CA&E: Can you tell us about how Fleetwood Mac formed?
MF: Sure. Peter Green and myself and John McVie played in John Mayall's Bluesbreakers, a full-on blues band. Then I left, Peter left and we formed Fleetwood Mac; and then John joined shortly thereafter. We had a four-piece band, with another guitar player, Jeremy Spencer, a slide player. And we were very successful; but the crazy thing was it wasn't pop music; it was blues. No one could understand - our album was in the top 10 in England for the first year amongst all the other weird pop bands. It was strange. We had an album that consisted solely of blues music that was successful.CA&E: Well, that kind of thing would probably never happen today.
MF: No, sadly not.
CA&E: While you've been the leader of the band, you weren't the primary songwriter.
MF: If I had played a chordal instrument, like guitar, I do believe there's no doubt that I have the ability to do that, but I was surrounded by so many very, very talented people - I, for whatever reason, never made that transition to playing a chordal instrument. I sort of regret it. I'm 55 years old, but maybe by the time I'm 70 I'll have learned to play the piano or something.
CA&E: But you're Fleetwood Mac. You could hire a piano player, make up a tune and have him write out the chords for you.
MF: That's true, true. But I'm happy being a part of the rhythm section. Of course I'm very involved in the music, in the production...
CA&E: You also handle the business affairs of the band.
MF: Right. All the band members were brought in by myself. And the choices have been fairly good over the years.
CA&E: We'd say so.
MF: That's really been one of the main things for me, keeping the band going when the personnel changes have come. I've always found hopefully a fairly good way of continuing. And of course Stevie and Lindsey became a historical change in Fleetwood Mac when they joined. And we've been very successful. We don't really over-expose ourselves. So touring next year with a new album is a major event for us. We had a great tour with The Dance - and a number one album. It sort of re-affirmed our confidence - the band realizes we have a lot of people who enjoy our music still. So we're basically gonna get out there and behave like teen-agers for two years.
CA&E: What do you think about the music business, from an artistic as well as business point of view, especially with music being controlled by just a few corporations these days?
MF: It's not good. I believe it will change, out of necessity. Their philosophy is to find the one-hit wonder. Then they'll turn around 10, 15 years from now, and there won't be any catalog, no revenue. They're going to regret it. Some people are starting to realize that the business needs to be run by music people, not lawyers.
CA&E: So you don't think there's a lot of good music out right now?
MF: Well, I think there is, but it's very produced. Y'know, the N-Syncs of the world, these bands - not that I don't like them, I think they're sort of cool, in a commercial way. It's just the example that they set, creatively. I mean, they are literally put in a band, like you write a script for a play: you cast the players and then you open the doors to the public and say, this is the play. There's nothing wrong in it, but a lot of that goes not very far because it's so reliant on money, PR, and imaging. The real artistry - not that these guys and girls aren't talented - but the atmosphere in which they were grown up - their credibility I don't think will ever really become something that lasts for them, sadly. That worries me.