Bartender Wisdom: Mick Fleetwood

[michelej1]

Esquire
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Bartender Wisdom: Mick Fleetwood Edition
October 11, 2011 at 12:09PM by Mark Mikin


Mick Fleetwood, 64, owner and Fleetwood Mac drummer
Fleetwood's on Front Street
Maui, Hawaii

I've been blessed with having traveled before I joined a rock-and-roll band — my family, we were in airports, we traveled every two years and moved. The traveling bug and making friends was requisite. Because that's what you did as a young kid. It came very naturally when I started in the music business. A new bed every night.

When you can't hang on to friends, you broaden your scope. The value of friends has always been a natural thing.

I prefer too many to too few.

It is show time. You're there to offer up a stage that's comfortable and warm. That's why people go back to their favorite bar. The reality, I've found, is that if I knew I was going to be welcomed, but the food wasn't quite as good as down the road with some snobby, unfriendly atmosphere — well, I know where I'd walk.

We're all looking for those moments — a relief. That's why people go out and treat themselves.

A performance at a concert, you hope your audience goes into the same zone as you. You work at it. You want them to be at it with you.

Music took me all over England, all over Europe, straight away. Bingo — you've got the pleasure of that. When you're working hard and traveling, you often remember your holidays. "What a great night that was, when we blundered into that funny little bistro on some awful back street in Rome. We were so hungry, we just went there, and suddenly, it was fantastic." That's how it is for me. I'm always looking for that.

I'm a good travel guide.

That's what it's all about — looking for that experience that you remember. Sometimes it can be as pivotal as that first time you heard that song. I remember where I was when Kennedy was shot.

I'm now sixty-four. Am I sixty-four? Yeah. Sixty-four years old. And pretty healthy.

The fans have been incredibly loyal. They've put up with our being away, and not making albums in a timely fashion. But they're still there. That's what I want this bar to feel like.

Fleetwood Mac has been pretty truthful. Open about what we do. We've always done it from the inside out. Versus being pressured from the outside and changing the inside. And that's our story.

I've wanted to do what I'm doing now my whole life, believe it or not. When I was about nine years old, I was totally useless at school — dyslexic, couldn't learn a damn thing. Luckily, my parents realized and allowed me to leave school. At the last little house that we had, there was a little stable. For some reason, I said, "I want to create a bar." Which I did at nine years old. I had Chianti bottles and fishnets hanging around the stable with my drum kit in the corner and my radiogram. Go figure.

All I can say is that when people say, "Drink responsibly," that's what it means.

Life is a glass of wine and having your feet washed — it's a biblical event, might I add. This is part of mankind's story. You are always looking for a moment to take a break.

There are definitely those moments where it can become inappropriate. That's all I can tell you.

You can also listen to Mick talking about music with Nicole Atkins here.