s part of our whole thing.”

‘We were Bonnie and Clyde, me and Stevie, and Lindsey got fed up with it,’ Fleetwood says

Predictably, this isn’t quite the way Buckingham recalls it. “Frightened may not be the right word,” he says evenly. “It was more frustrated. Or maybe I was frightened, but for myself. Everyone in that subculture thought that drugs were what you had to do; that turned out to be a load of crap. You can be just as creative when you’re sober. There was this idea that we were somehow rejecting values we didn’t believe in. And the irony was that we ended up becoming just as decadent as the things we were railing against.”

As the Fleetwood Mac tour got underway, news broke that Fleetwood’s third marriage had crumbled — it was reported that he had filed for joint custody of his twin 11-year-old daughters. I wondered whether he would find succor among his bandmates, and whether he would conquer his demons on the road.

Months later, I spoke to Stevie Nicks and asked how things were going. “I don’t know what’s come over Mick, but he’s on fire,” she said. “He’s playing better than he’s ever played. He’s rocking on that stage.”

According to Nicks, Fleetwood had been venting everything during the shows — but not in the bar afterwards. The party animal had remained in his cage. “I’m up there onstage looking at everybody and thinking this is amazing, because we’re all sober up here,” Nicks intoned in a husky voice full of warmth and melancholy. “Nobody’s drunk. And we’re all having an incredible time.”

Nicks also revealed that she and Buckingham had only recently made their peace, after falling out in 2003 over creative differences (neither will elaborate). Oh, the drama — when will it ever end? Anyway, Nicks had promised Fleetwood that she would try to repair the relationship before the tour.

“I said to Lindsey, ‘We have got to change this. We cannot be enemies for one more day,’ ” Nicks recalled. “Because you never know — things happen. You don’t know if you’ll ever tour again. So we have to walk on stage hand in hand, and we have to mean it.”

And, against all odds, that’s what they appear to have done. Peace has finally broken out among the ranks of Fleetwood Mac. God only knows whether it will last. There is even talk of a new album — the band brought out a four-track EP, Extended Play, in April, their first new material for 10 years, and it has been warmly received by fans and critics. Naturally it’s full of elegiac songs about dysfunctional relationships and aching hearts.

“This might sound corny,” Fleetwood had said to me, just before we said goodbye, “but the biggest rumour about Fleetwood Mac is that we don’t really like each other. I understand why people would think that, after everything we’ve said and done. But the reality is, we love each other. We just push the wrong buttons.”

Fleetwood Mac tour the UK and Ireland this autumn; Rumours (Deluxe Reissue) is out now

[michelej1]

I love Lindsey saying that "frightened" might not be the word for it and toning down the high blown romantic spin.

Michele

[desertangel]

Interesting read... enjoyable with some good nuggets. Thanks for sharing!

[vivfox]

Excellent article. I'm guessing the falling out between Lindsey and Stevie in 2003 was the result of Stevie not being happy with Lindsey's productions of her SYW songs.

[michelej1]

Originally Posted by vivfox

Excellent article. I'm guessing the falling out between Lindsey and Stevie in 2003 was the result of Stevie not being happy with Lindsey's productions of her SYW songs.

Well, yes, I think that was true, but then they seemed to have made up over that and gone on to fight about something else at the end of the tour in
2004. I don't think they were fighting the whole tour. I think things got off to a shaky start, but then mended, but then there was some kind of blow up at the end of the tour.

Michele

[louielouie2000]

I wonder if these quote snippets from Christine are new, old, or simply second hand information purveyed by Mick/Stevie/Lindsey?

I think the creative differences alluded to from Say You Will are more extensive than just Lindsey's treatment of Stevie's songs. It has to do with everything- the fight over SYW being a double/single album, the fight over who would mix SYW, the fact that the band had basically recorded Lindsey's songs & forged a direction for the album before Stevie arrived; the whole thing was an ego battle. Stevie lost in a lot of ways, and that undoubtedly angered her. The band started recording without her, they pretty much laid out the sound & direction of the album without her input, she didn't get her mixer (Chris Lord Alge), she had to supply more songs than she wanted to, she had to agree to let Lindsey make her songs edgier so they'd match his, etc. The only way she really won was by denying SYW being a double album; but since the album had 18 songs on a single disc, she didn't get paid for half the songs she contributed. To top things off, Say You Will was the poorest selling album Stevie had been involved in. I can see how the whole thing made her sore. At the same time, she is the one who dawdled & arrived on the scene too late to really take ownership in Say You Will. Maybe they all learned something from the experience, and will correct these wrongs with one last album. I have my doubts after seeing what they did with Extended Play, though.

[MikeInNV]

Originally Posted by louielouie2000

I wonder if these quote snippets from Christine are new, old, or simply second hand information purveyed by Mick/Stevie/Lindsey?

I think the creative differences alluded to from Say You Will are more extensive than just Lindsey's treatment of Stevie's songs. It has to do with everything- the fight over SYW being a double/single album, the fight over who would mix SYW, the fact that the band had basically recorded Lindsey's songs & forged a direction for the album before Stevie arrived; the whole thing was an ego battle. Stevie lost in a lot of ways, and that undoubtedly angered her. The band started recording without her, they pretty much laid out the sound & direction of the album without her input, she didn't get her mixer (Chris Lord Alge), she had to supply more songs than she wanted to, she had to agree to let Lindsey make her songs edgier so they'd match his, etc. The only way she really won was by denying SYW being a double album; but since the album had 18 songs on a single disc, she didn't get paid for half the songs she contributed. To top things off, Say You Will was the poorest selling album Stevie had been involved in. I can see how the whole thing made her sore. At the same time, she is the one who dawdled & arrived on the scene too late to really take ownership in Say You Will. Maybe they all learned something from the experience, and will correct these wrongs with one last album. I have my doubts after seeing what they did with Extended Play, though.

I'm not sure I would say dawdled. She was genuinely busy releasing, promoting, and touring behind TISL. Beginning with Mirage, the band has always taken advantage of the fact that they can get some of the work done without Stevie, and then incorporate her stuff when time allows. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying it wouldn't be beneficial to have her there for all the sessions (Tango would have been better), but it seems as much a band decision as it does hers.

[michelej1]

Originally Posted by louielouie2000

The only way she really won was by denying SYW being a double album; but since the album had 18 songs on a single disc, she didn't get paid for half the songs she contributed.

Based on DR, I thought Lindsey ate the costs of the excess songs, since he is the one who pushed for them and he used the tour to make up the money. Michele

[michelej1]

Originally Posted by louielouie2000

I wonder if these quote snippets from Christine are new, old, or simply second hand information purveyed by Mick/Stevie/Lindsey?

The "blooming great rails" quote seems new. So, if she told that to this writer, she probably said it some time this year, maybe not recently. More like when she returned to England after her visit to Hawaii.

Michele

[CADreaming]

Originally Posted by michelej1

I love Lindsey saying that "frightened" might not be the word for it and toning down the high blown romantic spin.

Michele

Poppycock. Either way, he doesn't mind playing that card now. I don't know why he can't say he was frightened about it. Based on Debbie's personal conversation with him about Stevie, it seemed obvious he was very frightened for her - and I'm sure frustrated, concerned, angry, flippant. All the gamut of emotions that happen when someone you care about is an addict and you are dealing with that directly or indirectly. And, maybe it did open his eyes to his own need to watch where he was headed.

Originally Posted by vivfox

Excellent article. I'm guessing the falling out between Lindsey and Stevie in 2003 was the result of Stevie not being happy with Lindsey's productions of her SYW songs.

Which is why she called him up desperate to get him to do Soldiers Angel, because he was the only one who could do it.

I get so tired of the SYW fight speculation. But also because this "we made up finally" is already insinuating it was only a recent thing and has nothing to do with the alleged SA make up which happened in 2010....

[aleuzzi]

A pretty good article.

The Danny Kirwan weeping detail was misplaced in a list of things that were fundamentally negative. From what I've read, he used to weep because he felt the music so deeply, which his bandmates respected.

The Christine news doesn't surprise me at all. Is it too much to hope that some of that loneliness she feels on her big estate will spur her into another creative project? Perhaps getting some of her beloved solo-band lads together for some more music making?

So glad Lindsey corrected the rather absurd notion that he left the band because he was frightened for Stevie and Mick, that he was fed up with their Bonnie and Clyde antics.

[CADreaming]

Originally Posted by aleuzzi

So glad Lindsey corrected the rather absurd notion that he left the band because he was frightened for Stevie and Mick, that he was fed up with their Bonnie and Clyde antics.

Wow. It's absurd to be frightened someone might die...and not just anyone, but someone you share a deep history with? I mean, regardless of animosities, I think that unless you have ice water running through your veins it would definitely be on the emotional front burner.

[bombaysaffires]

Originally Posted by CADreaming

Wow. It's absurd to be frightened someone might die...and not just anyone, but someone you share a deep history with? I mean, regardless of animosities, I think that unless you have ice water running through your veins it would definitely be on the emotional front burner.

I think that was part of the mix, but it certainly wasn't the main or only reason he left the band, which is how some folks read the tone of the article. Clearly he left for a lot of artistic and professional/business reasons about how the band was going creatively as much as Stevie's drug addiction. I think he was very concerned about that personally, but he was also concerned with how it impacted the band's ability to get good work done and also the age-old tensions between his creative direction and that of other band members. I can see where some might think it's just a tad too simplistic for the article to imply Stevie's drug addiction and/or her relationship with Mick on a personal level were the main reasons he left. He left because on ALL levels (personal, creative, business etc) that group of people were one effed up mess and he just didn't want to deal with it anymore. Can't say I blame him. But you have to wonder if the creative differences were still the same and neither Stevie nor Mick were as addicted as they were would he have left anyway? I suspect yes.

[michelej1]

Originally Posted by CADreaming

Wow. It's absurd to be frightened someone might die...and not just anyone, but someone you share a deep history with? I mean, regardless of animosities, I think that unless you have ice water running through your veins it would definitely be on the emotional front burner.

No, it's not absurd. But Lindsey has rejected that language. It sounded overblown when Stevie said it and, Mick is her twin and followed suit. It seems quite natural to me that Lindsey would say that's not exactly how he would describe it.

It doesn't mean that anyone feels that you can't be concerned for an addict. That's not what's at issue here. It's Lindsey describing his own feelings, as opposed to Mick and Stevie's drama. As you know, Lindsey loves to wax sentimental on his own and will do so on many subjects concerning himself and Stevie. As you say, he "plays that card" if he wants. But if he chooses to express himself differently on this subject, it makes sense to me, because I think it's more in keeping with how he felt. And I thought Stevie's comments were princessy.

It doesn't mean he doesn't care for her and has not felt concern for her. I think he felt concern for her and Mick at the time, but I also think they were driving him crazy. And he left for self-preservation. Boo hoo I didn't want to see the love of my life die. Give me a break. When you are going through something, even with people you love very much, sometimes you get so frustrated with their behavior that you just think in terms of getting away from it. You don't think in terms of "what if I might lose them." I know someone whose son robbed her for drugs and she was devastated and wanted nothing more to do with him. When he died, she never stopped mourning the loss and the possessions he stole seemed like the least important thing in the world. But that was in the face of his actual death. When he took the things, she wanted to kill him herself.

If Lindsey says he wasn't feeling that fear for Stevie in 1987, it sounds perfectly logical to me and nothing like denial. People don't live in a fairy bubble all the time. His comments sound closer to truth than denial to me, which doesn't mean he won't say very high, romantic and overblown things about Stevie next month. I'm sure he will.

Michele

[shackin'up]

I still think that the inclusion of 'come' on the album AND the tour, irritated the s**t out of Stevie too, because people would think that song was about her. She had a point there. Although I adore the song and it's liveversion, it should have been what it originally was: a Lindsey Buckingham-track, not a Fleetwood Mac-song.