I don’t really think of myself so much as a writer as a stylist, someone who came into writing from the back door and has found it through a certain very specific and personal means.
I remember being a kid – if a new member joined a group, I just didn’t like that at all.
The most disappointing thing to me after ‘Tusk’ was the politics in the band. They said, ‘We’re not going to do that again.’ I felt dead in the water from that. On ‘Mirage,’ I was treading water, saying, ‘Okay, whatever,’ and taking a passive role.
If you talk about the ‘Tango in the Night’ album, the reason I didn’t do that tour was because the album took about 10 months, and it was such an uncreative atmosphere.
‘Big Love’ was originally an ensemble song, but it’s done now as a single guitar piece.
You get to be a certain age – I am 58 – and it becomes tricky not to become a caricature of yourself.
I feel like fifteen years with Fleetwood Mac was like working on my thesis, doing research for some kind of paper.
They tried to get me to use a pick when I first joined the band. They had certain things they thought were appropriate. I tried to adapt as much as I could.
That’s the only way to do it. Just like an actor. You can get a great performance if you do a bunch of takes and edit it. You find the moments and string them together.
‘Tango’ was a good experience, looking back on it, and it seems to hold up pretty well.
I liked ‘Rumours,’ but to me, there was some point where the focus became the sales, not the music.
All of my style came from listening to records.
‘Tusk’ was clearly a line in the sand that I drew.
When I was a kid, and Elvis Presley broke through to a middle class, white audience, it was a sociological phenomenon that lasted through the Beatles and even a bit through Fleetwood Mac.
There’s a certain kind of idealism attached to ‘Tusk’ as a subtext to the music, and I think people now can respond not only to how colorful and experimental it is, but also why it was made.
That really was a lot of the appeal of ‘Rumours.’ The music was wonderful, but the music was also authentic because it was two couples breaking up and writing dialogue to each other. It was also appealing because we were rising to the occasion to follow our destiny.
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