May 27, 2025 • 41 mins
Mick Fleetwood is the drummer and a founding member of Fleetwood Mac, one of the most successful rock bands of all time. Fleetwood talks to Alec about how dyslexia led him to the drumming, how supportive parents encouraged his talent and his move to London as a teenager, how his friendship with the band’s founder, guitarist Peter Green, evolved to a life-long friendship, and how Fleetwood Mac balanced the weight of their interpersonal dynamics and the band’s wild, over-the-top success. The band’s 1977 album Rumors broke through Billboard 100 again last year thanks to a Tik Tok of a man on a skateboard lipsyncing to Dreams and introduced a whole new generation to Fleetwood Mac’s beautiful, enduring music.
Originally aired January 26, 2021
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing
from iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
You say you want to agree?
Speaker 1 (00:20):
That is of course Dreams by Fleetwood Mac. Thanks to
a TikTok of some guy on a skateboard who goes
by the name Dogface lip syncing to this song and
his seventy two million views, Fleetwood Mac's album Rumors broke
through Rolling Stone's top one hundred list again last year,
(00:41):
more than forty years after its release. My guest today
is Mick Fleetwood, a founding member of Fleetwood Mac. Fleetwood
Mac existed for nearly a decade before the lineup we
think of today with Mick Fleetwood, John mcvee, Lindsey Buckingham,
Christine mcvee and Stevie Nicks. But when Fleetwood Mac formed
(01:03):
in London in the late nineteen sixties, it was Peter
Green's idea.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
Well, I would be remiss. Peter Green started fleet with
matc the original guitar player. I was at his right
hand side, John McVie. All of us have played in
the band called John Male's Blues Breakers, Eric McK taylor,
Peter Green, and I'm saying that because they would represent
great guitar players that came out of that band that
(01:29):
have more than made their mark in my world. And
so Peter asked me to play drums, and I already
had played with them in a funny band with Rod
Stewart for a short while, so we won't go into that.
So it was really a team of people that Peter
John McVie especially came out of a pedigree which was
(01:50):
absolute devotion to an art form, the blues, and really
all our heroes were American blues artists. And you are
well away I can tell about the irony of a
bunch of funny, little white kids in England really preserving
an art form that had long since been you know,
(02:11):
I won't use the bad word, but you know, pooped
on by the American sort of glossing over of something
that was so evident. So we were all from that framework,
and when we form Fleetwood Mac, it was all about
our lovely, semi innocent way of emulating our heroes. And
(02:32):
if you listen to the first few albums that we
made before Peter especially started really writing, like when you
look at early Rolling Stones, it's Bo Diddley and Chuck
Berry and with anyone you see the development into self expression,
and that's what transpired afterwards. But the original band was
all about that and a little team of people sharing
(02:55):
something and having a lot of fun with it, you know,
creatively turned into something a little bit more than we
ever could possibly have imagined.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
The year that you formed the band with Green, what
year was that?
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Nineteen sixty seven Windsor Jazz Festival and the band was
called Fleetwood Mac by Peter Green, who could have very
easily become the Jeff Beck or the Jimmy Page or
the Eric Clapton gunslinger guitar player. That's a whole nother story,
is a lovely story and an attribute to Peter's generosity.
(03:32):
We played the Windsor Jazz Festival intending, as you can tell,
with the name Fleetwood Mac. The name was my name
and John McVie, which Peter chose, and John was still
playing in John Male's Blues Breakers on the same show.
Watched the band he's supposed to be in from the
side of the stage, and about three months later he joined.
(03:56):
He's a Scotsman, so he's very thrifty with whatever amount
of money he does have. So when we had enough gigs,
he said, I'm ready to join, which was, of course.
Speaker 3 (04:05):
When you've made it worth my while, it worth my wife,
I know there'll be no net loss in my income
by you. I'll meet you there at the club.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
Yeah, And that's what happened.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
And when you say that Green could have been in
this pantheon of great guitar players, was it something he
didn't want that he did not want that level of
fame and that level of attention.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
No, it was very evident. And the end story, which
of course went into a very changed person. He was
my dearest of dearest of friends and my mentor. You know,
he gave me so much encouragement as a player and
super fun person but unbelievably deep down, way more sensitive
(04:46):
than a bunch of chaps, including himself, had ever realized.
And he eventually became sick and so came to a
sort of journey that was for a while was a
living tragedy for me elfishly, But then you learned to
accept him as he turned out. But back then everything
he did was about being just really generous. And I
(05:11):
read an article after you know you think, well, what
was the real story, And for instance would be that
someone asked him why was the bank all fleet with
Mac and he said, well, I figured at that point
i'd broken up with my lovely girlfriend, Jenny, who I
later married, and I played with Peter, and he had
(05:33):
his eyes on another drummer, as it turned out, and
he said, why did you pick Mick? And of course
my little less than self would have thought, well, maybe
you thought I was a good drummer, you know. And
what it was, he said, I wanted Mick to play
the drums cause I got so fed up with seeing
him so sad that I thought it would give him
(05:54):
something to do. And I thought that was the greatest
thing that you could ever hear from a lovely friend.
And that really sums it up about how it was
not about him. And he created a platform which served me. Well,
my father was an Air Force chap so the word
to serve, to serve, well, that's what I think I
(06:16):
learned to do. With all of how the madness of
this band and the incarnates of just are you kidding
me that if you wrote this down, you say, it's
not possible this bunch could possibly have survived with all
of the ups and downs and character changes and changing
the script as you go along. And yet there's still
(06:36):
a story. Peter started that and handed that to me.
I think when he welcomed everyone, including me, Danny Kerwin
who joined the original band, Jeremy Spencer, they were all
there so that Peter did not want to be king
Tut in the front there taking all the limelight, and
(06:57):
I think it was way more meaning full in sense
of where he came from. It's just he wanted to
be in a band, and he created that band and
made sure the band was not called Peter Greens anything,
because he could off very easily, and I always thank
him for that. The name Fleetwood Mac he was asked
and he said, well, I always thought that I would
(07:19):
probably move on, which he did under very strange circumstances,
unfortunately for us. And he said I wanted Mick and
John to have something. And I saw and heard this
interview years and years and years and years later. It's
like finding out a family relative will tell you what
(07:40):
the real story was. And sometimes it's mind blowing, and
sometimes it's hugely moving and gratifying to hear, and that
was one of them.
Speaker 3 (07:49):
He didn't start drumming till you were thirteen.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
Correct officially, but yeah, I would say I started hitting
furniture when I was about eight.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
What change when you were thirteen that you were like,
I want a drum. Now, on a serious level, what change?
Speaker 4 (08:02):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (08:02):
I would think that, first of all, being completely on
some shape or form, completely dyslexic, and had not one
iota of any academic prowess whatsoever at school. So there
I was struggling with great parents. So I never felt
threatened or less than that. I couldn't. I still don't
(08:24):
know my alphabet or I mean, if my whole family
was lined up God forbid and said you don't have to. Yeah, well,
I know. But a lot of people say, you're kidding me.
It's a lot of people say about what I do
when I play drums. I said, actually, I sort of
really don't know what I'm doing, to tell you the
real truth, And you go, well, it's not. Then they
(08:44):
start arguing with you, go, how can you do that?
You're full of shit? You know, you know? I said, no, no,
it just comes out. I have no idea. So I
blundered into it. But I would think that the love
and the one thing that I could grab onto was
the fact that I, for some reason, I used to
play tapping on furniture which I mentioned to back in
(09:05):
Norway when I was much younger and we'd traveled to Egypt.
So I remember these leather little funny we call them
tuftus or something, things stuffed with newspaper that sound really
cool with their leather, leather sort of oddoman things. And
Mum would listen to the home service and do the
cleaning and have a dubonne and have a one cigarette
(09:28):
of the day. This is when I was probably about
six or seven in Norway, and I remember listening to
the radio and tapping on I don't know why on furniture,
but Daddy used to tap on coins and do military
things in his pocket and he would play bottles with
water in them at parties, so I vaguely remember that.
(09:51):
I don't think that's why I did it, but I
think my quantum leap was a blessing and it was
like a divine intervention of sorts that the one thing
I loved doing. I had this obsession with collecting drum
catalogs and fantasies of gold and sparkling instruments that were
in my dream. So at boarding school, the last thing
(10:12):
I did, I had this whole package filled with brushures
that opened one to the other, and I think I
saw my way out. And when Dad said, do you
want to go to college, and he didn't have any money,
but he was obviously making it available for me, and
with tears in our eyes, and I said, Daddy, I
want to go to London and play drums. And by
(10:34):
that time I'd had my little drum kit, almost a
toy drum kit, in the house. And I think it
was my learning disability that drove me. By some happen sense.
Both my sisters went into the arts. One was a
very fine actress, Susan with the Royal Shakespeare Company, and
my elder sister was an art student at the Polytechnic.
(10:57):
So we were all completely academically useless. So I had
the blessing that Mom and Dad said, then, my god,
it's probably the only one thing he really thinks he
can do, and that was I encouraged you, absolutely, just
I had complete and utter, not one iota of any
cynicism whatsoever, And they sent me off with a drum
(11:19):
kit to London wrapped in the blanket. My father wrote
a poem about it.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to here's the thing.
If you love conversations with iconic musicians who also happen
to be members of long lasting bands, be sure to
check out my conversation with The Who's legendary frontman Roger
Daltrey from our archives.
Speaker 3 (11:41):
Daughtrey talked about the first time he swung a microphone
around on stage. No one told me.
Speaker 4 (11:47):
I got used to myself once I went into the
free form in the early days, the late sixties. It
just came out of boredom I was. I couldn't stand
there and be like Robert Plant. I wasn't cool enough.
I just needed to dance. So I didn't want to
dance like an ordinary dancer. So I just started to
play with it, and it just got bigger and energy
(12:08):
and channel the energy, and then the peice started jumping,
and that legendary jump of his. He's like a kangaroo.
And but the whole thing was kind of in with
the music. It became like a ballet, didn't it. It
was kind of extraordinary.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
Here the rest of my conversation with Roger Daltrey, and
here's the thing dot Org. After the break, we talk
about the women who became essential to the group's sound.
(12:53):
I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to here's the thing.
That's Christine mcvee performing the Songbird. Mcvee joined Fleetwood Mac
in nineteen seventy when Peter Green left. She'd married John
(13:14):
mcvee a couple of years before. Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie
Nicks joined in nineteen seventy five. I wanted to know
if when Christine joined there was any pressure to include
a woman.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
Well, Christine, for sure, any lovely lady out there would
not take it wrong. She was a musician and she
was a great piano player, and her experience was already
integrated with being I'm a player, and it was nothing
of the sort that it was a woman or a man.
(13:48):
It was just who you are and what you do. Truly,
it was that and she cherishes that to this day
because we call her the rock. You know. She's like,
she doesn't rely on anything other than no prissy stuff.
I am who I am, and am I delivering what
you need? And she has that respect. So she came
(14:09):
into the band as a player, literally, and there was
no thought she knew John, which had nothing to do
with it.
Speaker 3 (14:17):
Is your maiden name? Really? Perfect. Is it Christine perfect? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (14:21):
And John would say she was perfect before she married me.
Well done, ja, So that was really it. It was
not about having a lady in.
Speaker 3 (14:34):
The bout we need a girl.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
No, it was about a really really great musician, bloody
good piano player.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
Let me just say, let me interject this because it's true,
which is that in that world there is nobody who
casts me like Christine McBee. I mean I love her
singing beyond believe. I mean, she just she does something
to me that I can't even describe. She her singing
is so beautiful, you know.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
I can second right right.
Speaker 1 (15:01):
So she's with you in the band, and then you
decide to have another woman join the band. So Buckingham,
you asked him to join the band.
Speaker 2 (15:08):
Yeah, but Bob Welch had left at rather short notice,
and I knew Bob extremely well, really lovely, hugely interesting chap,
so he left. But prior to that, I've been in
the studio sound City to try and find a studio
to record the next album with Fleetwood. Matt he leaves
(15:28):
and I meet Stevie and Lindsey after the fact, having
heard Keith played to demonstrate the studio part of a
Buckham Nick's album that he'd made with them, the album
and then Bob left. Then I made a phone call
and I said, you know that music you were playing?
Who what? How? And you're right, I was looking for
(15:49):
a guitar player. So I forever have Stevie to this
day in a comedic sense, but always with a knife
in my back. It wasn't really me that you wanted.
It was Lindsay, which was true, and in very short form,
Lindsay made it very clear that if he was to join,
which was not a slam dunk at the beginning, because
(16:11):
he and Stevie were thinking about going forward in their
own world, and she actually persuaded Lindsay to join the
band pretty much. She got fed up with waiting tables
and stuff, so she came somewhat originally by default, and
yet not because the real story is it was very
(16:32):
evident early on, although Stevie said, you know loves to
dig at me, it was that, first of all, Lindsay
was incredibly loyal to her and I'm not going to
do this without her. Boom over. Then it didn't take
a rocket scientist to realize these songs, these beautiful songs,
were co written by both Lindsay and Stevie, and then
(16:56):
you listened to the vocal blend, which is none other
than going like when you hear the Everly Brothers, you
go like, oh my god, that this joined at the
hip and they came in short form into the band
as a duo, which was a merciful decision when I
look back that Lindsey did not deserter and said I'm here,
(17:19):
but I'm here with my partner, and that's how that happened.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
I've asked other very successful artists, such as yourself in
the music world, what does a producer do for you
when you're in a studio, when you're making a record.
Who's the decider who decides what take what track, this
vocal track, this drum track, whatever. But when you had
a collaboration with the producer that helped you, what did.
Speaker 3 (17:42):
They do for you?
Speaker 2 (17:43):
Well, I think the simple form would be that we
as a band no matter what, which is not always
the case, and it's not always the magic formula. A
lot of people just totally excel by being guided and
permanently told what to do and have a mirror that's
a reflection from another aspect, another interpretation of really who
(18:04):
they truly are, and that's fine. That was so not
how we grew up into and blustered into what we
were doing. So I would say that anyone that's worked,
including Keith Mike Vernon, the first record producer, was probably
the most influential that he was a blues fanatic and
(18:27):
he ran that little label we were on called Blue
Horizon and after that, so he would be picking songs
here and there with Peter and the band. After that,
it's really about are you a band member meaning them?
How's the aesthetic of your chemistry being able to not
insist but integrate right into the fabric of being in
(18:50):
a band. And that's what I would always look out for,
and I think that's been our success has been absolute
expression with a mirror of sorts, but someone who's really
listening to and having an empathy with what am I
dealing with here, especially later on when we became very
(19:13):
much five separate expressive people that whoever it was, you
have to look back on and give them huge amounts
of credit. Has been some form of a social director
more than an artistic director. And I lost all my
hair because I was both.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
But would you say when you say five separate, distinct beings,
there was a period when they weren't there were a unit,
and they were a unit during what period and what
was that like and what changed that?
Speaker 3 (19:47):
Musically?
Speaker 2 (19:47):
Well, Fleetwood Mac was already a stage that existed, and
Fleetwood Mac was always about change, so that you were
accepted for who you were. Anyone should express themselves. You know,
when I look back on it, that's in a naive
way what I must have understood, especially being a drama
(20:08):
when you go, oh, what the hell am I going
to do if I don't have a front line and
people that are delivering the play. You know, not to
diminish who I am and what I am. But that
was my function, probably more than anything. So they came
as different characters walking on that stage, and if you
(20:29):
see and hear the music, you go none of it
makes any sense. None of them were clones of anyone.
They were all completely their own entity. So what they
had to learn was to be in a band. Everyone
was extremely unhappy emotionally on the making of Rumors and
Lindsay's sitting on the floor and it's tough. You know,
(20:52):
no one ever intended to leave or anything, but one time.
I remember sitting in the studio the record plant with
Lindsey and he just turned and I said, I don't
know whether I can do this. You know, it's just
you know, we're in transition here. And his interpretation was
can I be in a band? Can I be in
(21:12):
a band? Especially with the pressure of is this what
it's like being in a band? You're emotionally exposed and
everyone was. We were all in, you know, I'm drifting
into the area where we promised we wouldn't go. But
so I just sat with him and he was playing
a setar I remember it distinctly, and I said, then
you must go. If it's self preservation, don't destroy that,
(21:36):
don't destroy yourself because of the play in essence Peter Green, Yeah,
And I said I don't have any ultimate apart from
if it's that bad, then you have to go. And
then I segued and I said, this is what it is.
Everything is a compromise when you're walking on a stage
and sharing that stage, and this is that stage. And
(21:58):
I'm not forcing you. I'm extremely sad if halfway through
an album you just can't finish it out. And he
didn't say much. He just said I understand, and he stayed.
Speaker 1 (22:11):
A guy once said to me, and he was much
younger than me, and this is maybe like ten years ago.
Speaker 3 (22:15):
I was in my early fifties.
Speaker 1 (22:16):
It was in the lines of advice to him for
his career, and I said, well, do you really want
like the cold, hard, unvarnished You want it with the
bark on or the bark Off? And I said, if
you want it with the bark On, then don't get
married till you're forty, don't have any kids till your forty.
Give yourself. You're not just your twenties, but your thirties.
Give this everything you have. If you want to be
(22:38):
an actor with a real prime if you want to
be Leo DiCaprio, you want to be a guy who's
like at the top of the pile and making movies
with the best directors, the best scripts. Everything's the best,
the budgets, the release dates, everything. If you want to
surf that wave all the way to the shore, then
you have to make this the most important thing in
your life. Do you find that that was true for
you as well?
Speaker 2 (22:58):
I think in retrospect we didn't know because you're in it.
But as a comment, I think it's entirely correct and
proven out in no uncertain terms of time and time
and time and time and time and time.
Speaker 3 (23:11):
Again.
Speaker 2 (23:12):
Are the miracles that slip through and survive like a
built in version of what you've just said In terms
of advice, yeah, few and far between. It really puts
a wall that you don't even realize that you're putting up,
where you're so into what you're doing that people get
left out and feel pushed away. So ideally, I think
(23:34):
your advice is entirely correct, but that advice is always
almost in retrospect for anyone.
Speaker 1 (23:42):
But I'm wondering also with three men, I mean Asleep
with Mac is most renowned for it's three men and
two women.
Speaker 3 (23:51):
And neither one of those women has children?
Speaker 2 (23:53):
Correct?
Speaker 1 (23:53):
Were they people that they were going through left and
they were like, well, we're going to get to that,
And the next year they turned around they were like wow,
twenty five years like nothing.
Speaker 3 (24:00):
You know.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
I would say if either Chris or Stevie, I feel
comfortable in this conversation saying there is no doubt that
they made that decision to dedicate their lives to their
careers with flashes of what if. But I think both
of these ladies would have no problems saying that that
(24:23):
was the order of the conscious choice. Yeah, yeah, interesting,
very interesting. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:29):
Now when people ask me about my drug use, I
say that I snorted a line of cocaine from here
to Saturn. Then we did a line of cocaine on
the rings of Saturn, and then we took it home
with another.
Speaker 2 (24:40):
Oh, I've got your being sure? Is that possible? I
think your description is that actually more far reaching than mine,
a planetary version, But my version of that would be
and I've never lived it down, but you know, I
have no problem at all apart from don go there.
(25:03):
And then you have the war stories, which this is
sort of tending to be. And I'll preface it by
saying war stories are fine, but there's a time and
place and what can you learn from them would be
my little lesson for anyone listening. So, having said that,
my transgression was which was some awful interview I did,
(25:23):
and I said, well, one time, you know, I was
in the studio and I'm talking about my Well, how
much coke do you think I've ever done? This was
like in our private world, and we measured out a
good semi fat line of cocaine, and then duplicated it,
and then X amount of years, so in the last
something something amount of years we actually worked it out
(25:46):
instead of cutting tape and editing the song together. We
got into a transgression of actually working out probably about
how long would that line be? And it was seven
miles long apparently, And I never lived that down and
years all, especially in England, whether they love all that
(26:07):
terrible stuff, and I have to sit there not talking
about in you'd be like someone talking about something in
your life versus the play I'm in or the script
I've just written, or the book I've just you know,
and you go, you go like, well, live with it,
because you opened your mouth in the first place all
those years ago. And mine would be one of probably
(26:30):
quite a few transgressions in terms of that, but comediically,
so I still get asked, you know, was it really
seven miles long? And I look down to my trouser
and go, well, I wished.
Speaker 1 (26:46):
You know, I'm thirty five years sober. I got sober
a long time ago in la For you, did you
feel that when that stopped? Because for me, when it stopped,
there were good things, but they were also bad things.
Because you're forced to in front everything. You know, if
you are if you go out in the world and
you don't drink and you don't take drugs. Minimum commenting
on you, but speaking for myself, you are kind of unarmored,
(27:09):
and you need to go out and face the world
that you need to resolve all your problems. You can't
sit in the problem anymore. You've got to resolve things
and confront things and clean up the mass and so forth.
And I'm wondering for you what happened to you musically
once you stopped abusing yourself.
Speaker 2 (27:24):
Well, I still drink, but the marching powder was a
massive part of my life for probably way over twenty years.
Speaker 3 (27:35):
Just it's a long time.
Speaker 2 (27:36):
I don't even know. It's a fucking miracle.
Speaker 3 (27:40):
So that's a long time to have that problem.
Speaker 2 (27:43):
Oh yeah. I was known as the King of Toot
and everyone would always know that I wouldn't hold it,
you know. And then I did hit a brick wall
and it was like slow motion. And my mother Biddy
would always say, because they're hugely support, almost blindly supported, Oh,
there's no problem at all. Whenever he wants to stop,
(28:05):
he can stop it. You know, all those catchphrases, and
I always sort of thought that I could. And then
I hit a brick walk literally and someone that I
shared my life with said, I'm I'm done. I can't
be around this anymore. And I said, please don't go
(28:25):
leave me alone for two days, and that's what I
did and never touched the stuff since overnight. It's divine intervention,
but it's also misplaced in terms of that. That's when
I probably should have gone into a program and found
out what you touched on, what were those reasons? And
(28:48):
I've done that since a couple of times with drink
and had a sort of a wake up call, and
I just thought it was fun. I was around people
telling me literally countless horror stories of what had happened
to them, especially when they were children and young, and
I had no support and all sorts of terrible things,
(29:10):
and I just said, I feel so terrible because I
just thought it was fun until it wasn't. And I
still actually haven't found the key of what was that
My parents didn't drink on. Julie had an incredible supportive childhood.
But that brick wall was.
Speaker 3 (29:28):
It insecurity about being in public? Maybe? Oh, I think
out there and being famous.
Speaker 1 (29:34):
I mean Fleetwood Mac. I mean this music was coming
out of every clamshell on the beach. For a while,
every horse in the park was singing, you.
Speaker 3 (29:42):
Can go your own way. You know.
Speaker 5 (29:44):
It was like this music was everywhere, everywhere. There were
so many songs that were just washing over you. It
was like in the air all the time. Was that
unsettling for you? Fame and all that attention. Could you
need to medicate yourself to get through that period?
Speaker 2 (29:59):
I would say immediately noticed how quickly I went.
Speaker 4 (30:01):
No.
Speaker 2 (30:03):
But I do get nervous about performing. If someone said
make a speech and read the speech to three thousand people,
I would be really put upon go out on stage
and just talk to someone I love. Not even a question.
(30:24):
I know people around me that all of the trimmings
of what you just mentioned would be. Was that something
that freaked you out? I have to say no, Because
of the way I was brought up.
Speaker 3 (30:36):
It was just.
Speaker 2 (30:37):
Fantastic and fun. But actually performing and delivering certain aspects
I would have to say, did bring out a fundamental
some form of academic calling out that you don't know
quite what you're doing and therefore shitting itself. And therefore
(31:03):
I know for a fact for years, and I played
sober for fifteen years. The real truth is I didn't
enjoy it. So when I play now, I have one
bottle of red wine and I'm fairly well behaved, and
without it, I can't even breathe. And I've tried hypnosis.
(31:27):
I've tried everything known to mankind to get over it
and breathing, and I had a guy like meditating with
me on the road when I really really really really
really didn't drink. All I can say is that instead
of enjoying myself, I had my road manager with a
brown paper bag so I could breathe into it to
(31:47):
stop myself getting high anxiety. I don't enjoy it, and
it's because of the element, which has nothing to do
with fame and fortune. It's actually who are you? What
are you in the moment and being called out like
being in the class that I didn't I didn't know.
Speaker 1 (32:06):
Mick Fleetwood. Subscribe to Here's the Thing on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. While you're there,
leave us a review. I really appreciate it. Few bands
have managed to survive longer than Fleetwood Mac. When we
return the surprising resurgence of interest in the band's nineteen
(32:27):
seventy seven album Rumors. He's the same kind of story
(32:50):
seems to come down long ago. That's the song hypnotized
recorded during the Bob Welch era of Fleetwood Mac. Fleetwood
has been the drummer of Fleetwood Mac for more than
fifty years. And as there's usually one person in every
long lasting band that brings them back together, I asked
(33:10):
who was that person for Fleetwood Mac.
Speaker 2 (33:13):
It would be me. And that was and is and
has been my function. I imaged it a while ago,
not not any big deal, but I'm going, like, you know,
because I don't write, I don't sing, although I'm enjoying
doing some of that now, which is interesting, really actually
interesting to be able to make a private fool of
(33:35):
yourself with no pressure. I said, I think my story
would be and I'm really happy about it and quietly
proud of it. That my function was that I drifted
into it, I learned it, and me and John always
wanted to have a band to be in. Why wouldn't you?
(33:58):
And I said, I think that story is my song.
Speaker 1 (34:02):
Your musical catalory. You can see so many beautiful songs.
It's beautiful music, and the poetry is beautiful, and the
lyrics it still moves you to this day.
Speaker 2 (34:13):
Yeah. I take that as a lovely compliment on behalf
of all of us in this crazy band, and thank you.
And I think there is sometimes almost the lighthearted part
of Fleetwood Mac or whatever word one wants to use,
the sort of the poppy part of it was always
(34:34):
balanced out by a form of reveal, a form of
very often some romance of sadness, and entertaining that type
of dialogue would be for me is songbird, And there are,
of course are others. But I remember when Chris wrote that,
and I actually spoke very recently to her about it.
(34:57):
We just drifted into a conversation and she totally remembered,
and I went, Chris, this is like Edith paf on
a stage alone. And she was in the studio at
the record plant, and I said, this needs to be lonely.
We should record it in an empty theater, not in
(35:17):
a shag carpet studio. Let's go and do that. And
we did, and we went a college over in Berkeley
and recorded that song. As the imaging of it was
so devastating to me. I said, you are alone. You
are alone playing this lovely, lovely song, and it should
(35:38):
be all of that. And that's exactly what we did.
Speaker 3 (35:42):
It was.
Speaker 2 (35:43):
It was the most pregnant suite moment around the song
that I can tell. In our short conversation.
Speaker 1 (35:51):
Some including Stevie Nixon, and we read about Dylan's going
to sell his catalog and David Crosby's getting ready to
sell his catalog. And I guess in this COVID era
and beyond, in the age of streaming music, people are
seeing the sources of revenue dry up. Certainly, some of
these people are older. You know, they're not selling their
catalog and they're in their thirties or whatever. But what
(36:11):
do you think of them?
Speaker 2 (36:12):
I think it's great. I'm sure it's not for everyone
or whatever. But I think the circumstances has triggered so
many things. This would be one of them. I think
those decisions may or may not have been made anyhow,
who's to say why not? And a body of work
that is to be quite frankly translated into all sorts
(36:36):
of lovely things for these people, whatever that might be.
Because the people you're talking about, they certainly don't need
any money for the most part. But no, honestly, let's
say we doubt it. So it becomes something that will
grow into all sorts of other things. One would imagine.
What they might be is their business, you know, And
(36:59):
one of the things I think is family. I think
a lot of people are handing down to family ahead
of time versus you know, people picking through when your
God forbid, whenever that moment comes. And to see family
enjoying stuff that can be allocated before you do pop off.
Speaker 1 (37:17):
So, if I'm not mistaken, Rumors is a best selling
album again now as the direct result of some guy
on a skateboard swinging down cranberry juice.
Speaker 3 (37:29):
What did you think? What did you think of when
you first came across the TikTok? Phenomenal? Right, it has occurred.
Speaker 2 (37:38):
Well, I know him as Nathan. His online name is Dogface,
and it is quite unbelievable. All hell was breaking loose
because he made a decision one day to do his thing.
It happened in the most charming way. And then someone said, well,
would would you? I said, well, I can't get on
(37:59):
a skateboard, so I hung myself off the back of
a golf cart and did the thing, and the next
thing I know, we're all on you know, halftime sports programs,
and god knows what else his whole life has changed.
And I actually loved it because it was so not
thought of. One of the lovely things I was able
(38:20):
to say on a zoom call. He was doing an
interview in England with some very upstanding BBC chap and
he had no idea I was going to come on
the zoom call. So that's when I first met him,
you know, face to face, and then his family came on.
They sang songs to me and stuff, and I said,
let me tell you, Nathan Fleetwood mac os, it's been
(38:44):
a fantastic moment in time that when a wall and
typical Fleetwood matc. Just when you think, you know, we've survived,
We've been really lucky, you know in so many some
of the things we've touched on in our talk where
again hopeless odds, we've prevailed. And I always joke about,
especially with Lindsay Buckingham years ago. I used to sit
(39:07):
with him and go like, we are the most abused
rock and roll franchise in the world, meaning we've never
capitalized on anything. Really we're all idiots, but it's sort
of good and we're still here.
Speaker 3 (39:23):
It's unbelievable.
Speaker 1 (39:24):
I mean again, I say this because it's easy, and
that is you're still here and people are picking songs
of yours to soundtrack their kind of playfulness and TikTok
and so forth, because the.
Speaker 3 (39:37):
Music is great.
Speaker 1 (39:38):
I mean you, and you're going back to hypnotized and Welsh.
I love hypnotized. I love mystery to me, I love all.
I love those early records, I play them to death.
I love every guys, and then solo acts Christia, you
know Stevie's solo albums, blah blah blah.
Speaker 3 (39:55):
I love it all. But I mean you. You live
in people's hearts because the music is that good.
Speaker 1 (40:00):
You guys made some of the greatest music in the
history of the music posiness.
Speaker 3 (40:04):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (40:06):
No, it's been an absolute pleasure. And I remember something
my father said, and it seems to really apply to
a lot of the storytelling about this funny life and
most certainly Fleetwood Mac and the fact that there have
been all sorts of ups and downs and around the
Marlbury Bush and pain and a lot of happiness as well.
(40:28):
My dad would always say one thing, Nick, I can
tell you it's all been worth a damn. And hearing
you say that about the music makes me feel that
it's all been worth a damn. And thank you, Oh
lots of love to you, and my love to you.
Speaker 3 (40:46):
Nick Cleepworth.
Speaker 1 (40:58):
Like the end of the radio, I'm Alec Baldwin and
this is here's the thing from iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (41:16):
I'm not let you believe that you're bad.
Speaker 1 (41:24):
No, not cad you go. I'm I'm gonna bead you
b
I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing
from iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
You say you want to agree?
Speaker 1 (00:20):
That is of course Dreams by Fleetwood Mac. Thanks to
a TikTok of some guy on a skateboard who goes
by the name Dogface lip syncing to this song and
his seventy two million views, Fleetwood Mac's album Rumors broke
through Rolling Stone's top one hundred list again last year,
(00:41):
more than forty years after its release. My guest today
is Mick Fleetwood, a founding member of Fleetwood Mac. Fleetwood
Mac existed for nearly a decade before the lineup we
think of today with Mick Fleetwood, John mcvee, Lindsey Buckingham,
Christine mcvee and Stevie Nicks. But when Fleetwood Mac formed
(01:03):
in London in the late nineteen sixties, it was Peter
Green's idea.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
Well, I would be remiss. Peter Green started fleet with
matc the original guitar player. I was at his right
hand side, John McVie. All of us have played in
the band called John Male's Blues Breakers, Eric McK taylor,
Peter Green, and I'm saying that because they would represent
great guitar players that came out of that band that
(01:29):
have more than made their mark in my world. And
so Peter asked me to play drums, and I already
had played with them in a funny band with Rod
Stewart for a short while, so we won't go into that.
So it was really a team of people that Peter
John McVie especially came out of a pedigree which was
(01:50):
absolute devotion to an art form, the blues, and really
all our heroes were American blues artists. And you are
well away I can tell about the irony of a
bunch of funny, little white kids in England really preserving
an art form that had long since been you know,
(02:11):
I won't use the bad word, but you know, pooped
on by the American sort of glossing over of something
that was so evident. So we were all from that framework,
and when we form Fleetwood Mac, it was all about
our lovely, semi innocent way of emulating our heroes. And
(02:32):
if you listen to the first few albums that we
made before Peter especially started really writing, like when you
look at early Rolling Stones, it's Bo Diddley and Chuck
Berry and with anyone you see the development into self expression,
and that's what transpired afterwards. But the original band was
all about that and a little team of people sharing
(02:55):
something and having a lot of fun with it, you know,
creatively turned into something a little bit more than we
ever could possibly have imagined.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
The year that you formed the band with Green, what
year was that?
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Nineteen sixty seven Windsor Jazz Festival and the band was
called Fleetwood Mac by Peter Green, who could have very
easily become the Jeff Beck or the Jimmy Page or
the Eric Clapton gunslinger guitar player. That's a whole nother story,
is a lovely story and an attribute to Peter's generosity.
(03:32):
We played the Windsor Jazz Festival intending, as you can tell,
with the name Fleetwood Mac. The name was my name
and John McVie, which Peter chose, and John was still
playing in John Male's Blues Breakers on the same show.
Watched the band he's supposed to be in from the
side of the stage, and about three months later he joined.
(03:56):
He's a Scotsman, so he's very thrifty with whatever amount
of money he does have. So when we had enough gigs,
he said, I'm ready to join, which was, of course.
Speaker 3 (04:05):
When you've made it worth my while, it worth my wife,
I know there'll be no net loss in my income
by you. I'll meet you there at the club.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
Yeah, And that's what happened.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
And when you say that Green could have been in
this pantheon of great guitar players, was it something he
didn't want that he did not want that level of
fame and that level of attention.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
No, it was very evident. And the end story, which
of course went into a very changed person. He was
my dearest of dearest of friends and my mentor. You know,
he gave me so much encouragement as a player and
super fun person but unbelievably deep down, way more sensitive
(04:46):
than a bunch of chaps, including himself, had ever realized.
And he eventually became sick and so came to a
sort of journey that was for a while was a
living tragedy for me elfishly, But then you learned to
accept him as he turned out. But back then everything
he did was about being just really generous. And I
(05:11):
read an article after you know you think, well, what
was the real story, And for instance would be that
someone asked him why was the bank all fleet with
Mac and he said, well, I figured at that point
i'd broken up with my lovely girlfriend, Jenny, who I
later married, and I played with Peter, and he had
(05:33):
his eyes on another drummer, as it turned out, and
he said, why did you pick Mick? And of course
my little less than self would have thought, well, maybe
you thought I was a good drummer, you know. And
what it was, he said, I wanted Mick to play
the drums cause I got so fed up with seeing
him so sad that I thought it would give him
(05:54):
something to do. And I thought that was the greatest
thing that you could ever hear from a lovely friend.
And that really sums it up about how it was
not about him. And he created a platform which served me. Well,
my father was an Air Force chap so the word
to serve, to serve, well, that's what I think I
(06:16):
learned to do. With all of how the madness of
this band and the incarnates of just are you kidding
me that if you wrote this down, you say, it's
not possible this bunch could possibly have survived with all
of the ups and downs and character changes and changing
the script as you go along. And yet there's still
(06:36):
a story. Peter started that and handed that to me.
I think when he welcomed everyone, including me, Danny Kerwin
who joined the original band, Jeremy Spencer, they were all
there so that Peter did not want to be king
Tut in the front there taking all the limelight, and
(06:57):
I think it was way more meaning full in sense
of where he came from. It's just he wanted to
be in a band, and he created that band and
made sure the band was not called Peter Greens anything,
because he could off very easily, and I always thank
him for that. The name Fleetwood Mac he was asked
and he said, well, I always thought that I would
(07:19):
probably move on, which he did under very strange circumstances,
unfortunately for us. And he said I wanted Mick and
John to have something. And I saw and heard this
interview years and years and years and years later. It's
like finding out a family relative will tell you what
(07:40):
the real story was. And sometimes it's mind blowing, and
sometimes it's hugely moving and gratifying to hear, and that
was one of them.
Speaker 3 (07:49):
He didn't start drumming till you were thirteen.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
Correct officially, but yeah, I would say I started hitting
furniture when I was about eight.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
What change when you were thirteen that you were like,
I want a drum. Now, on a serious level, what change?
Speaker 4 (08:02):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (08:02):
I would think that, first of all, being completely on
some shape or form, completely dyslexic, and had not one
iota of any academic prowess whatsoever at school. So there
I was struggling with great parents. So I never felt
threatened or less than that. I couldn't. I still don't
(08:24):
know my alphabet or I mean, if my whole family
was lined up God forbid and said you don't have to. Yeah, well,
I know. But a lot of people say, you're kidding me.
It's a lot of people say about what I do
when I play drums. I said, actually, I sort of
really don't know what I'm doing, to tell you the
real truth, And you go, well, it's not. Then they
(08:44):
start arguing with you, go, how can you do that?
You're full of shit? You know, you know? I said, no, no,
it just comes out. I have no idea. So I
blundered into it. But I would think that the love
and the one thing that I could grab onto was
the fact that I, for some reason, I used to
play tapping on furniture which I mentioned to back in
(09:05):
Norway when I was much younger and we'd traveled to Egypt.
So I remember these leather little funny we call them
tuftus or something, things stuffed with newspaper that sound really
cool with their leather, leather sort of oddoman things. And
Mum would listen to the home service and do the
cleaning and have a dubonne and have a one cigarette
(09:28):
of the day. This is when I was probably about
six or seven in Norway, and I remember listening to
the radio and tapping on I don't know why on furniture,
but Daddy used to tap on coins and do military
things in his pocket and he would play bottles with
water in them at parties, so I vaguely remember that.
(09:51):
I don't think that's why I did it, but I
think my quantum leap was a blessing and it was
like a divine intervention of sorts that the one thing
I loved doing. I had this obsession with collecting drum
catalogs and fantasies of gold and sparkling instruments that were
in my dream. So at boarding school, the last thing
(10:12):
I did, I had this whole package filled with brushures
that opened one to the other, and I think I
saw my way out. And when Dad said, do you
want to go to college, and he didn't have any money,
but he was obviously making it available for me, and
with tears in our eyes, and I said, Daddy, I
want to go to London and play drums. And by
(10:34):
that time I'd had my little drum kit, almost a
toy drum kit, in the house. And I think it
was my learning disability that drove me. By some happen sense.
Both my sisters went into the arts. One was a
very fine actress, Susan with the Royal Shakespeare Company, and
my elder sister was an art student at the Polytechnic.
(10:57):
So we were all completely academically useless. So I had
the blessing that Mom and Dad said, then, my god,
it's probably the only one thing he really thinks he
can do, and that was I encouraged you, absolutely, just
I had complete and utter, not one iota of any
cynicism whatsoever, And they sent me off with a drum
(11:19):
kit to London wrapped in the blanket. My father wrote
a poem about it.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to here's the thing.
If you love conversations with iconic musicians who also happen
to be members of long lasting bands, be sure to
check out my conversation with The Who's legendary frontman Roger
Daltrey from our archives.
Speaker 3 (11:41):
Daughtrey talked about the first time he swung a microphone
around on stage. No one told me.
Speaker 4 (11:47):
I got used to myself once I went into the
free form in the early days, the late sixties. It
just came out of boredom I was. I couldn't stand
there and be like Robert Plant. I wasn't cool enough.
I just needed to dance. So I didn't want to
dance like an ordinary dancer. So I just started to
play with it, and it just got bigger and energy
(12:08):
and channel the energy, and then the peice started jumping,
and that legendary jump of his. He's like a kangaroo.
And but the whole thing was kind of in with
the music. It became like a ballet, didn't it. It
was kind of extraordinary.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
Here the rest of my conversation with Roger Daltrey, and
here's the thing dot Org. After the break, we talk
about the women who became essential to the group's sound.
(12:53):
I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to here's the thing.
That's Christine mcvee performing the Songbird. Mcvee joined Fleetwood Mac
in nineteen seventy when Peter Green left. She'd married John
(13:14):
mcvee a couple of years before. Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie
Nicks joined in nineteen seventy five. I wanted to know
if when Christine joined there was any pressure to include
a woman.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
Well, Christine, for sure, any lovely lady out there would
not take it wrong. She was a musician and she
was a great piano player, and her experience was already
integrated with being I'm a player, and it was nothing
of the sort that it was a woman or a man.
(13:48):
It was just who you are and what you do. Truly,
it was that and she cherishes that to this day
because we call her the rock. You know. She's like,
she doesn't rely on anything other than no prissy stuff.
I am who I am, and am I delivering what
you need? And she has that respect. So she came
(14:09):
into the band as a player, literally, and there was
no thought she knew John, which had nothing to do
with it.
Speaker 3 (14:17):
Is your maiden name? Really? Perfect. Is it Christine perfect? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (14:21):
And John would say she was perfect before she married me.
Well done, ja, So that was really it. It was
not about having a lady in.
Speaker 3 (14:34):
The bout we need a girl.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
No, it was about a really really great musician, bloody
good piano player.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
Let me just say, let me interject this because it's true,
which is that in that world there is nobody who
casts me like Christine McBee. I mean I love her
singing beyond believe. I mean, she just she does something
to me that I can't even describe. She her singing
is so beautiful, you know.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
I can second right right.
Speaker 1 (15:01):
So she's with you in the band, and then you
decide to have another woman join the band. So Buckingham,
you asked him to join the band.
Speaker 2 (15:08):
Yeah, but Bob Welch had left at rather short notice,
and I knew Bob extremely well, really lovely, hugely interesting chap,
so he left. But prior to that, I've been in
the studio sound City to try and find a studio
to record the next album with Fleetwood. Matt he leaves
(15:28):
and I meet Stevie and Lindsey after the fact, having
heard Keith played to demonstrate the studio part of a
Buckham Nick's album that he'd made with them, the album
and then Bob left. Then I made a phone call
and I said, you know that music you were playing?
Who what? How? And you're right, I was looking for
(15:49):
a guitar player. So I forever have Stevie to this
day in a comedic sense, but always with a knife
in my back. It wasn't really me that you wanted.
It was Lindsay, which was true, and in very short form,
Lindsay made it very clear that if he was to join,
which was not a slam dunk at the beginning, because
(16:11):
he and Stevie were thinking about going forward in their
own world, and she actually persuaded Lindsay to join the
band pretty much. She got fed up with waiting tables
and stuff, so she came somewhat originally by default, and
yet not because the real story is it was very
(16:32):
evident early on, although Stevie said, you know loves to
dig at me, it was that, first of all, Lindsay
was incredibly loyal to her and I'm not going to
do this without her. Boom over. Then it didn't take
a rocket scientist to realize these songs, these beautiful songs,
were co written by both Lindsay and Stevie, and then
(16:56):
you listened to the vocal blend, which is none other
than going like when you hear the Everly Brothers, you
go like, oh my god, that this joined at the
hip and they came in short form into the band
as a duo, which was a merciful decision when I
look back that Lindsey did not deserter and said I'm here,
(17:19):
but I'm here with my partner, and that's how that happened.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
I've asked other very successful artists, such as yourself in
the music world, what does a producer do for you
when you're in a studio, when you're making a record.
Who's the decider who decides what take what track, this
vocal track, this drum track, whatever. But when you had
a collaboration with the producer that helped you, what did.
Speaker 3 (17:42):
They do for you?
Speaker 2 (17:43):
Well, I think the simple form would be that we
as a band no matter what, which is not always
the case, and it's not always the magic formula. A
lot of people just totally excel by being guided and
permanently told what to do and have a mirror that's
a reflection from another aspect, another interpretation of really who
(18:04):
they truly are, and that's fine. That was so not
how we grew up into and blustered into what we
were doing. So I would say that anyone that's worked,
including Keith Mike Vernon, the first record producer, was probably
the most influential that he was a blues fanatic and
(18:27):
he ran that little label we were on called Blue
Horizon and after that, so he would be picking songs
here and there with Peter and the band. After that,
it's really about are you a band member meaning them?
How's the aesthetic of your chemistry being able to not
insist but integrate right into the fabric of being in
(18:50):
a band. And that's what I would always look out for,
and I think that's been our success has been absolute
expression with a mirror of sorts, but someone who's really
listening to and having an empathy with what am I
dealing with here, especially later on when we became very
(19:13):
much five separate expressive people that whoever it was, you
have to look back on and give them huge amounts
of credit. Has been some form of a social director
more than an artistic director. And I lost all my
hair because I was both.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
But would you say when you say five separate, distinct beings,
there was a period when they weren't there were a unit,
and they were a unit during what period and what
was that like and what changed that?
Speaker 3 (19:47):
Musically?
Speaker 2 (19:47):
Well, Fleetwood Mac was already a stage that existed, and
Fleetwood Mac was always about change, so that you were
accepted for who you were. Anyone should express themselves. You know,
when I look back on it, that's in a naive
way what I must have understood, especially being a drama
(20:08):
when you go, oh, what the hell am I going
to do if I don't have a front line and
people that are delivering the play. You know, not to
diminish who I am and what I am. But that
was my function, probably more than anything. So they came
as different characters walking on that stage, and if you
(20:29):
see and hear the music, you go none of it
makes any sense. None of them were clones of anyone.
They were all completely their own entity. So what they
had to learn was to be in a band. Everyone
was extremely unhappy emotionally on the making of Rumors and
Lindsay's sitting on the floor and it's tough. You know,
(20:52):
no one ever intended to leave or anything, but one time.
I remember sitting in the studio the record plant with
Lindsey and he just turned and I said, I don't
know whether I can do this. You know, it's just
you know, we're in transition here. And his interpretation was
can I be in a band? Can I be in
(21:12):
a band? Especially with the pressure of is this what
it's like being in a band? You're emotionally exposed and
everyone was. We were all in, you know, I'm drifting
into the area where we promised we wouldn't go. But
so I just sat with him and he was playing
a setar I remember it distinctly, and I said, then
you must go. If it's self preservation, don't destroy that,
(21:36):
don't destroy yourself because of the play in essence Peter Green, Yeah,
And I said I don't have any ultimate apart from
if it's that bad, then you have to go. And
then I segued and I said, this is what it is.
Everything is a compromise when you're walking on a stage
and sharing that stage, and this is that stage. And
(21:58):
I'm not forcing you. I'm extremely sad if halfway through
an album you just can't finish it out. And he
didn't say much. He just said I understand, and he stayed.
Speaker 1 (22:11):
A guy once said to me, and he was much
younger than me, and this is maybe like ten years ago.
Speaker 3 (22:15):
I was in my early fifties.
Speaker 1 (22:16):
It was in the lines of advice to him for
his career, and I said, well, do you really want
like the cold, hard, unvarnished You want it with the
bark on or the bark Off? And I said, if
you want it with the bark On, then don't get
married till you're forty, don't have any kids till your forty.
Give yourself. You're not just your twenties, but your thirties.
Give this everything you have. If you want to be
(22:38):
an actor with a real prime if you want to
be Leo DiCaprio, you want to be a guy who's
like at the top of the pile and making movies
with the best directors, the best scripts. Everything's the best,
the budgets, the release dates, everything. If you want to
surf that wave all the way to the shore, then
you have to make this the most important thing in
your life. Do you find that that was true for
you as well?
Speaker 2 (22:58):
I think in retrospect we didn't know because you're in it.
But as a comment, I think it's entirely correct and
proven out in no uncertain terms of time and time
and time and time and time and time.
Speaker 3 (23:11):
Again.
Speaker 2 (23:12):
Are the miracles that slip through and survive like a
built in version of what you've just said In terms
of advice, yeah, few and far between. It really puts
a wall that you don't even realize that you're putting up,
where you're so into what you're doing that people get
left out and feel pushed away. So ideally, I think
(23:34):
your advice is entirely correct, but that advice is always
almost in retrospect for anyone.
Speaker 1 (23:42):
But I'm wondering also with three men, I mean Asleep
with Mac is most renowned for it's three men and
two women.
Speaker 3 (23:51):
And neither one of those women has children?
Speaker 2 (23:53):
Correct?
Speaker 1 (23:53):
Were they people that they were going through left and
they were like, well, we're going to get to that,
And the next year they turned around they were like wow,
twenty five years like nothing.
Speaker 3 (24:00):
You know.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
I would say if either Chris or Stevie, I feel
comfortable in this conversation saying there is no doubt that
they made that decision to dedicate their lives to their
careers with flashes of what if. But I think both
of these ladies would have no problems saying that that
(24:23):
was the order of the conscious choice. Yeah, yeah, interesting,
very interesting. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:29):
Now when people ask me about my drug use, I
say that I snorted a line of cocaine from here
to Saturn. Then we did a line of cocaine on
the rings of Saturn, and then we took it home
with another.
Speaker 2 (24:40):
Oh, I've got your being sure? Is that possible? I
think your description is that actually more far reaching than mine,
a planetary version, But my version of that would be
and I've never lived it down, but you know, I
have no problem at all apart from don go there.
(25:03):
And then you have the war stories, which this is
sort of tending to be. And I'll preface it by
saying war stories are fine, but there's a time and
place and what can you learn from them would be
my little lesson for anyone listening. So, having said that,
my transgression was which was some awful interview I did,
(25:23):
and I said, well, one time, you know, I was
in the studio and I'm talking about my Well, how
much coke do you think I've ever done? This was
like in our private world, and we measured out a
good semi fat line of cocaine, and then duplicated it,
and then X amount of years, so in the last
something something amount of years we actually worked it out
(25:46):
instead of cutting tape and editing the song together. We
got into a transgression of actually working out probably about
how long would that line be? And it was seven
miles long apparently, And I never lived that down and
years all, especially in England, whether they love all that
(26:07):
terrible stuff, and I have to sit there not talking
about in you'd be like someone talking about something in
your life versus the play I'm in or the script
I've just written, or the book I've just you know,
and you go, you go like, well, live with it,
because you opened your mouth in the first place all
those years ago. And mine would be one of probably
(26:30):
quite a few transgressions in terms of that, but comediically,
so I still get asked, you know, was it really
seven miles long? And I look down to my trouser
and go, well, I wished.
Speaker 1 (26:46):
You know, I'm thirty five years sober. I got sober
a long time ago in la For you, did you
feel that when that stopped? Because for me, when it stopped,
there were good things, but they were also bad things.
Because you're forced to in front everything. You know, if
you are if you go out in the world and
you don't drink and you don't take drugs. Minimum commenting
on you, but speaking for myself, you are kind of unarmored,
(27:09):
and you need to go out and face the world
that you need to resolve all your problems. You can't
sit in the problem anymore. You've got to resolve things
and confront things and clean up the mass and so forth.
And I'm wondering for you what happened to you musically
once you stopped abusing yourself.
Speaker 2 (27:24):
Well, I still drink, but the marching powder was a
massive part of my life for probably way over twenty years.
Speaker 3 (27:35):
Just it's a long time.
Speaker 2 (27:36):
I don't even know. It's a fucking miracle.
Speaker 3 (27:40):
So that's a long time to have that problem.
Speaker 2 (27:43):
Oh yeah. I was known as the King of Toot
and everyone would always know that I wouldn't hold it,
you know. And then I did hit a brick wall
and it was like slow motion. And my mother Biddy
would always say, because they're hugely support, almost blindly supported, Oh,
there's no problem at all. Whenever he wants to stop,
(28:05):
he can stop it. You know, all those catchphrases, and
I always sort of thought that I could. And then
I hit a brick walk literally and someone that I
shared my life with said, I'm I'm done. I can't
be around this anymore. And I said, please don't go
(28:25):
leave me alone for two days, and that's what I
did and never touched the stuff since overnight. It's divine intervention,
but it's also misplaced in terms of that. That's when
I probably should have gone into a program and found
out what you touched on, what were those reasons? And
(28:48):
I've done that since a couple of times with drink
and had a sort of a wake up call, and
I just thought it was fun. I was around people
telling me literally countless horror stories of what had happened
to them, especially when they were children and young, and
I had no support and all sorts of terrible things,
(29:10):
and I just said, I feel so terrible because I
just thought it was fun until it wasn't. And I
still actually haven't found the key of what was that
My parents didn't drink on. Julie had an incredible supportive childhood.
But that brick wall was.
Speaker 3 (29:28):
It insecurity about being in public? Maybe? Oh, I think
out there and being famous.
Speaker 1 (29:34):
I mean Fleetwood Mac. I mean this music was coming
out of every clamshell on the beach. For a while,
every horse in the park was singing, you.
Speaker 3 (29:42):
Can go your own way. You know.
Speaker 5 (29:44):
It was like this music was everywhere, everywhere. There were
so many songs that were just washing over you. It
was like in the air all the time. Was that
unsettling for you? Fame and all that attention. Could you
need to medicate yourself to get through that period?
Speaker 2 (29:59):
I would say immediately noticed how quickly I went.
Speaker 4 (30:01):
No.
Speaker 2 (30:03):
But I do get nervous about performing. If someone said
make a speech and read the speech to three thousand people,
I would be really put upon go out on stage
and just talk to someone I love. Not even a question.
(30:24):
I know people around me that all of the trimmings
of what you just mentioned would be. Was that something
that freaked you out? I have to say no, Because
of the way I was brought up.
Speaker 3 (30:36):
It was just.
Speaker 2 (30:37):
Fantastic and fun. But actually performing and delivering certain aspects
I would have to say, did bring out a fundamental
some form of academic calling out that you don't know
quite what you're doing and therefore shitting itself. And therefore
(31:03):
I know for a fact for years, and I played
sober for fifteen years. The real truth is I didn't
enjoy it. So when I play now, I have one
bottle of red wine and I'm fairly well behaved, and
without it, I can't even breathe. And I've tried hypnosis.
(31:27):
I've tried everything known to mankind to get over it
and breathing, and I had a guy like meditating with
me on the road when I really really really really
really didn't drink. All I can say is that instead
of enjoying myself, I had my road manager with a
brown paper bag so I could breathe into it to
(31:47):
stop myself getting high anxiety. I don't enjoy it, and
it's because of the element, which has nothing to do
with fame and fortune. It's actually who are you? What
are you in the moment and being called out like
being in the class that I didn't I didn't know.
Speaker 1 (32:06):
Mick Fleetwood. Subscribe to Here's the Thing on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. While you're there,
leave us a review. I really appreciate it. Few bands
have managed to survive longer than Fleetwood Mac. When we
return the surprising resurgence of interest in the band's nineteen
(32:27):
seventy seven album Rumors. He's the same kind of story
(32:50):
seems to come down long ago. That's the song hypnotized
recorded during the Bob Welch era of Fleetwood Mac. Fleetwood
has been the drummer of Fleetwood Mac for more than
fifty years. And as there's usually one person in every
long lasting band that brings them back together, I asked
(33:10):
who was that person for Fleetwood Mac.
Speaker 2 (33:13):
It would be me. And that was and is and
has been my function. I imaged it a while ago,
not not any big deal, but I'm going, like, you know,
because I don't write, I don't sing, although I'm enjoying
doing some of that now, which is interesting, really actually
interesting to be able to make a private fool of
(33:35):
yourself with no pressure. I said, I think my story
would be and I'm really happy about it and quietly
proud of it. That my function was that I drifted
into it, I learned it, and me and John always
wanted to have a band to be in. Why wouldn't you?
(33:58):
And I said, I think that story is my song.
Speaker 1 (34:02):
Your musical catalory. You can see so many beautiful songs.
It's beautiful music, and the poetry is beautiful, and the
lyrics it still moves you to this day.
Speaker 2 (34:13):
Yeah. I take that as a lovely compliment on behalf
of all of us in this crazy band, and thank you.
And I think there is sometimes almost the lighthearted part
of Fleetwood Mac or whatever word one wants to use,
the sort of the poppy part of it was always
(34:34):
balanced out by a form of reveal, a form of
very often some romance of sadness, and entertaining that type
of dialogue would be for me is songbird, And there are,
of course are others. But I remember when Chris wrote that,
and I actually spoke very recently to her about it.
(34:57):
We just drifted into a conversation and she totally remembered,
and I went, Chris, this is like Edith paf on
a stage alone. And she was in the studio at
the record plant, and I said, this needs to be lonely.
We should record it in an empty theater, not in
(35:17):
a shag carpet studio. Let's go and do that. And
we did, and we went a college over in Berkeley
and recorded that song. As the imaging of it was
so devastating to me. I said, you are alone. You
are alone playing this lovely, lovely song, and it should
(35:38):
be all of that. And that's exactly what we did.
Speaker 3 (35:42):
It was.
Speaker 2 (35:43):
It was the most pregnant suite moment around the song
that I can tell. In our short conversation.
Speaker 1 (35:51):
Some including Stevie Nixon, and we read about Dylan's going
to sell his catalog and David Crosby's getting ready to
sell his catalog. And I guess in this COVID era
and beyond, in the age of streaming music, people are
seeing the sources of revenue dry up. Certainly, some of
these people are older. You know, they're not selling their
catalog and they're in their thirties or whatever. But what
(36:11):
do you think of them?
Speaker 2 (36:12):
I think it's great. I'm sure it's not for everyone
or whatever. But I think the circumstances has triggered so
many things. This would be one of them. I think
those decisions may or may not have been made anyhow,
who's to say why not? And a body of work
that is to be quite frankly translated into all sorts
(36:36):
of lovely things for these people, whatever that might be.
Because the people you're talking about, they certainly don't need
any money for the most part. But no, honestly, let's
say we doubt it. So it becomes something that will
grow into all sorts of other things. One would imagine.
What they might be is their business, you know, And
(36:59):
one of the things I think is family. I think
a lot of people are handing down to family ahead
of time versus you know, people picking through when your
God forbid, whenever that moment comes. And to see family
enjoying stuff that can be allocated before you do pop off.
Speaker 1 (37:17):
So, if I'm not mistaken, Rumors is a best selling
album again now as the direct result of some guy
on a skateboard swinging down cranberry juice.
Speaker 3 (37:29):
What did you think? What did you think of when
you first came across the TikTok? Phenomenal? Right, it has occurred.
Speaker 2 (37:38):
Well, I know him as Nathan. His online name is Dogface,
and it is quite unbelievable. All hell was breaking loose
because he made a decision one day to do his thing.
It happened in the most charming way. And then someone said, well,
would would you? I said, well, I can't get on
(37:59):
a skateboard, so I hung myself off the back of
a golf cart and did the thing, and the next
thing I know, we're all on you know, halftime sports programs,
and god knows what else his whole life has changed.
And I actually loved it because it was so not
thought of. One of the lovely things I was able
(38:20):
to say on a zoom call. He was doing an
interview in England with some very upstanding BBC chap and
he had no idea I was going to come on
the zoom call. So that's when I first met him,
you know, face to face, and then his family came on.
They sang songs to me and stuff, and I said,
let me tell you, Nathan Fleetwood mac os, it's been
(38:44):
a fantastic moment in time that when a wall and
typical Fleetwood matc. Just when you think, you know, we've survived,
We've been really lucky, you know in so many some
of the things we've touched on in our talk where
again hopeless odds, we've prevailed. And I always joke about,
especially with Lindsay Buckingham years ago. I used to sit
(39:07):
with him and go like, we are the most abused
rock and roll franchise in the world, meaning we've never
capitalized on anything. Really we're all idiots, but it's sort
of good and we're still here.
Speaker 3 (39:23):
It's unbelievable.
Speaker 1 (39:24):
I mean again, I say this because it's easy, and
that is you're still here and people are picking songs
of yours to soundtrack their kind of playfulness and TikTok
and so forth, because the.
Speaker 3 (39:37):
Music is great.
Speaker 1 (39:38):
I mean you, and you're going back to hypnotized and Welsh.
I love hypnotized. I love mystery to me, I love all.
I love those early records, I play them to death.
I love every guys, and then solo acts Christia, you
know Stevie's solo albums, blah blah blah.
Speaker 3 (39:55):
I love it all. But I mean you. You live
in people's hearts because the music is that good.
Speaker 1 (40:00):
You guys made some of the greatest music in the
history of the music posiness.
Speaker 3 (40:04):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (40:06):
No, it's been an absolute pleasure. And I remember something
my father said, and it seems to really apply to
a lot of the storytelling about this funny life and
most certainly Fleetwood Mac and the fact that there have
been all sorts of ups and downs and around the
Marlbury Bush and pain and a lot of happiness as well.
(40:28):
My dad would always say one thing, Nick, I can
tell you it's all been worth a damn. And hearing
you say that about the music makes me feel that
it's all been worth a damn. And thank you, Oh
lots of love to you, and my love to you.
Speaker 3 (40:46):
Nick Cleepworth.
Speaker 1 (40:58):
Like the end of the radio, I'm Alec Baldwin and
this is here's the thing from iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (41:16):
I'm not let you believe that you're bad.
Speaker 1 (41:24):
No, not cad you go. I'm I'm gonna bead you
b
Host
Alec Baldwin
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