A duck walked into my kitchen this morning.
For Stevie, the words are of prime importance; the song moves around the words, rather than the words moving around the song.
I always felt my songs are fairly structured: verse, chorus, verse, guitar solo... but I usually like to put some tag or little piece in somewhere, which is different from the rest of the song. I like to listen to a repeating refrain.
I couldn't go anywhere unless there was a security guard with me. That spoiled my life. It was like being in captivity. Those days are gone, and I don't ever want to see that happen to me again. Now I can wander around the streets of Los Angeles on my own. I like it that way.
I cover most of the sound that we use on records with what I have. And people tell us that we still sound pretty big for a band with four instrumentalists.
I do like my wine.
I do ride a bicycle occasionally, but not those stupid stationary ones you see in gyms. I do have one of those, I must confess, but it's quite literally a pain in the arse, so I don't use it.
I don't really have a backlog of songs. I have more a backlog of ideas. I tend not to complete songs until I know there is something to complete for them. I have tapes full of chords and ideas, little bits and pieces, that I tend to put together whenever a project comes around.
I don't think that some of Lindsey's drumming is the best that could be desired, but he needed to get that off his chest, and he did it.
I don't think there's any particular sound I do for every night. I try to get whatever sound suits the track best when we're recording, and I just look for something that sounds good when we're playing live.
I enjoy my money, and I'm not ashamed to admit it. I'd certainly rather be rich than poor.
I find it hard to get excited by just a sound. I have to have a song there, then I'll find what used I can make of that sound within the song.
I haven't turned into some rich monster. I've kept my perspective. But I am a bit spoiled. It's hard not to be a little spoiled by having a lot of money.
I like a light touch, a sensitive piano. My wrists aren't that strong, and if I have to hack too hard, they start breaking down. Fortunately, after playing something like that I take a break and have a drink, or move over to the accordion, or just stagger off the stage until my arms recover.
I never have thought about a video while I'm writing. I've always been of the mind that music should be heard and not seen. It's a strange thing that's going on. I don't know if it's good or not.
I still like to play the blues more than anything else.
I was happily thinking I was retired. That is why I left Fleetwood Mac.
I was in Tower Records in San Francisco a few weeks ago, buying some cassettes, and a couple of people recognized me and ran up with albums, and I just wanted to cover my face and have a seizure or something. I want people to just go away.
I was, in essence, boxed in completely by keyboards. That's what was wrong; I was so stacked in with keyboards I never used that no one could ever see me. It was like being in a prison... Mick and I would laugh about it, because he had the same sensation, being stuck behind his drums all night.
I wasn't raised with money, so I had to get used to having it. I think I've adjusted to it pretty well.
I went to London, where I became a window dresser for an exclusive store. I was actually qualified to be an art teacher, but I didn't want to teach.
I won the Melody Maker award for vocalist of the year.
I wouldn't think a blues album would be that commercially successful, but I don't really care. I'd do it for the love of blues, not for the money. I've got plenty of money.
I'd never want a studio guy. I wouldn't mind working with another keyboard player, but not a studio guy. It sounds very odd, but we're really snobbish about doing everything ourselves whenever possible, so I'd rather just play the piano lines myself.
I'm definitely going to do another solo project down the line some time. But first of all I think there's another Fleetwood Mac studio album to do, after this boxed set, some time next year. I'm not in a hurry to do the solo project. I've got to be ready for that.
I'm looking more like my dogs every day - it must be the shaggy fringe and the ears.
I'm rather old-fashioned about this video business. It's all relatively new. We really don't do videos, Fleetwood Mac. We've only done two.
I've never written with the intention of writing hits. I guess I'm a commercial writer, though. My songs do tend to come out two verses, bridge, guitar solo, last verse, and tag. When I've finished a piece I do have my opinion about whether it will sell, of course, but I'm not always right.
If all the songs were autobiographical, I'd probably be 105 years old by now, I would have gone through so many different emotions.
It really comes down to Mick. He's the one who was constantly trying to get these five people in one room together. This is his love, his baby. It's his band, and there's nothing more he loves to do than get up on stage and play with us.
It was like getting together with a great friend and having a drink. All of that animosity was swept aside.
It was too much responsibility for me to do the producing. I didn't trust my skills to that degree. I felt I needed someone to lean on.
John and I used to basically ignore each other. We were cold as ice to each other. He found it easier that way.
Learn your instrument. Be honest. Don't do anything phony. There is so much crap floating around. There is plenty of room for a bit of honest writing.
Mick and John are happy with me writing songs for the band at this particular point in time. I don't know what's going to happen down the road a couple of years.
My range seems to have been getting higher. I just can't sing as low as I used to. I don't know how I ever recorded some of the old songs in such low keys. Lindsey often changes his songs, too. He records a song in E, then changes to F. That can affect the vocal blend a lot.
My songs are self-explanatory... somebody pointed out to me that... my songs pretty much speak for themselves.
Normally there's a characteristic in each song, either a riff or an underlying musical theme, that makes the keyboard part clear if you look for it.
Of course I get writer's block. It's terrible.
Other people seem to write about love, don't they? It seems to be the least pretentious subject to write about. I've been taking a lot of criticism for it, but at least it's honest. But one shouldn't go and make a solo album if they can't take a little knocking, should they?
Since there's only room for me to write a few songs on each band album, I really have to use my songs. But on my own album I had room to use songs I wanted.
Some of the best songs I've written, I've written in 10 minutes.
Stevie writes ethereal mystical lyrics, but the moment I write words like that, I get this chill up my spine, kind of getting embarrassed and not feeling sincere about it. But if you're sincere, you can write anything you like. In this stage of my musical life I don't feel honest doing that.
Suddenly the desire to write tricked back into my life again, not that I would want to tour or go on the road. Once you have been writing all of your life, it is part of what you do. What else do you do?
The band wanted me to expand my role and have a little more freedom... I may not play very well, but I play it the way it suits the band.
The chemistry was still there. To me, that was the biggest thing: Would the chemistry be there? Can we really go ahead and do this? And it was obvious within the first moment of plugging in the instruments that the magic was still there. It was a fantastic feeling.
The last thing I ever thought was that this band could seriously work together again.
The old Fleetwood Mac was much better; they did some beautiful and, to my mind, very authentic blues. Chicken Shack did pretty well in Europe, but after I left, it was over.
There were a lot of bad feelings when Lindsey first left the band. But there's been a lot of healing going on, growing up, maturing. The bond is a great deal stronger than what we first thought.
There's a whole bunch of unfinished stuff. Then I've got books of lyrics. I find it frustrating to finish a song and not be able to record it... so I don't write a million songs.
This configuration of Fleetwood Mac's been together 10 years, and it's taken us entire years to make a single record.
We all enjoyed the success of Rumours obviously.
We had some rehearsals where I was playing on four songs... but we dropped them from the set because it was interfering with my stage work, and I guess it wasn't that necessary.
We were like a big family even then. Mick's like my brother.
We're going to try and do something different this time, and away from even what we expect to do. We haven't really formed any concrete plan at the moment, but whatever it is, it's going to have a twist.
We're more like brother and sister now. I'm not trying to paint too rosy a picture. I think it took quite a few years to be able to sit down and talk to each other. It's all very nostalgic for us as well. There hasn't been an angry word between us, fingers crossed.
We've gone in with one song and come out with a completely different song.
What's past is past, it's too bloody late to do anything else. I've been very blessed and lucky in my life. To want to change the path of destiny is kind of a mistake, it leads to discontent. I don't feel complacent, but I feel content.
When I married John, I felt that it was so great to be around them anyway, just as one of their wives. I used to listen to all their music.
You can only mend the vase so many times before you have to chuck it away.
You spend days getting the right drum sound. And vocals take a long time-you can't just do one take and it's perfect.
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