Indispensable
 

All these posts recently about will the band stay together, will some members go, will they all retire, could Mick & John ever fire Stevie & Lindsey.

Hmmm.

In your opinion, who would have to leave FM for it not to be FM anymore?

The obvious answer based on the name would be Mick & John, because without them it would be Buckingham-Nicks again for real.
But what if they quit and Christine returned? Is 3/5 and no Fleetwood still Fleetwood Mac? Buckingham-Nicks-Perfect/McVie/Quintella seems a tad long, though I suppose two of Christine's last names are no longer applicable.

What if John, Stevie, And Lindsey left, & Mick got the rest of the Time group (minus the McVies) back together? Would they be Fleetwood Mac? A new Mick Fleetwood's Zoo? What if Lindsey stayed?

When does FM stop being FM? Fill in the blank: The buck stops with ______________________.

- Jake

As far as the name, it depends on who owns it. I suspect Mick has that sewn up outright. Mick, Stevie's dogs, a chimp, and anything else could join him and he'd still call it Fleetwood Mac without the other's input...just like with the fan club.

IMO, the buck really SHOULDN'T stop with Mick but it probably would as I think it's fair game to anyone that is in the latest lineup of the band to carry it on if no one else is going to and it doesn't have to be the "namesake" so to speak. I mean, look at Pink Floyd, there is no Pink or Floyd and Dave Gilmour carried on with the name much to Roger Waters' dismay, but I'm personally glad DG "won the case" on the PF name thing, but that's just me. :)

I remember Bob Welch saying in his Penguin Q & A that, although it would NEVER happen, that it would be interesting if all of the ex Mac members (Welch, Bramlett, Vito, Burnette, Brunning, etc.) formed a band, if they could call it "Fleetwood Mac" or not or something like that. It would be an interesting legal case. Now that I think of it though, I think original Deep Purple vocalist Rod Evans tried to form a version of DP around him circa 1980 (when no version of Purple was existant) but was apparently stopped so it probably woulnd't work anyways, I wish I could remember more details about this deal now. Hey ChiliD, do you recall anything about this?! :)

Along these lines, I remember in the British FM documentary "FM at 21" from 1988 Trevor Dann asked Mick if he thought there would be a FM if he (Mick) wasn't there and Mick seemed to be caught off gaurd by the question and just said "uh, no, I somehow don't think so, no." and Dann said "Oh it's YOUR band" and Mick seemed kinda annoyed and said kind of snappy "no, it's just that...I just don't think the band would carry on if I wasn't here" or something like that so I sometimes try to read in to that out of speculation as to whether he really has "exclusive" rights to the name or what but you'd think he would've said that the band wouldn't exist if he wasn't there due to him owning the name if he did have total rights on the FM name but eh, who knows though, interesting topic though. :)

John

I thought something came out of some legal squabbles years ago. Mick fought with their first manager who sent out a fake FM to tour when the original band was losing members. I thought Mick successfully wrestled control of the name away from him and has held it since.

No matter what he does, there will be no more FM without Lindsey or Stevie. John could maybe retire, but Mick never will. He loves the cash too much and he can't live off royalties like LB and SN.

Yeah I knew about the bogus FM from '74/fight with Clifford Davis etc. but the terms of that settlement still remain confidential apparently so though Mick probably did get the name, I just thought it was strange how he didn't just say that in the Dann interview if he had in fact "won it" in the Davis case, hmm...

John

Damn right!:nod: Nobody ever said it was Roger Waters' band. He wrote most of the lyrics and so he just assumed that meant he is automatically the new leader of the band. Pink Floyd only ever had one "official leader", and that was Syd. Dave had just as much right to carry on without Roger as Roger would have had without Dave, and I'm very very glad he did, because some of my fav. Floyd tracks of all time are on The Division Bell.

As for the subject of the thread, I think it's pretty simple...if Mick or John leave, any remaining members should definitely call it a day. For me, Fleetwood Mac is not Fleetwood Mac without Lindsey & Stevie together, but that's just my personal taste. As a rigorous rule, I think Fleetwood Mac is, and always has been, Mick and John + anyone else. If either of them leave, that's the end of the line.

:wavey: :wavey: :wavey:

I mirror seteca...
 

Yeah, I prefer the Lindsey/Stevie/Christine line-up, but as long as Mick and John are in it...plus WHOEVER, it's FM...that's been the history, and will REMAIN the history of the band. :cool: