Co-producer of Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours sparks effort to buy Sausalito’s historic Record Plant Studio
Forty-one years ago, record producer Ken Caillat loaded his dog in his car and drove from Los Angeles to the Record Plant in Sausalito to work on an album by an up-and-coming band named Fleetwood Mac. The album that came out of four months of intense recording sessions was Rumours, a blockbuster that would go on to sell more than 45 million copies worldwide and earn critical acclaim as one of the greatest pop records of all time.
In recent days and months, Caillat has made that same trip with his dog (not the same one) many times. This time his purpose has been to help form the Marin Music Project, a three-member group that’s on a mission to save the long-shuttered Record Plant as a piece of Marin’s storied rock ’n’ roll history.
“It was dirty, the wood was flaking off and I thought, ‘I’m gonna wake up one morning and read that it burned down,’” he said. “I’ve seen so many great studios that either burned down or were turned into computer places or real estate offices or coffee shops. I said, ‘I’m going to do everything I can to try and save this place.’”
So he hooked up with Novato marketing consultant Kevin Bartram and Frank Pollifrone, a sports and entertainment marketer from Los Gatos, to launch the Marin Music Project.
A reception for the industry veteran drew a rock star-worthy crowd.
A reception for veteran music manager Howard Kaufman, who died unexpectedly in the early morning hours of Jan. 19, drew a rock star-worthy crowd to Los Angeles’ Hillcrest Country Club on Jan. 25.
Among the musicians to pay their respects were longtime clients Stevie Nicks, members of Def Leppard (Joe Elliott, Rick Savage) and Aerosmith (Steven Tyler) along with Fleetwood Mac’s Mick Fleetwood, The Eagles’ Joe Walsh and Poison’s Bret Michaels.
Many industry heavy-hitters were also in attendance, including Irving Azoff and his wife Shelli; CAA head of music Rob Light and agent Mitch Rose; Michael Jackson estate co-executor John Branca; Maverick Management’s Larry Rudolph (Britney Spears); Songwriter Diane Warren; Hertz Lichtenstein & Young attorney Jamie Young; former Capitol chief executives Andy Slater and Phil Quartararo; Universal Music Enterprises CEO Bruce Resnikoff; and PR veterans Mitch Schneider and Marcee Rondon of MSO, and Liz Rosenberg, longtime rep for Kaufman clients Nicks and Chris Isaak, the latter of whom told the Los Angeles Times that Kaufman was “the Fred Astaire of management.”
A graduate of UCLA , Kaufman started out in management working with Chicago while the group was still in its nascent stage. He went on to form Front Line Management with Azoff in 1974. Later, he launched HK Management where he represented and advised the likes of Janet Jackson, Lenny Kravitz and Jimmy Buffett.
Kaufman is survived by his wife, Caroline; son, Brett; daughters Brooke Halsband and Elle Kaufman; and three grandchildren.
Shirley Halperin / Billboard / Thursday, January 26, 2017
Howard Kaufman, manager for the Eagles, Aerosmith and Stevie Nicks, dies at 79
Veteran music manager Howard Kaufman, who guided the careers of the Eagles, Aerosmith and Stevie Nicks and helped pull off some of the mightiest rock ’n’ roll world tours of his day, has died at 79.
Kaufman died Thursday and had continued working until the day before his death, said Craig Fruin, a longtime business associate.
In an industry filled with larger-than-life personalities and supercharged egos, Kaufman was an even-keeled executive who blended an accountant’s mastery of number-crunching with a fatherly sense of rewarding his clients with long careers and sustained success, friends and clients said.
“He wasn’t stereotype Hollywood, at all. He was low-key, non-hype,” singer and sometimes-actor Chris Isaak said Tuesday. “He was that rare little island of reality.”
Over the decades, Kaufman managed or assisted a distinguished stable of musicians and rock acts — the Eagles, Steely Dan, Heart, Janet Jackson, Boston, Boz Scaggs, Three Dog Night, The Go-Go’s, Fiona Apple, Don Henley.
Though long past conventional retirement age, Kaufman continued to handle clients through his management agency, HK Management, including Jimmy Buffett, Aerosmith, Chicago, Lenny Kravitz, Nicks and Isaak.
Isaak said he had a deep admiration for Kaufman’s nearly innate money-management skills.
“You could be at lunch planning a 50-date tour and, off the top of his head, he could tell you how many seats you sold in Kansas City last time, what you could expect this time, what size the venue was, whether it would work and — this was all while he was just passing the bread,” Isaak said. “He was the Fred Astaire of management, so good, you know, you just loved watching him.”
Kaufman graduated from UCLA in 1960, served in the Army and set out on a career as an accountant. In 1969, he became a partner and business manager at Caribou Management, getting his first taste of rock stardom when he worked with Chicago, then still an emerging rock band.
A decade later, he joined Irving Azoff at Front Line Management, one of the dominate forces in entertainment management. Kaufman later bought out Azoff and rebranded the company as HK Management.
In addition to juggling the careers, tour schedules and album releases of top recording artists, he managed or served as a consultant on often extravagant and complex world tours for the Rolling Stones, Fleetwood Mac and Paul McCartney’s Wings Across America tour in the mid-’70s, when McCartney first began injecting his Beatles standards into his performances.
Kaufman also was involved in the production and music coordination of several films, including “Urban Cowboy” and “Fast Times at Ridgemont High.”
Nicks, in an interview Tuesday, said that Kaufman — with his this-is-how-we’re-going-to-do-it attitude — likely kept her from running out of money during her early days with Fleetwood Mac.
“Let’s face it. We were all a little high, we were all a little stupid and without Howard, I’m sure I would have been broke,” Nicks said. “He’d say, ‘You don’t need to have three houses, Stevie. You need to put some of that money away in savings.’ ”
Though wonkish when it came to numbers, Kaufman also was a fierce negotiator.
Nicks said that Kaufman once held her father’s feet to the fire when he balked at paying her usual six-figure guarantee for making a tour stop at a concert venue he owned in the Phoenix area. She said her father later called her to complain.
“I said, ‘Dad, you always told me to have a manager I trusted.’ ” She said that her father eventually relented and that the concert proceeds easily covered the guarantee.
Isaak had similar memories.
“When you’re going to a meeting and everyone has their guns and knives out, take Howard Kaufman,” he said. “The guy just didn’t have a back-down gear.”
Fruin worked with Kaufman for 40 years and said despite his successes and an always-impressive roster of famous clients, his friend remained selfless and grounded.
“His joy was his family, and his reward was helping people succeed,” Fruin said.
Kaufman is survived by his wife, Caroline; son, Brett; daughters Brooke Halsband and Elle Kaufman; and three grandchildren. Steve Marble / Los Angeles Times / Wednesday, January 25, 2017
Stevie Nicks says another Fleetwood Mac album is unlikely: ‘We’re not 40 anymore’
The music icon says the band are more keen to focus on touring
Stevie Nicks says she does not think Fleetwood Mac will make another album together — because they are “not 40” any more.
The singer, 68, believes the band are more likely to focus on touring and doubts they will ever record a follow-up to 2003’s Say You Will.
She said: “If the five of us were to get together to make a record it would take a year, which is what it always takes us.
“It would be a whole year of recording, then press, then rehearsal, and by the time we got back onto the road, it would be heading towards the second year, and I don’t know whether at this time it’s better for us just to do a big tour.”
The band has sold more than 100 million records and reformed with the classic line-up of Nicks, Lindsey Buckingham, John and Christine McVie and Mick Fleetwood for a world tour, which ended in 2015.
Nicks said: “It’s every single penny we make divided by five, so the expense of making a record, which is huge, and then to get back on tour … we are not 40.
“We have to take that into consideration — how long can we do tours that are three-hour shows? Would you rather spend a year in the studio or get back on the road? I think that the band would choose to tour.”
Nicks, who is focusing on her solo career, is also reluctant to make new music.
She said: “I don’t write as many songs any more because with the internet, the way that kids listen to music, all the streaming, and the fact that if they’re very savvy, if they want to get it and not pay for it, they can.
“It goes against the grain of our whole belief in, ‘You write a song, you record it, and you put it out there and people should buy it’.
“We realise it’s not our world any more and the younger kids don’t look at it like they’re taking from us… we don’t have the impetus to write 20 songs because we know that unless you’re under 20 you’re not going to sell many records.”
She is not involved with the new album by McVie and Buckingham, which is not a Fleetwood Mac record.
She said: “I’m sure it’s going to be great, because Christine is super-inspired. I’m really happy for them.”
On July 9, Nicks will support her old friend Tom Petty with his band The Heartbreakers at Barclaycard Presents British Summer Time in Hyde Park.
She said: “I’m the girl who always wanted to be in his band and he’s always the one who said, ‘No, no girls allowed.’ There’s just no one else I’d rather be on stage with than Tom.”
A preview of Rhino Records’ latest reissue project, Fleetwood Mac’s glossy 1987 album Tango in the Night
Later this year, Rhino Records will be reissuing Fleetwood Mac’s 14th studio album Tango in the Night, the latest release in a series of deluxe packages focused on the band’s back catalog (Rumours, Tusk, Mirage). Although details of the reissue are still forthcoming, it is expected to contain the remastered original album; bonus discs of session material and outtakes; new liner notes; and rare period photographs.
On December 8, 2016, Rolling Stone contributing writer David Wild confirmed in a Twitter post that he had written the new liner notes for the reissue project. It remains to be seen which route Wild took in reflecting on the tumultuous Tango in the Night sessions, which were first laid bare in drummer Mick Fleetwood’s revealing 1990 autobiography Fleetwood: My Life and Adventures in Fleetwood Mac. Those circumstances ultimately led to the departure of key member Lindsey Buckingham and the addition of his replacements, guitarists Billy Burnette and Rick Vito, to support the album’s ensuing world tour. As a band practically defined by its personal dramas, it would almost seem careless to omit or downplay such a critical juncture in the band’s history.
Packed with the radio-friendly singles “Big Love,” “Seven Wonders, “Little Lies,” and “Everywhere,” Tango in the Night attracted a whole new generation of fans and contributed to the Fleetwood Mac’s legacy as one of the most enduring and resilient recording acts in rock history. At the time, MTV networks saturated music-video play with the album’s singles (a grand total of six was released!), which propelled the album to become an international smash. To date, the album has sold more than five million copies in North America and two million overseas.
In 2014, Mike Duquette, founder of the catalog music blog The Second Disc, featured Tango in the Night as a proposed reissue in his column Reissue Theory. In anticipation of the Tango in the Night reissue, we look back on his thoughtful post (including a hypothetical track list) and celebrate the album that marked the return of Fleetwood Mac to the forefront of the vibrant 1987 pop music scene.
Excerpt from ‘Reissue Theory: Fleetwood Mac, Tango in the Night’
Welcome to another installment of Reissue Theory, where we focus on great albums and the reissues they could someday see. As we welcome one of our favorite ladies in rock back to her famous band, we remember their last album altogether and the pop success it enjoyed.
One of the best pieces of classic rock news to come out of this nascent year is easily the announcement of singer/keyboardist Christine McVie returning to Fleetwood Mac. McVie retired from the band (and touring in general) after the band’s incredibly successful The Dance tour in the late 1990s, leaving singer Stevie Nicks, singer/guitarist Lindsay Buckingham, bassist (and ex-husband) John McVie and drummer Mick Fleetwood to continue as a quartet, but made two surprise appearances with the band in England last year, later expressing her desire to rejoin the band.
While no official plans have been firmed up (beyond the possibility of a full tour), it certainly provokes one to think of the phenomenal albums the quintet have created – in particular, their final set as a quintet, 1987’s Tango in the Night.
—Read the full post here and be sure to scroll down to the comments section for fan discussion and commentary.
Fleetwood Mac’s 1987 album Tango in the Night will soon be getting the deluxe treatment, according to a new report. No date has been issued yet, but this latest reissue follows in the steps of Rumours, Tusk, and Mirage, which have all been reissued with remastered sound, bonus tracks, new liner notes, and period photographs.
Update, 12/8/16
Rolling Stone contributing writer David Wild has finished writing “a new set of liner notes,” presumably the one for the forthcoming Tango in the Night reissue.
Just finished a new set of liner notes for @fleetwoodmac, a group that's been in heavy and constant rotation for me since middle school. pic.twitter.com/jIh9kg2G0y
Mick Fleetwood says he hopes Fleetwood Mac finishes a new album ‘Before we hang it up’
Before Fleetwood Mac launched its 2014-2015 world tour, Christine McVie, Lindsey Buckingham, John McVie and Mick Fleetwood worked on some new tracks that have yet to see the light of day. Fleetwood says that “before we hang it up,” he hopes the band will complete those recordings and release a new studio album, while admitting that he isn’t sure if that will happen.
“We have what we would call a large stash of great music. I’m not quite sure what we’re heading to do with it,” he tells ABC Radio. “I hope that we are able to [put an album together]. It’s just getting everyone on the same page to finish off the work that we’ve been doing.”
Mick admits that one Fleetwood Mac member who currently isn’t on the same page is Stevie Nicks, who will be launching a new North American solo tour on October 25.
“She’s busy doing her own stuff,” he points out. “And in this point in life, we’ve all dedicated so much time to Fleetwood Mac, you go, ‘Hey, it’d be great if we could, but if not, don’t worry about it.’”
Fleetwood tells ABC Radio that even if Nicks chooses not to lend her talents to the project, he hopes the music that’s already been recorded will be released in some form.
“I think there’s some thought that some of that lovely music would come out as a sort of duet album, maybe…from Christine and Lindsey,” Mick poses. “And if not, it will stay in a room, waiting for the day that maybe it would make sense that all of us can contribute to that being a Fleetwood Mac album.”
He adds, “Before we hang it up in the next few years, I truly hope there’s another lovely album that will come out.”
Fleetwood Mac releases deluxe edition of 1982 album Mirage.
Fleetwood Mac’s Mirage brought the on-again, off-again band into the Reagan era, and now the classic 1982 album is getting a deluxe reissue that adds two discs of rare gold.
A disc of demos covers early versions of every song on the album—a highlight is Christine McVie’s initial take of “Hold Me,” which had a traditional piano-rock chorus rather than the smooth, layered experimental totally ’80s vibe the final cut got. (I kinda like the piano-rock version better?)
The third disc is a Mirage tour concert from the LA Forum that’s been circulating for years as a crappy bootleg. Nice to have it all cleaned up.
The singer on the band’s half-finished album, the visitation she had when writing Songbird, and growing up with a psychic mum
Hi, Christine. What was it like growing up with the surname Perfect (1)?
It was difficult. Teachers would say: “I hope you live up to your name, Christine.” So, yes, it was tough. I used to joke that I was perfect until I married John.
Fleetwood Mac’s Mirage is being reissued as a box set for £50 (2). Does that seem like a fair price?
It’s a really nice item! It’s quality, isn’t it? It’s good value for money – you’ve got a lot of outtakes, a lot of previously unheard demo versions of songs, you’ve got the vinyl … a CD, I believe, is in there? I mean it’s a nice package! I haven’t had a good look at it, but the label has given me one to take home. I get a free one!
Have you listened to the demos and outtakes?
No. I’m not a big fan of those things. I know people are interested but for my own personal enjoyment I prefer not to listen to them. My songwriting, when I’m writing, is nothing like it is in its finished form – but you have to start somewhere.
Is the new album finished?
No, it’s half-finished. It’s just seven tracks that we’ve got, and they’re only with guide vocals.
I’m sure I saw a news story about two years ago saying it was half-finished?
Well … Yeah.
Is it the same half?
It is the same half. We’ve been doing a world tour! I’m going back in October to try and finish it. If it’s not finished by Christmas then I’ll go back after and finish it then. We do things in a weird way, I guess.
What’s your favourite of those new songs?
I don’t think we’ve given titles yet.
Would you like to now?
Er, no. I don’t think we’re supposed to. But I like them all, and that’s not a lie. We have a fantastic variety of songs and I’m very, very pleased with what’s happened so far.
Can we talk about Songbird? (3)
Yes, of course.
JESUS CHRIST, WHAT A SONG.
That was a strange little baby, that one. I woke up in the middle of the night and the song just came into my head. I got out of bed, played it on the little piano I have in my room, and sang it with no tape recorder. I sang it from beginning to end: everything. I can’t tell you quite how I felt; it was as if I’d been visited – it was a very spiritual thing. I was frightened to play it again in case I’d forgotten it. I called a producer first thing the next day and said, “I’ve got to put this song down right now.” I played it nervously, but I remembered it. Everyone just sat there and stared at me. I think they were all smoking opium or something in the control room (4). I’ve never had that happen to me since. Just the one visitation. It’s weird.
Have you inherited any of your mother’s psychic abilities?
Well, I believe they were real. She was a healer. I just wanted her to be an ordinary mum, so the less I knew of that side the better, but here’s a story I can tell you. There was an old friend of my dad’s, in Newcastle – this rich old lady who lived in a run-down castle. She had terminal cancer. She sent a pair of her kid gloves to my mother, who wore one during the night, and a couple of weeks later there was a phone call: the doctors were amazed that all the cancer was completely gone.
Did you psychically predict that I would ask you a couple of questions about your reissue before attempting to get information about the new album?
Aha! I did notice you sneaking those in. I was thinking, What’s he talking about? We’re supposed to be talking about – what’s it called? – Mirage.
It’s exciting when a band gets back together, though. Especially when elsewhere in pop you’ve got Abba, whose refusal to get on with it is bordering on trolling.
Why wouldn’t they get back together? I suppose they made all the money in the world – I mean, we’re not doing it for the money either – but I don’t know. Maybe the need for each other is not there. You see, I still think there’s a certain need for each other in our band. In a strange way. We’re umbilically tied together, somehow. Without one of us, we’re incomplete.
What’s your No 1 piece of house renovation advice? (5)
Well, I didn’t do it personally, but I oversaw it. It was a very old house; the beams had to be stripped. It’s subjective. Keep the wood beautiful, I suppose, but there’s so much I could say. That’s the worst question you could possibly ask.
Well, let’s see, shall we? Have you ever been missold PPI?
I just press delete on those texts.
You could have £20,000 sitting around!
I don’t believe any of those things. Anyone I don’t know, in my emails or texts, I just delete. If it’s someone legitimate they’ll send it again.
What are your favourite apps?
[Whips out iPhone in garishly decorated protective case] WhatsApp I adore. I use it all the time with my friends. I’ve got thousands of apps, and most of them I never use. Look at this! [Flicks though terrifying number of apps]
That’s quite an iPhone case, Christine. Did you stick those jewels on yourself?
It’s Dolce & Gabbana, dear!
It’s slightly alarming that you haven’t put any of your apps in folders.
Oh, I don’t do that. You’re talking to a complete phone moron. As long as I can make a phone call and do a WhatsApp, I’m fine. Oh, and I use it to learn a bit of Italian.
Would you like to conclude this interview in Italian?
Ciao, arrivederci. A presto!
Footnotes
(1) When still called Christine Perfect, Christine released an album called Christine Perfect. In 1984, as Christine McVie, she released an album called Christine McVie.
(2) Mirage was Fleetwood Mac’s 13th album. Released in 1982, it was seen as a return to poppier territory after the slightly-all-over-the-place Tusk. The remastered version – in expanded and deluxe editions – is out now on Rhino.
(3) Songbird was originally released as the B-side to Dreams, in 1977. Eva Cassidy had a bash at it a couple of decades later.
(4) Famous opium fans include word enthusiast Samuel Johnson, Piano Concerto No 2 In F Minor hitmaker Frederic Chopin, and US bigwig Thomas Jefferson, who used it to control diarrhoea.
(5) During her 16 years away from Fleetwood Mac, Christine renovated a massive, subsequently flogged Kent property. She now lives in London.
Peter Robinson / The Guardian (UK) / Thursday, October 6, 2016
Christine McVie on Fleetwood Mac’s ‘peculiar’ Mirage Sessions, new LP — as the singer-songwriter looks back on heady days at Château d’Hérouville, discusses band’s future plans
Christine McVie has a confession to make. The 73-year-old singer, songwriter and keyboardist is on the phone with Rolling Stone to discuss the new deluxe reissue of Fleetwood Mac’s 1982 effort, Mirage; but, she admits, she hasn’t actually listened to it yet. “I just now got my copy of the remastered edition in my hands,” McVie says, calling from her home in the U.K. “But I just moved to a flat where I don’t have my DVD or CD player yet. So I’m unable to play it. And there’s all these outtakes and demos and things in there that I certainly haven’t heard since we made them. So I’m most curious to listen.”
Indeed, the new package is a treasure trove for Mac completists (and, apparently, band members). In addition to presenting the original 12-track album – which spent five weeks at Number One and spawned two of the group’s biggest and enduring hits in McVie’s “Hold Me” and Stevie Nicks’ “Gypsy” – in remastered form, the three-CD and DVD set offers up a disc of B sides, titled “Outtakes and Sessions,” as well as a live collection culled from two nights at the L.A. Forum in October 1982 on the Mirage tour. The whole thing is rounded out by a vinyl copy of the album and a DVD in 5.1 surround sound, as well as a booklet with extensive liner notes and photos from the era.
(Photo: Neal Preston)
An impressive package, to be sure, and one that is perhaps necessary for an album that, for all its multi-platinum success, never quite gets its due, having been overshadowed in the band’s canon by the career-defining trio of records that preceded it – 1975’s Fleetwood Mac, 1977’s mega-smash Rumours and 1979’s sonically adventurous double album Tusk. In an earlier interview with Rolling Stone, drummer Mick Fleetwood acknowledged that, in such imposing company, Mirage often gets overlooked – a notion that McVie seems to agree with. “It does, and I don’t know why,” she says. But, she adds, “As it stands today, a lot of people know every track on it. Which is quite unbelievable. So I just take it for what it is.”
McVie spent some time reminiscing about the album with RS, from the “unusual” experience of recording at the Château d’Hérouville outside of Paris, to the “nightmare” of filming the video for her song “Hold Me” in the Mojave Desert outside of Palm Springs. But she wasn’t only looking backward. McVie also discussed Fleetwood Mac’s plans for the future, which may include a new album and another world tour. “We’re just gonna keep on doing what we do best,” she said, then laughed. “Which, I’m not really sure what that is!”
What was the state of Fleetwood Mac going into the making of Mirage?
I suppose we all felt in a way that what we were doing was kind of an homage to Rumours, in the sense that, obviously, after Rumours we went completely the opposite way and made a double album of an entirely different nature with Tusk. And for Tusk we had done this hugely long tour. Two world tours, I believe. Then we all disappeared for a few years. But we have a habit of doing that, Fleetwood Mac. Just kind of taking quite long hiatuses. And as we got together again, I think it was Mick who had this idea that perhaps we should enter another bubble-like situation, which was similar to what we had done for the Rumours album, when we recorded in Sausalito. Just taking us away from familiar things, like our families. There was the idea that maybe something would emerge from there that was completely different. Maybe it would make us more creative. And I think it worked, to an extent. It was definitely an unusual experience.
Rather than Sausalito, for Mirage you went to France. Do you recall anything particular about recording at the Château d’Hérouville?
Well, I don’t think any of us remember a huge amount about it! But I don’t remember there being anything bad about it, how about that [laughs]?
That’s a good thing.
Yes. But, I mean, my recollections in general are of thinking, What a peculiar, odd place to be going. …
How so?
It was extremely odd in the sense that it wasn’t really a studio. It really was a rather beaten-up old castle. We were living in it, and then there was another area that was made to be a studio. And there were wine cellars underneath, which I believe we used as echo chambers. So it was unusual, but it also provided a “come-together” sort of moment. Because we really had no options to do anything else. In Sausalito, at least you were close to restaurants, clubs, whatever. But at the chateau, you were just there. We had the table tennis out, we had some radio-controlled helicopters, we had food cooked for us every night on the premises. … I don’t know, it was like some weird, manic kind of resort or something. But I think we got on really well during the making of the record. The actual recording part of it, there were no particular spats I can think of. And some of the tracks are really good.
One of your tracks, “Hold Me,” became the lead single off Mirage, and it was also a big hit. What do you recall about writing it?
I’d co-written it with a friend of mine, Robbie Patton. And when we first recorded it, it was only semi-finished, really. But everybody liked it so we thought, Well, we’ll lay something down on tape and get the bones of it. What we put down was very basic – there were huge chunks that had nothing in them. And then we just built it up in sections.
In the demo version of the song that appears on the second disc of the Mirage deluxe package, you perform the vocal alone. But the final version of “Hold Me” is more of a duet between you and Lindsey [Buckingham]. How did that change come about?
I think some of these things just happen organically. I don’t think it was a plan. But I do know that when I wrote the song with Robbie, he was also a singer, and he was always singing a lower part. And so at some point it became obvious to me that Lindsey would eventually do it.
Do you have a favorite track on the album?
Yes, well, I think “Gypsy” stands out clearly as the best track on the album. Without a doubt.
Why do you feel that way?
I just think the whole song came together in a very cohesive way. It’s very musical. Very melodic. All the parts are right. It’s just a very beautiful record. And, of course, that video – I know the record company spent a lot of money on it.
Reportedly it had the biggest budget of any music video produced up to that point.
Yeah. And it’s one of my favorite videos of all time. And I don’t mean just of Fleetwood Mac’s.
What do you recall of shooting the video for “Hold Me”?
“Hold Me” was a nightmare! It was the middle of the desert in Palm Springs, in the height of summer. I don’t know what possessed us to do that. But we sometimes do crazy things [laughs].
Did it feel unnatural that you were doing it at all? MTV, and the idea of music video being a promotional tool, was a very new concept at the time.
I’m sure we were a bit uneasy with doing it. To some extent, I’ve always felt that the music should be the thing that creates the emotion in you, rather than a video. There are so many songs that have become massive hits merely because the video is great, while the song is pretty rubbish. From that point of view I think I’ve always preferred to listen to a song rather than look at it. So it was a bit difficult.
The directors of both the “Gypsy” and “Hold Me” videos have stated that they encountered some difficulties trying to navigate the thorny romantic relationships between band members at the time. Do you recall as much?
[Laughs] Well, of course! I’m sure it oozes out over the screen when you watch some of the scenes. Yeah, for sure. And I’d be the first one to admit that none of us were stone-cold sober. There was a fair degree of alcohol and drugs going on. But everyone was doing it, so it was kind of the norm.
“I’d be the first one to admit that none of us were stone-cold sober. There was a fair degree of alcohol and drugs going on.”
In contrast to the long tour behind Tusk, the Mirage tour was relatively brief – just two months in the fall of 1982. Was there a reason for such an abbreviated run?
I don’t know why that was. Maybe Stevie was going off to do a tour. I can’t remember if Lindsey had a tour. But it was short, and then we did another vanishing act for another couple years before we came back and did Tango in the Night.
More recently, you took some time away from Fleetwood Mac, before returning in 2014 for a world tour. What is the future of the band at this point?
Well, we cut seven songs in the studio already for the start of a brand-new studio album. Which we did probably nearer two years ago. We shelved that temporarily and then went on the road and did the tour. And now, actually, I think we’re going back in in October to try to finish it off. Stevie hasn’t participated yet, but hope springs eternal. She’s going on a solo tour at the moment. But Lindsey and I, we have plenty of songs. There are tons more in the bag that we have yet to record. And they’re fantastic. So we’re going to carry on and try to finish the record. And then maybe if Stevie doesn’t want to be part of that then we can go out and just do some smaller concerts.
You would consider doing some shows with just you, Lindsey, Mick and John [McVie]?
As a four-piece, yeah. With a view of doing a huge world tour after that, with Stevie.
And would you expect that we’ll see this new album in 2017?
One would hope so, yeah. That’s the plan. And I can’t wait for it to be finished. It’ll be great. And then we’ll hopefully do this world tour with Stevie. And after that, who knows? But we’re all still alive, how about that? So that’s a start.
Richard Bienstock / Rolling Stone / Monday, September 26, 2016
If ever there was a case of the media building up and then knocking down a band, it was the one involving Fleetwood Mac in the late-’70s and early-’80s. The critics cheered when the group—newly energized by the addition of Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks—delivered its chart-topping eponymous album in 1975 and the even better Rumours a year later.
But many of those same critics spoke less kindly of the follow-up to Rumours, 1979’s Tusk. According to them, it eschewed commercialism in favor of self-indulgent experimentation, though major experimentation was in fact largely limited to the excellent title cut. Then, when the group reverted to fully accessible form on its next studio album, 1982’s Mirage, reviewers griped that the band was going backwards; never mind that this radio-friendly LP delivered exactly what the critics claimed was missing in its predecessor.
Well, as I noted last year, Tusk ranks among the most underrated albums of the rock era. But Mirage—which Fleetwood Mac’s members recorded in France after pursuing solo projects—is arguably even more underrated. …
On December 8, 2016, 
Packed with the radio-friendly singles “Big Love,” “Seven Wonders, “Little Lies,” and “Everywhere,” Tango in the Night attracted a whole new generation of fans and contributed to the Fleetwood Mac’s legacy as one of the most enduring and resilient recording acts in rock history. At the time, MTV networks saturated music-video play with the album’s singles (a grand total of six was released!), which propelled the album to become an international smash. To date, the album has sold more than five million copies in North America and two million overseas.
Excerpt from ‘Reissue Theory: Fleetwood Mac, Tango in the Night’
While no official plans have been firmed up (beyond the possibility of a full tour), it certainly provokes one to think of the phenomenal albums the quintet have created – in particular, their final set as a quintet, 1987’s Tango in the Night. 
