STEVIE NICKS INFO

Category: Say You Will (2003)

  • Buckingham gets back into 'that thing' of Fleetwood Mac

    Lindsey Buckingham started working more than six years ago on the new Fleetwood Mac album, Say You Will, that hits stores today. He just didn’t know it at the time.

    Buckingham originally thought he was making another solo album when he started recording with former band mates Mick Fleetwood on drums and John McVie on bass for the first time since he left the group in 1986.

    “At that point, some sort of light bulb went off somewhere,” Buckingham said, “in Mick’s head or Warner Bros.’ Probably everywhere, unbeknownst to me. People started saying ‘We got John, Mick and Lindsey in the studio maybe.’ ”

    The band did reunite for a 1997 live greatest-hits album, The Dance, and sold-out tour, but Buckingham went back to his solo album. “The live album and the tour that followed was basically the result of a kind of an intervention that we had on me to sort of say ‘You’ve got to put your album down and do this,’ ” said Buckingham, a notorious obsessive who has spent years sealed away recording albums.

    When he did finish the solo album, the label wasn’t all that enthusiastic. “When we got off The Dance and I got finished with it maybe a year after that, and took it to Warners, they had been bought out by AOL and they were sort of on their way out as a regime. (Warner Chairman) Russ Thyret didn’t like my stuff anyway. It was like, well, geez. And Mick and I decided to start cutting some tracks of Stevie’s and it just sort of morphed into that thing.”

    “That thing,” of course, is what the Warner publicity campaign is calling the first new Fleetwood Mac studio album since the 1986 multiplatinum Tango in the Night, conveniently omitting two entirely forgettable, far less successful albums released under the franchise name with different lineups in the interim. But Warner is right in spirit — Say You Will is the second coming of the ’70s supergroup, even without keyboardist-vocalist Christine McVie, a triumphant return to form for a group that has been all but washed up for the better part of 20 years.

    “We rented a house over on the west side (of Los Angeles) and we moved all of my gear over there,” Buckingham said on the phone before a rehearsal for a tour that starts May 7 (July 8 at the HP Pavilion in San Jose). “I started engineering. Probably 95 percent of the time spent in this house was really spent working on Stevie (Nicks) ’cause my stuff was pretty much completed and the other 5 percent was just opening up my tracks, recalling my mixes and getting her voices on them.”

    The 76-minute CD — at one point in the session, band members pondered a two-CD set — rekindles the trademark sound with magician’s ease, simultaneously recalling such varied past efforts as Rumours, Tusk and Tango in the Night. “Certainly on the album, you do have things that fall in the category of being very familiar or very Fleetwood Mac,” said Buckingham. “Then you have things like ‘Come’ or ‘Red Rover’ or ‘Murrow Turning Over in His Grave,’ which, in many ways, are more adventuresome than anything we’ve ever done.”

    Buckingham and Fleetwood Mac apparently need each other in important ways.

    Not only has the group failed to produce any memorable records since Buckingham left, but Buckingham has spent countless thousands of hours crafting brilliant solo albums that are appreciated by no more than a slender handful of big Mac’s audience. After the current project changed from a Buckingham solo album to a new Fleetwood Mac record, he noticed a different attitude at the label.

    “I was always seen as the troublemaker,” he said, “as someone who would shake up the status quo of what was a good thing. I was really trying to be honest to what I thought was important, which was to do your work, look into things that help you to grow. To think long term and to do it for yourself. And not run one thing into the ground because that’s what sells. There’s always been a kind of wariness between myself and the record company and vice versa and none of that helps in terms of getting the machine behind you.”

    Without Christine McVie, the songwriting and vocals come down to Buckingham and Nicks, who recorded an album as Buckingham Nicks before joining Fleetwood Mac. They first met when Buckingham attended Menlo Atherton High School and they began working together seriously when they were at College of San Mateo. At this point, almost 40 years later, they blend like the seasoned collaborators they are.

    “It’s that inexplicable thing that we’ve always had,” he said.

    “There’s a song on there called ‘Thrown Down’ that I think she tried about three different times with three different producers and never made it anywhere. It was supposed to go on a solo album. It was just obvious to me it needed a guitar riff in the chorus. It was a fairly simple thing, for some reason. There seems to be an understanding between us as to what to do.”

    Buckingham talked about “reconciling” the styles of recordings he used with Rumours, the band’s 1977 release that still ranks among the best-selling albums of all time, and Tusk, a 1979 double-record set that was a stark departure from the band’s sunny trademark sound.

    “If you go back to Tusk, ” he said, “that was an album where I was trying a certain approach, you might call more of a painting approach, where I was sort of working on my own in a studio with a machine and kind of allowing things to happen. It was kind of a subconscious approach, one-on-one with the canvas, as opposed to working with the group, which is more verbal and political, more like moviemaking, probably. I had to lobby to get that album made the way it was made. Everyone was quite happy with how it turned out. In fact, Mick would tell you now it’s his favorite album, as it is mine. But at the same time, when it did not sell 16 million albums, a dictum kind of came down from the group that we’re not going to do that anymore.” Buckingham, 55, is recently married, raising a son, 4, and daughter, 2.

    For someone who once groused that he would rather belong to the Clash, Buckingham has more than made his peace with Fleetwood Mac at this point.

    “The subtext of all of this is really that we are here,” Buckingham said, “and, in many ways, are better than ever, maybe breaking the mold a little bit.

    I know there certainly are enough ’80s Boomer acts still making music. But the fact is that we are here and still caring so much about it and, in many ways, doing the best work we’ve ever done at a point in our lives where, you know, the cliche of rock ‘n’ roll being: By the time you’re 40, you’re either burned out or tapped out. It feels very fresh and very new, and still solid. The history, it’s deep. And we’re just thrilled to be here.”

    Joel Selvin / San Francisco Chronicle / Tuesday, April 15, 2003

  • Mac drama continues in new CD

    By Howard Cohen
    Miami Herald
    Tuesday, April 15, 2003

    Decades since Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks turned their rocky romance into the aural soap opera classic, Rumours, the Fleetwood Mac pair still find new ways to get on each others’ nerves.

    Case exhibit: the recording of Say You Will, in stores Tuesday and the duo’s first album of original material with the band in 16 years.

    ”We had a few little bumps near the end of the project when she came in off the road after her tour,” Buckingham says. “We had made quite a start on her stuff and I think she was glad to have the collective arms around her because her tour was quite a burden on her. But, in some ways, she was looking at me, [thinking], `What’s he going to do to my songs?’ ”

    Nicks, a rock star in her own right, hadn’t had to answer to her old boyfriend in quite some time. But, among other roles, Buckingham produced the edgy Say You Will and it originated from his aborted solo album.

    ”There was plenty of drama, plenty of arguments, things we really had to hash out,” Nicks says. “But that’s what makes a great record. If everything went blissfully smooth it would be a blissfully boring record.”

    Song sequencing and selection were the primary issues.

    ”In the beginning it was a double record with 23 songs,” Nicks says. “But in January we decided to make it a single record. With the way the country is going and the economy, maybe we don’t want to put out a double record right now.”

    Say You Will, like the risky 1979 Tusk, reveals the differences in approach taken by these songwriters.

    Buckingham, 55, aims not only to push the envelope, but to light it afire with scorching guitar leads and quirky arrangements that, on songs like Murrow Turning Over in His Grave and Come, border on industrial metal. Nicks, 54, prefers a more conventional pop-rock style.

    TOUGHER SOUND

    Say You Will represents the first time since 1970 that Fleetwood Mac has recorded an album without vocalist-keyboardist Christine McVie, 59, who opted out of the band following the 1997 reunion tour and live CD, The Dance. Her backing vocals remain on two tracks Buckingham reworked from his solo project.

    Minus McVie’s buoyant love songs, Say You Will ends up a heavier, fresher, guitar-oriented opus — an antidote to the comparatively tepid pop of ’80s albums Mirage and Tango in the Night, records that led to Buckingham’s departure.

    ”I had left the band in order to keep growing and to make sure that I allowed myself to remain in a creatively nurturing environment which Fleetwood Mac had become the antithesis of in 1987,” he says. “When we went into this project I was able to take on more responsibilities.”

    Now the primary voices, Buckingham and Nicks were also able to return to the confessional hallmarks of Rumours.

    But yesterday’s gone. Buckingham is now married to photographer Kristen Messner and the couple have a son and daughter. ”I have nothing but good memories of growing up in an upper middle class family in northern California. I always thought I would have kids,” he says. “I never found the right person but I wasn’t the right person at the time, either. I happened to meet someone that I get along with very well.”

    Nicks, still single, contributed to the new CD Smile at You, reputedly from an old ’70s demo. Guess the target. What you did not need was a woman / Who was stronger / You needed someone to depend on you / I could not be her.

    Such politics-of-the-heart tunes also rub against topical songs with a broader world view. Buckingham offers a caustic media commentary, Murrow. Nicks delivers her melancholic poem, Illume (9-11).

    In hindsight, then, Say You Will is the balanced album that probably would have been a better followup to Rumours than the eccentric Tusk. It’s also, with the possible exception of Rumours, the first studio work to approximate this band’s energy on stage. (The tour hits the Office Depot Center June 7.)

    ”That’s no accident,” Buckingham says. “Approaching things without Christine gave us some opportunities to play differently. With everyone having that much more room to maneuver as a musician it allowed it to be more masculine.”

    POP LANDSLIDE

    The timing for a new CD couldn’t be better. The Dixie Chicks’ recent cover of Nicks’ 1975 composition Landslide became a big crossover hit.

    ‘They took Landslide to a whole other genre of people — a k a much younger people! They opened up dialogues from kids: `Hey, I love this Landslide song, so let’s go see what else Fleetwood Mac wrote.’ For that, we are forever in debt,” says Nicks.

    So spirits are high. ”We get along very well now,” Nicks says. “I think all of us are realizing how lucky we are. . . . Who wouldn’t want to be in Fleetwood Mac? That’s what I keep telling myself any time I have a problem.”

    Then she laughs. The recording hassles all but forgotten. Until it’s time to write for the next CD.

  • 'Will' power

    Billboard
    Monday, April 14, 2003

    On “Say You Will,” due this week from Reprise, Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks have collaborated together on their first Fleetwood Mac studio album since 1987’s “Tango in the Night.” Drummer Mick Fleetwood and bassist John McVie are both on board as well, but Christine McVie appears on just one of the set’s 18 tunes and will not be touring with Fleetwood Mac this summer.

    Luckily, Nicks penned the set’s sunny title track, which is catchy and destined to be a radio hit. Buckingham’s meaty, bass-heavy stomper “Murrow Turning Over in His Grave” is another highlight, while the driving rocker “Running Through the Garden” showcase’s Nicks’ passionate vocals. The single “Peacekeeper” is No. 15 on Billboard’s Adult Contemporary chart this week.

    “The whole energy in Fleetwood Mac right now is incredible,” Fleetwood says. “Our story is a really happy one at the moment. We’ve pushed some envelopes with this new album. We’ve made an album that we love, and we’re not frightened or insecure about who we are.”

    The group’s first tour since 1997 will kick off May 7 in Columbus, Ohio.

  • Rock's longest-running soap opera returns

    The Mac is back. Fleetwood Mac records first new studio album in 16 years — without Christine McVie

    By Jim Farber
    New York Daily News
    Sunday, April 6, 2003

    Twenty-eight years after Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham joined Fleetwood Mac, they still don’t view the group the same way. The making of “Say You Will,” their first album of new material recorded with the band in 16 years, proves it.

    “If I had my way, I would have started the album with the material most likely to offend as many people as possible,” Buckingham says with a giggle. “Stevie would bury all that stuff at the end.”

    “I am not what you’d call an envelope-pusher,” Nicks says. “Lindsey is there to make sure our band isn’t too safe. I’m there to make sure it isn’t too nuts. It’s all about that balance between us.”

    Never more so than now. “Say You Will” — in stores on Tuesday — represents the first time that songwriters Buckingham and Nicks have recorded a Fleetwood Mac album without the band’s third writer and harmonizer, piano player Christine McVie (who joined the band in 1970, five years before Nicks and Buckingham).

    The result changes the Fleetwood dynamic crucially. Lacking the light touch of McVie’s sentimental pop songs, as well as her jaunty keyboard, “Say You Will” ends up a heavier, stranger and riskier work than Fleetwood Mac has made before. It’s as big a leap ahead as they made with 1979’s “Tusk,” their eccentric and unlikely followup to one of the most popular albums of all time, 1977’s “Rumors,” which sold 14 million copies.

    The perception of “Say You Will” as a quirky work pleases Buckingham to no end. He says he wishes the band had kept getting weirder after “Tusk,” instead of putting out such pop-oriented ’80s albums as “Mirage” and “Tango in the Night.”

    “The politics in the band at the time put the lid on that,” the 55-year-old guitarist says. “I felt like I was treading water.”

    One reason for the more adventurous approach on “Say You Will” has to do with its convoluted origins as a Buckingham solo project. Back in the mid-’90s, Buckingham was making a solo album when he invited the band’s old rhythm section — drummer Mick Fleetwood and bassist John McVie — to play along. They all got on so well, it led to the 1997 album “The Dance,” the first full Mac reunion since 1987.

    Halfway through the roadshow to support that album, however, Christine McVie told the other members she didn’t want to tour or even be in the band.

    “We spent the next eight weeks trying to change her mind,” Nicks says.

    According to Buckingham, the pianist was having problems with her marriage, and longed to return to England. She wound up divorcing and moving to the outskirts of London.

    The group says there are no hard feelings; Buckingham stresses that he relates to her need to flee, given his own escape from the band in the ’80s. But the band members have rarely spoken with McVie since. (The pianist wouldn’t comment.)

    While Buckingham then wanted to complete the solo album he’d started before the reunion, he says the band’s record label, Warner Bros., had no interest in it. So the material he had begun recording became the basis of “Say You Will.” Nicks, who was committed to her own solo tour at the time, handed over 17 demos of her songs to the band to let them hammer them into shape.

    Without McVie’s piano playing, Buckingham says, “the remaining musicians had 33-1/3 percent more room to maneuver. We were able to flex our muscles and explore a more masculine sound. It’s closer to what we’re like live.”

    According to Buckingham, the absence of McVie’s songs also allowed “Stevie and I to squarely face each other and create the kind of dynamic we had before we joined the band.” In that respect, “Say You Will” recalls the solo album released by the duo before they joined Mac — 1974’s “Buckingham Nicks.”

    In the lyrics to the new album, the pair make eager use of their complicated personal histo ry. Several of Nicks’ songs refer to her busted romance with Buckingham, which ended more than 25 years ago. The album closes with farewell numbers to each other. Nicks, 54, wrote hers in the ’70s. Buckingham composed his around the time of “The Dance.”

    Of course, the group has been airing its dirty laundry (with hugely profitable results) ever since the “Rumors” album, which chronicled two simultaneous breakups within the band (the second being the McVies’).

    Buckingham marvels that “after all this time, Stevie and I still have something to give each other.” (He has been married to Kristen Messner since 2000.) Nicks says of her relationship with Buckingham, “We can never replace each other.”

    They say they understand each other far better now than they have in decades. But Nicks emphasizes that they still argue every day. “That will never change. We are very different people. Stick us in a house together for a year and trauma will come out of that. But the result is, we don’t make a blah record.”

    They also don’t make a short one. “Say You Will” features 18 songs. As Nicks jokes, “You need two days to listen to this record.”

    But it’s time well spent. The set features some of the fastest and most intricate guitar work to date from Buckingham, and some of the most honest lyrics from Nicks. The group wants to bring as much of that excitement as possible to its upcoming tour, which will feature several old Christine McVie songs.

    But the band faces a dilemma in capturing what Buckingham calls “the spirit of the band now.”

    “There are forces that would be happy just to present this as a nostalgia act,” he says. “But we want to walk a line — to be fresh and dignified and yet not alienate too much of the audience.”

    No doubt, the members will argue about how to accomplish that, not just for this tour, but for as long as they continue to play.

  • The eternal return

    Once again, Lindsey Buckingham gets pulled back into Fleetwood Mac

    It’s fair to say that Fleetwood Mac probably would never have achieved such mega success had it not been for Lindsey Buckingham. Not to marginalize guitarists Peter Green, Jeremy Spencer, or Bob Welch-all of whom contributed immensely to making Fleetwood Mac one of the most progressive blues-rock-pop bands of the ’60s and early ’70s — but it was Lindsey Buckingham’s unique guitar style and savvy arranging, producing,and songwriting skills that guided the band to the top of the charts in the mid 1970s with Fleetwood Mac and Rumours.

    Born in Palo Alto,California, in 1949, Buckingham was inspired at an early age by the sounds of Elvis Presley and other ’50’s-era rock-and-rollers. “I had a brother who was seven years older, and when he started bringing those records home, I got very interested in trying to lay the songs,” explains Buckingham. “I eventually got a 3/4-sized guitar, but I never took any lessons. I just played to the records, and used a chord book to figure out how the songs went. Listening to Scotty Moore eventually led me to Travis picking and other folk styles, and it just went from there.”

    Buckingham’s first group was the Fritz Rabyne Memorial Band, which he co-founded with several friends-one of whom was singer Stevie Nicks. The group plied to San Francisco scene for a few years (with Buckingham on bass), and then broke up in 1971. Now a duo, Buckingham and Nicks relocated to Los Angeles, landed a record deal, and released Buckingham Nicks in 1973. After drummer/bandleader Mick Fleetwood heard the album, he invited them to join Fleetwood Mac.

    Buckingham, Nicks and keyboardist Christine McVie subsequently churned out a string of hits that made fortunes for the band and its record label. Despite their storied personal difficulties during the making of Rumours, the band stayed the course, releasing Tusk in 1979 and Mirage in 1982. However, Buckingham was also pursuing a solo career — having released Law & Order in 1981 and Go Insane in 1984 — and he left the group in 1987 after recording Tango in The Night.

    But even after the release of his third solo album, Out Of The Cradle in 1992, it still wasn’t over for Buckingham and Fleetwood Mac. In 1996, the band reunited to tour and film The Dance — a live DVD that featured the classic lineup performing its classic songs. Following the departure of Christine McVie after The Dance tour, Buckingham went back to work on what was supposed to be his fourth solo album. But that project would eventually turn into a new Fleetwood Mac double album to be released early in 2003.

    Or would it? At press time, Warner Brothers was still debating whether to release a single or double CD set, and the album title and final song sequence was undecided. So here is the story of a work still in progress-one with a wealth of new songs by Buckingham and Nicks, and a huge dose of Buckingham’s wickedly expressive finger-style playing.

    How did you solo album turn into a Fleetwood Mac production?

    I started working on this record after coming off the road for a small tour in support of Out Of The Cradle. One day I ran into Mick Fleetwood, who I hadn’t seen in quite a while, and we started talking about working together. At the same time, Rob Cavallo — who was producing Green Day at the time — became interested in working with me. So the three of us just started cutting tracks. I took most of the songs back to my house to finish them, and while that was happening — as has occurred a few times in the past-the gravity of Fleetwood Mac just sucked me in.

    At that time, there was a big push to do The Dance tour, so I put all my new stuff on the shelf throughout 1996. After the tour, I went back in and finished what was going to be my next solo album. This was about the time that Warner Brothers was preparing to change a lot of staff, though, and I was a little worried that my record would get buried. I felt strongly that it was the best solo thing I had done, so I thought, “Well, I’ll just wait.” In the meantime, Stevie was around, and the whole idea of getting her in the picture came about. I wasn’t sure that I was going to use my stuff for a Fleetwood Mac album, but we just decided to start cutting some of Stevie’s songs while I waited for for the new regime at Warner to come in. From there, the whole project morphed into as Fleetwood Mac thing.

    But without Christine McVie.

    Yeah. At the end of the 40 or so dates of The Dance tour, Christine announced she didn’t want to go out on the road anymore. I wasn’t completely unhappy with her decision because I had my solo stuff to get back to.

    How did her absence affect the sessions for this new album?

    The band had to explore new creative options because Christine wasn’t there. For example, we were forced to play differently because, suddenly, we were a three piece. Her absence also forced Stevie and I to establish a different dynamic with each other, and, ironically, it’s a bit more like Buckingham Nicks. But I think that working through Christine’s departure is one of the reasons this album sounds as fresh as it does.

    Did it make a difference that your songs had been written specifically for a solo album?

    I don’t know if the songs would have turned out any different had I known I was going to use them for a Fleetwood Mac album — although the process in which they were brought along would have changed. When you’re working with a band, a communal sensibility influences things, and the songs that make it are the ones that everyone think are appropriate “band” songs. Obviously, that’s not the case if I’m going off in a more esoteric direction on my own.

    Which process do you prefer?

    Well, there’s an analogy that working with a band is like making movies, and working alone is like painting. I’ve spent many years alone in my garage experiencing the contemplative aspects of songwriting, and I think that has contributed positively to my ability to write songs and make records.

    When you’re writing a song, do you typically start with a guitar part?

    Yes. I’ve always admired Stevie for her ability to have the vocal melody be the center of the song. In theory, that’s how it should be. But the guitar is always the center of my songs, and writing is always a case of wondering, “What do I put over that?”

    The great thing about Stevie is that she really isn’t a musician, so 95 percent of her psyche is driving the melody. As a guitarist, I often find myself defining a guitar part before I even have a melody. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it can be more problematic when you’re trying to develop a song idea.

    At one time, you and Stevie and Christine were masters of turning personal difficulties into hit songs. Is the ability to reflect on what’s happening around you still a factor in your songwriting?

    I don’t really think of myself as a commentator of anything. I just try to find a lyric that has some truth, grace, and mystery. Hopefully, it will bridge the line between something personal and something that’s about the world in a broader sense.

    On Rumours — which was probably the primary example of our lives laid bare — I don’t think we were aware of what we were doing. Our situation was unique because two couples were breaking up while making a record, and the personal difficulties were fueling everything.

    You were playing a Telecaster before you joined Fleetwood Mac, and then you started using a Les Paul. Was there any reason for the switch?

    The band wanted me to play a humbucker guitar because Mick tuned his drums fairly low and Christine’s keyboard sounds were kind of Wurlitzer-like and Rhodes-y. All that lower midrange stuff tended to make the Telecaster sound really scratchy and thin.

    I did use the Telecaster onstage before Fleetwood Mac was released. Those weren’t big shows, but Mick was very adamant that we get out there and get some chops as a band. So there was a certain amount of obscurity working in our favour in terms of being able to play around and make some mistakes. I guess using the Tele live was one of them.

    Were there any other things you had to change to fit in with the band?

    Yes — it was quite a lesson in adaptation. I did everything from switching my guitar to become a less present as a player in order to do the right thing for the band as a whole. They even tried to get me to use a pick!

    What were you using for distortion when you first joined Fleetwood Mac?

    It was a old Sony 2-track tape machine that I’d rigged up. The deck had input and output gain controls, and you could overdrive one gain stage with the other. It was solid-state sounding, but it worked.

    I bought the deck when I first got interested in recording, and had read about Les Paul doing his sound-on-sound thing. I cut my teeth on recording and overdubbing with that machine. It eventually broke down, but the fuzz part still worked, so I plugged into it for my lead tone.

    You are the most noted use of the Turner Model I. How did you discover that guitar?

    Rick Turner had worked for Alembic for a long time, and the guitars they made were the equivalent of the basses the John [McVie, Fleetwood Mac bassist] still has. There were so much stuff on those instruments-parametric EQ and all this other cleverness. Anyway, Rick would ask me to try these different Alembic guitars, and they were always big and heavy with dense, exotic woods and brass hardware. They felt very sterile to me, and I finally said to him, “Why don’t you make me something that’s a cross between what you do and a Les Paul.”

    One day, during the sessions for Tusk, Rick showed up with the Model I. It was more about finding the ideal stage guitar, because as much as the Les Paul was fitting the bill in a fairly good way, it wasn’t giving my picking a fare shake. The Turner sounded slightly ore percussive and articulate-somewhere between a Les Paul and an acoustic guitar-and the tone worked better with my fingerstyle playing. I even used to put a set of .012-.052 flatwounds on it, but now I’m using a .010-.046 roundwound set.

    I’ve noticed you sometimes rotate the pickup on your Turner so that the bass side is closer to the bridge.

    That’s the sweet spot for me. It delivers a little more definition on the low end-which helps me cut through the band-and having the treble side of the pickup closer to the neck sweetens the top strings.

    Do you still use single-coil guitars in the studio?

    Yes. I use the Turner for lead playing and chunky rhythm parts in the studio, but a Strat or a Tele works better when I’m trying to orchestrate guitar parts, and I need something that’s voiced more sublimely.

    Who was your main lead guitar influence?

    I can’t say it was one person. I used to love Led Zeppelin, but I never sat around trying to learn Jimmy Page licks. In terms of developing a sense of melody, I was helped along by Dave Mason’s Alone Together -a wonderful album with a very pretty kind of lead-guitar style. But I never thought of myself as someone who was going to go out there and burn it up. In fact, the lead stuff came very late for me.

    How has technology influenced the way you make records?

    It hasn’t. I still have a traditional console — it’s not even computerized-and I still record to tape. I would like to change the way I record, though, because I now wish I had some of the editing capabilities that allow you to do things quicker.

    But you did use a Roland VG-8 to record much of the album. Were any conventional amps used in the studio?

    Well, you’re right about that level of technology-we hardly used any amplifiers. Although for Gift Of Screws, we put a bunch of amps in different rooms, and mixed and matched the sounds until we got what we wanted. The amps included a Fender Bassman and a Vox AC30.

    You get a very clearly defined sound on both your nylon — and steel — string acoustics. Do you record them with a mic or a pickup, or both?

    A lot of times, I’m running direct with a pickup-although I’ll sometimes mic the guitar to capture a little more air in the acoustic sound.

    When you layer acoustic sounds, you often seem to include your Dobro.

    Yeah, that same riff I’ve been playing for years! The Dobro is tuned to dropped D. I probably got that from listening to Stephen Stills in the late 60’s.

    You flail the strings aggressively with your right hand, yet your sound is very articulate and precise. Can you give us some insight into your technique?

    Flailing-and bit of frailing-pretty much describes it. I don’t think about it much because I’ve never had any formal training. I never sat around and practiced scales, and I never took any lessons. I’m still very limited in some ways.

    Is it that guitar playing comes so natural to you that you tend to focus more on the songs and less on the instrument?
    Even when I was eight years old, the most important thing was learning to play and sing that Elvis tune. For me, it as always been about the music and the songs, and how to make the big picture as interesting as possible.

    Tone Toys 

    “We got a loud, clean stage sound, and we used tube amps and EV speakers,” says Buckingham’s long-time guitar tech, Ray Lindsey. “Lindsey’s fingerstyle playing creates huge dynamics and lots of low-end, and we want to be able to keep the sound clean and tight so that when he goes for a solo, it really stands out.

    “The Boss OD-1 has always suited Lindsey for his distortion tone. It adds sustain, but it still allows him to get a pretty clean lead sound. We also split his guitar signal before the amp so that the front-of-house guy can add some of the direct sound to the mix. This helps overcome the mushiness of the room, and it also adds attack and definition to the guitar sound.

    “Lindsey prefers a heavier, more industrial tone onstage, and for The Dance we used Mesa/Boogie Dual rectifiers set up for the cleanest possible sound. They did the job, but I still think we could take it a step further. We just wanted a huge clean tone, but it’s hard to find in the Dual Rectifier because there are so many overdrives stages that you have to neutralize to get there. We used custom cabinets, which were closed-back on the bottom and open-back on top. I think that setup worked okay for The Dance video because of the smaller stage, but when we got to the arenas it couldn’t quite go to the next level.

    “Lindsey used a Roland VG-8 extensively for the new album. I’ve experimented with a few different modelling amps, and the VG-8 seems more true in its sampled sounds. It also has less bells and whistles to deal with, and that allows us to get to the music faster.” — AT

    Buckingham’s Licks

    Although the song selection and running order of the new Fleetwood Mac album was up in the air as we went to press, I was treated to a special preview of the planned two CD release in the Warner Brothers offices last December. Later on, Buckingham graciously detailed the 6-string highlights of some of his favorite songs. We can only hope that the final version of the album lets you hear these gems.”— AT

    I Am Waiting. “The straight sound is a Baby Taylor with gut strings,” says Buckingham. “Then I played the same part through a very ethereal patch on the Roland VG-8. I like the idea of mixing different textures with a single guitar part.”

    Gift of Screws. “I don’t think I’ve ever done this on a record before, But I doubled my lead part with my voice on this song-just like George Benson. It’s an interesting device, and I did a bit more of it on the song “Miranda.”

    Thrown Down. “It sounds like I used a high-strung guitar here, but I’ve also been known to do an old Les Paul trick to re-voice my guitar parts. For example, I’ll track a part with the tape machine slowed down a half step, and the part will sound sweeter and more “miniature” when the deck is run at normal speed. You have to be careful not to slow down the machine too much, though, because the guitar ca sound wimpy. I also did this trick on the chorus riff, which was tripled with little speed tweaks on either side of the correct pitch.”

    Not Make Believe. “The shimmering tones are courtesy of a doubled part and the speed-tweak trick. What you’re hearing is ‘natural’ phasing.”

    Bleed To Love Her. “The backwards guitar is my Strat through a Lexicon delay, and manipulated with a volume pedal.”

    Say Goodbye. “This song was written quite a long time ago, after I had left the band. I don’t know if I was going for anything in particular, but I was in a place where I could feel compassionate, understanding, and nonjudgmental about the other people in the band, and about everything that had happened. The lyric was really important to me, and the fingerpicking part makes it a really nice guitar piece.”

    Red Rover. “The speed and aggressiveness in my fingerpicking is a big part of what I have to offer these days. Here, the very percussive, fingerpicked part was doubled, and then I slowed down the tape machine and bounced the double to another track. This allowed me to control the doubled part with a fader, and I moved the fader back and forth in time with the music. It almost sounds like some of that gating stuff they did in the ’80s — that on-off kind of thing — except this method is more organic. My idea was to create some negative space to take the place of the drums, and I had to slow the tape machine way down to get the rhythmic manipulations as precise as possible. It’s all about being in the pocket.”

    Murrow Turning Over In His Grave. “The very strange-sounding distortion part is based around a cluster of atonal vocals. You get five, six, or seven different tones together that are out of tune with each other, and it just becomes this arrgh kind of sound. I think there might be some slide in there, too. This song has elements of something quite traditional and recognizable in an almost generic sort of way, yet it departs from that at the chorus when you’re suddenly into this weird Brian Wilson/Yardbirds acid thing. I would never want to do something that was generic all the way through.”

    Art Thompson / Guitar Player (Issue 399, Vol. 37, No.4) /April 2003

  • Another Mac attack

    By David Giammarco
    The Globe and Mail (Canada)
    Sunday, March 30, 2003

    The Santa Ana winds are blowing in from the desert, and from Stage 9 at Culver City Studios, the mystically melodic strains of Dreams drifts onto the warm afternoon breeze. “Now here I go again, I see the crystal visions,” swirls the unmistakable raspy vocals of rock’s gypsy priestess, Stevie Nicks. And for a moment it sounds … it feels … like summer, 1977.

    That year, Fleetwood Mac’s album Rumours seized the airwaves, volleying a stream of superbly crafted hits to the top of the charts and unspooling an irresistible — inescapable — soundtrack for many people’s lives.

    But alas, this is not a dream. It’s spring, 2003, and the famed members of Fleetwood Mac — the reigning dysfunctional family of 1970s rock royalty — are hunkered down in this cavernous sound stage, rehearsing classic tunes and rehashing classic tensions that originally tore the supergroup apart amidst epic indulgences during their hedonistic heyday. Stevie Nicks, guitarist Lindsey Buckingham, bassist John McVie, and percussionist Mick Fleetwood have reunited for a much-anticipated concert tour — only the second such occurrence in 21 years — all in support of an equally remarkable feat: the “classic” Mac’s first studio album in 16 years.

    Say You Will — due for release April 15 — is 18 tracks of exuberant melodies and alluring lyrics, brazenly fused with an instrumental aggression recalling the sprawling innovation of the band’s 1979 double-album Tusk.

    But while the sound is vintage Fleetwood Mac, the substances fuelling it are not.

    In the 1970s and 1980s, copious amounts of cocaine and cognac stoked their frequently stormy sessions. These days, Mick Fleetwood still carries around a plastic baggie, but it’s full of trail mix.

    These last crucial weeks of preparation before the tour launch finds Nicks fretting — needlessly, it seems — over the road-readiness of the band.

    “We just literally finished this record, and now we’re trying to quickly flip over from recording mode into touring mode in a very compressed period of time,” sighs Nicks, explaining that even some of the most renowned Fleetwood Mac tunes need to be relearned for the tour. “Not for me, because I never stopped doing a song like Dreams over the last 2,500 years,” she grins, “but Fleetwood Mac hasn’t done Dreams since 1997, and that was only briefly for three months on “The Dance” tour.

    “Most of these songs I’ve done on every single one of my tours since I started my solo career in 1982. I’ve never stopped touring, whereas Lindsey and everyone else haven’t played in front of audiences since 1997 … I think they’re much more nervous about the old stuff than I am.”

    Buckingham, however, doesn’t seem to be sweating it. Rather, the consummate musician is still ruminating the “epic effort” of birthing a new Fleetwood Mac album, something no one — least of all himself — imagined happening after his acrimonious departure following 1987’s Tango in the Night. “After leaving the band, I was really able to push the envelope on my own … so that this coming together really started to make sense in terms of what I could give back,” reflects Buckingham, 53, who also engineered and produced Say You Will. But somehow this wouldn’t be a true Fleetwood Mac reunion without some expected unease between Buckingham and ex-paramour Nicks.

    “I think Stevie is seeing part of this record through some dark colours right now,” hints Buckingham later in the afternoon, “only because towards the end we had some conflicts about running order and some other things, and she hasn’t quite been able to come out the other end and say, ‘Wow, this is really something!’

    “I think it’s hard for her to feel the catharsis that I’m feeling, and that Mick is feeling … it’s been hard for her to turn and say, ‘Gee, nice job, Lindsey — thanks for working on my songs for an entire year.’ But having said that, which really only speaks of maybe how difficult it got near the end, the whole thing was pretty great.”

    A perplexed smile then spreads across Buckingham’s face. “I must admit,” he says, shaking his head, “there did seem to be a weird sense of destiny to all of this.”

    To fully understand rock n’ roll’s sudsiest, longest-running soap opera, you must rewind through Fleetwood Mac’s private — but mostly musically documented — record of inner-group marriages, divorces, affairs, animosities, band defections, drug abuse and alcoholism, back to 1967. That’s when Fleetwood and McVie first formed — alongside guitarists Peter Green and Jeremy Spencer — what was originally a British blues band that gained fame for their hits such as Albatross and Black Magic Woman (which would be re-recorded in 1971 by Carlos Santana to greater success in the U.S.).

    By then, however, the first of many odd occurrences began afflicting Fleetwood Mac: In 1970, Green descended into madness after a bad acid trip and left to become a roving religious zealot, while shortly thereafter, Spencer mysteriously disappeared into the Children of God cult. Keyboardist Christine Perfect then joined the band, becoming McVie’s wife and infusing their sound with a more pop sensibility. A string of temporary musicians would come and go (including one fired after an affair with Mick Fleetwood’s wife) until Fleetwood, having transplanted the band to Los Angeles in 1974, stumbled upon a record by little-known California folk-rock duo Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks. He soon invited the romantically linked pair to join the band, andthen everything coalesced for Fleetwood Mac.

    The new lineup’s eponymous 1975 album featured a rejuvenated direction into a winsome rock, pop and blues blend that yielded Top 20 singles Over My Head, Say You Love Me, Landslide and, what would become Nicks’s signature song, the bewitching Rhiannon. The album soared to No. 1 and sold over five million copies, but that unexpected triumph would be dwarfed by the monster lurking just around the corner.

    In 1976, Mick Fleetwood marshalled the troops up the California coast to Sausalito, where over the course of a year-long stint at the Record Plant, the blood and guts of their romantic meltdowns spilled into the recording studio. John and Christine McVie divorced, Buckingham and Nicks split and Fleetwood separated from his wife.

    “Usually when you have a bad breakup, you aren’t still locked up together all day,” says Nicks, dressed in her trademark Dickensian attire of wispy lace and flowing chiffon. “It was so intense every day, so heavy … it was like being in the army. I was never as exhausted in my whole life as when we were doing that album.” That album was, of course, Rumours, named by McVie as a nod to the scandals surrounding the band, which arrived like a hurricane in February, 1977, to spend 31 weeks at No. 1.

    To date, Rumours has sold over 30 million copies worldwide, making it the second biggest-selling album of all time. Ironically, that made the path between then and now an even rockier road for Fleetwood Mac, faced with having to match that mammoth success. The band was next spurred on largely by Buckingham in 1979 to record a complete about face: the wildly experimental double album Tusk. But despite selling millions of copies, Tusk was deemed a commercial failure.

    Virtually imprisoned by near-mythic expectations and vastly deteriorating relations, the band still soldiered on throughout the decade to record two more albums: 1982’s Mirage and 1987’s Tango in the Night. By then, however, both Nicks and Buckingham had branched out into successful solo careers, and the band slowly eroded despite Fleetwood’s best efforts to keep everyone together. “Sometimes I wish I played another instrument, but I’m a drummer, so I inherently need to have a band to play with and I’m relatively useless without that,” explains Fleetwood with a shrug. ” I was always playing the mediator and trying to make things work and keep everyone happy — at a great cost to my private life, my marriage, my time with my children.”

    Neatly attired in a crisp white shirt, jeans and with now short gray hair, Fleetwood looks far more distinguished than in his “eccentric Keith Moon days” and he partially blames himself for the disintegration of his beloved band. “During the ‘crazy’ times towards the end of the eighties, my life was so involved in alcohol and drugs and just having a good time, that my managerial skills were completely blunted out,” he admits.

    “Stevie and Lindsey both know that I’m not a maniac any more,” adds Fleetwood with a laugh. “That feels good.”

    The undeniable propellant of Fleetwood Mac has always been the potent chemistry between Buckingham and Nicks — often taking the form of vicious lyrical battles — as when Buckingham jabs in Go Your Own Way: “Packing up, shacking up is all you want to do.” Though they each have indeed gone their own way personally (Buckingham is recently married with two young children), it’s apparent there still exists some unresolved heartache for the pair, who have known each other since high school. “It’s a curse,” Nicks admits quite candidly. “And if I really was a witch, you know that’s the first thing that I would make stop. But there’s been nothing I could ever do to fix that.”

    “Yeah, I’m sure Stevie and I still have a few conversations to have,” concedes Buckingham, who also figures those old demons probably helped spark the vitality heard on Say You Will. “There was certainly a period of time during the making of this album where it felt like we were really going at it through the music. You can really feel the energy between us … I don’t think that’s ever going to go away.”

    How such tensions could produce such exquisite harmonies remains one of the most enduring — and endearing — enigmas surrounding Fleetwood Mac. “People say that to me all the time,” admits Nicks with a smile. “They’ll say stuff like, ‘I’m sorry that you guys had to be so miserable and suffer so much, but we’re really glad that you did because otherwise, we wouldn’t have these songs.’ So it’s all been a real Catch-22 situation.”

    Though Buckingham feels Say You Will represents the “healing” of Fleetwood Mac, there is one valuable link missing: Christine McVie. The elegant songbird opted out of the rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle after briefly tasting it again on “The Dance” tour in 1997, and the band decided that she couldn’t do the record if not prepared to tour. In hindsight, Buckingham feels it was maybe for the best.

    “One of the things that made this album as strong as it is, oddly enough, is the fact that Christine was absent,” he says. “Because on a musical level, you have more room for Mick, John and myself to manoeuvre. And on an emotional level, the absence of Christine gave John an opportunity to be a little more down in himself, a little grittier, and not so on his guard. Because the occasional button might have gotten pushed being around Christine.”

    What originally started off as Buckingham’s fourth solo album, Say You Will evolved into a Mac reunion when a regime change at Warner Brothers forced Buckingham to reconsider releasing his project amidst the corporate uncertainties. While waiting for the dust to settle, Buckingham invited Fleetwood and McVie to help lay down some tracks, and from there, “the gravity of Fleetwood Mac just sucked me in,” he smiles. “It was just like old times.”

    Once Nicks became involved, Buckingham had already rented a house in Bel Air to record, which he says further helped to provide a revived communal spirit for the band. And according to Fleetwood, the experience helped erase some of their painful past. “It was very different,” he laughs. “I mean, there was no drug abuse, no alcohol abuse, no romances falling apart, no midnight creeping from door-to-door and sleeping with each other … we’re all very different people now.”

  • Fleetwood Mac asks America Online members to 'Say You Will'

    Be the First to Hear Their New Music

    Businesswire
    Tuesday, March 4, 2003

    NEW YORK – AOL Music Names Fleetwood Mac March Artist of the Month and Features the Exclusive Global Debut of “Peacekeeper,” the First Single from Band’s Highly Anticipated New Album, Say You Will, to be Released on Reprise Records, April 15. Song to Be Offered Through New MusicNet on AOL Music Subscription Service.

    America Online, Inc. the world’s leading interactive services company, and Reprise Records, today announced that legendary rock band Fleetwood Mac has secured the highly coveted spot as AOL’s March Artist of the Month. As part of this distinction, AOL Music will feature a host of exclusive opportunities to experience new music from the band including an AOL Music First Listen of “Peacekeeper,” the first single from Say You Will (their first studio album since 1986, set for release on Reprise Records, April 15, 2003), an intimate Sessions@AOL performance and a pre-release CD Listening party where fans can hear the new album in its entirety before it is in stores.

    “Fleetwood Mac created a sound that has proven to stand the test of time. Their contribution to rock music cannot be understated,” said Evan Harrison, Executive Director of AOL Music. “The chance to debut their new work, plus offer fans an original reunion performance is undeniable proof that AOL Music is the place to go for the most eagerly anticipated music.”

    Fleetwood Mac made history in the mid-Seventies with the release of such era-defining albums as Fleetwood Mac, Rumours and Tusk. Their catalog of smash hits – from “Don’t Stop” to “Rhiannon” to “Go Your Own Way” to “Landslide” (currently a Top 20 hit for the Dixie Chicks) and beyond – constitutes a soundtrack for our times. As fresh and original today as when they first defined the rock & roll idiom, it is that same creative chemistry that continues with Say You Will.

    Highlights of this extensive promotion include:

    — Starting at 12:01 AM EST, Tuesday, March 4, the band’s new song “Peacekeeper” will be available exclusively to AOL members worldwide at AOL Keyword: First Listen. For 24 hours, AOL will be the only place fans can listen to this new song. Starting Wednesday, March 5, the song will also be made available to Web music fans at aolmusic.com.

    — Starting March 5, “Peacekeeper” will be available on MusicNet on AOL, which is currently available with a free-trial subscription. The song will be available to stream, download and — for subscribers at the Premium tier — burn on MusicNet on AOL before it is for sale in stores.

    — The band recorded an exclusive Sessions@AOL performance and interview. They performed new songs, revisited classic hits, updated fans on the latest news from the band and answered questions from AOL members around the world. The Fleetwood Mac Sessions@AOL will be available exclusively to AOL Members in mid-March at AOL Keyword: Sessions@AOL or AOL Keyword: Fleetwood Mac.

    Additional highlights of the Fleetwood Mac Artist of the Month campaign include a CD Listening Party where members will have the exclusive chance to hear the full album, Say You Will, in its entirety one day before it is available in stores. AOL Music will also feature a Fleetwood Mac photo gallery, a celebrity DJ station on Radio@AOL that showcases Fleetwood Mac’s favorite tunes and exclusive behind the scenes footage from the making of the album. What’s more, on March 6, AOL Broadband subscribers will enjoy footage from “The Dance,” Fleetwood Mac’s acclaimed DVD concert, on AOL’s weekly series Broadband Rocks.

    About AOL Music

    AOL Music, a division of America Online, Inc., reaches the largest audience of online music fans in the world through a rich array of programming, products and services that make it easy to discover, experience, listen to and buy music online. AOL Music’s offerings are available at the number one Internet music destination, the AOL Music Channel, and throughout the AOL service, AOL Broadband Services and AOL’s family of Web brands including Netscape, CompuServe, AIM, ICQ, Spinner, Winamp and SHOUTcast. America Online, Inc. is a wholly owned subsidiary of AOL Time Warner Inc. (NYSE:AOL). Based in Dulles, Virginia, America Online is the world’s leader in interactive services, Web brands, Internet technologies and e-commerce services.

    CONTACT:

    America Online, Inc.
    AOL Music
    Rachel Lizerbram, 212/484-7784

    or

    Fleetwood Mac
    Todd Brodginski, 818/380-0400

    SOURCE: America Online, Inc.

    03/04/2003 11:02 EASTERN

  • Fleetwood Mac's 'Peacekeeper' to premiere on NBC's 'Third Watch'

    Billboard
    Thursday, February 20, 2003

    Veteran rock band Fleetwood Mac will preview a new song, “Peacekeeper,” Monday (Feb. 24) on the NBC series “Third Watch.” The song, which premieres at the end of the episode, is from the group’s new album, “Say You Will,” due in April on Warner Bros. The set is Fleetwood Mac’s first all-new studio album with founding members Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks since the 1987 set “Tango in the Night.”

    Drummer Mick Fleetwood recently told Billboard, “The whole energy in Fleetwood Mac right now is incredible. Our story is a really happy one at the moment. We’ve pushed some envelopes with this new album. We’ve made an album that we love, and we’re not frightened or insecure about who we are.”

    The band is expected to launch a tour by this summer. Sources say that the first leg of the tour will include about 40 U.S. cities. “We’re going to have fun with it,” Fleetwood says of the tour. “And I’m pretty sure we’ll come out intact.”

  • Fleetwood Mac say new album

    Fleetwood Mac say new album

    Say You Will due in April, world tour in May

    Fleetwood Mac will release their new album, Say You Will, on April 15th. The album is their first full collection of new material with Lindsey Buckingham onboard since 1987’s Tango in the Night. However, Say You Will, the group’s first release since the half-new/half-unplugged The Dance five years ago, doesn’t feature keyboardist/singer Christine McVie, who had been with the band since 1970.

    Some of Buckingham’s contributions to Say You Will are as many as nine years old, as he initially considered using some for a solo release. “[Christine’s departure] kind of freed the Fleetwood Mac situation to be looked at in a fresh light and in some ways in the dynamic that Stevie and I had going before we joined the band,” Buckingham told Rolling Stone. “But this music is the best that I’ve ever done on my own, or with Fleetwood Mac, tapping into some new areas. And after all of this time, Stevie and I have managed to get to a point where we’re comfortable. There’s nothing we can’t talk about. I talked to Don Henley one time about the Eagles, and it seemed like there was so little love or idealism left in that group of people and perhaps that’s more the norm for people our age. But we seem to be slightly more arrested, and I think there’s some potential for some good stuff because of that.”

    Drummer Mick Fleetwood says that Buckingham’s input on the record reminds him of the band’s segue from 1977’s Rumours to the more sprawling 1979 release, Tusk. “His whole life is so involved in doing what he does,” Fleetwood said. “Quite frankly, I’m not sure how he stays focused all those years on pieces of music, but he does. It has a lot of the sensibilities [of Tusk] and Lindsey’s definitely pushed some envelopes that are exciting. I don’t think people will accuse us of standing still.”

    Nicks’ contributions came from a similar flood of material. The singer gave Buckingham, Fleetwood and bassist John McVie eighteen songs to work with, before she went out to tour behind her 2001 release, Trouble in Shangri-La. “So it was the power trio,” Fleetwood said. “And that was great, because we did a lot of reconnecting.” Nicks’ friendship with Sheryl Crow also resulted in a guest appearance by Crow, who added harmony vocals and keyboards to Say You Will.

    Fleetwood Mac are planning a world tour, to launch in May.

    Rolling Stone / Friday, February 7, 2003

  • Fleetwood Mac are back

    Pollstar
    Thursday, February 6, 2003

    Fleetwood Mac are back in a big way this year. The band has both a new album – Say You Will, to be released April 15 – and a big, 40-city arena tour on the docket.

    So, what makes this such big news? Well, it’s Fleetwood Mac’s first studio album in 15 years, for a start. And, it’s the band’s first tour since 1997 when they single-handedly sold out arenas around the States.

    No dates or venues have been announced yet, although the tour will hit major U.S. markets including Washington, D.C., Pittsburgh, Cleveland, New York, Atlanta, Ft. Lauderdale, Detroit, and others. The tour is expected to launch May 7 in Columbus, Ohio, with tickets going on sale in March. According to Mick Fleetwood’s official Web site, a world tour is expected to follow.

    Noticeably absent from the album and tour is Christine McVie. However, mainstays Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham, and founding members Mick Fleetwood and Jon McVie are all onboard.