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