Fleetwood Mac drummer Mick Fleetwood admits he’s not allowed to ask Christine McVie to rejoin the band again.
She retired in 1998 and has only attended a handful of shows since then – but she’s made it clear she has no interest in making a comeback.
Fleetwood tells the Telegraph: “I’ve had to agree to stop asking her.”
The band were able to regain guitarist Lindsey Buckingham in 2003, although Fleetwood admits that reopened some of the four-piece’s infamous emotional wounds.
“To see Stevie Nicks, just a week ago, saying to Lindsey that she understood he left because he couldn’t stand to see her destroy herself – it was a heavy, good moment. I’m moved even talking about this.”
As Fleetwood Mac gear up for a world tour, which is set to include at least three new songs, the drummer reflects on 35 years of living with classic album Rumours.
“It’s this mutant thing with a life of its own,” he says. “It shaped me as a person, because we went through a damage, making that album.
“‘It’s good therapy. There’s still a fascination about it – it’s who we are and what we are. It forces you to think about yourself: how you’ve developed or undeveloped, screwed up or not, what you learnt from that, and whether you have truly moved on from the hurt, fear and loathing.”
“I know it sounds like, ‘Oh my God, when will those people grow up?’ Well, the reality was maybe we didn’t actually ever grow up. But it’s never too late. We’re not finished yet.”
One of the key to the record’s success was its production values, Fleetwood believes. “It doesn’t sound dated because there’s no weird echoes or plastic drums. A lot of our contemporaries were doing funny things in the studio that spoils stuff from that period. Rumours could have been made yesterday.
“We made decisions on songs fairly early. The real work was stripping it down to stuff that sounds very simple, and then layering it up, especially the vocals.”
-Classic Rock
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