CHAPTER 13

I KNOW I’M NOT WRONG

The many demands of the band were wonderful, literally everything we’d all been working so hard for, but they stretched my marriage with Jenny to the limit. I had less time to spend with her than ever and it weighed on her. I loved her, I really did, but I was consumed with the band. I was happy to play my role as husband and dad and did the best I could, but I gave equal importance to playing Mick Fleetwood, leader of Fleetwood Mac. I had no problem doing it all in the same day, or trying to at least, but my efforts were never enough for Jenny. Sharing me with the band had long caused a see-saw in her feelings and by extension in our relationship, and once again things had built up to a breaking point. From what Jenny has told me, all these years later, the fact that she got no reaction from me when she tried to elicit emotion drove her to drastic action, typically aided by drink. I didn’t make it easy, because I was proficient at ignoring the undercurrents of tension between us until Jenny lashed out.

One night, when her sister Pattie was in town to visit, we all had dinner at Christine McVie’s house, after which I planned to head off to deal with some Fleetwood Mac business. It was a warm, pleasant evening, full of conversation and catching up and altogether lovely. I had a wonderful time and I assumed Jenny had, too, but she was quite drunk, and once she realised I wasn’t following her home as we walked to our cars, she threw the ramekins of chocolate mousse at me that Chris had given her to take home to the girls. As I crossed the road to my Porsche, they came flying past me, one of them hitting the wheel as I opened the door and got in. I didn’t stop and I didn’t turn round because I didn’t want to acknowledge what was happening. I just drove away. That moment was indicative of how our relationship would end.

The hardest thing about the whirlwind that my life with Jenny had become was the effect it had on our children. They were stuck in the middle of their parents’ problems and between the distraction of the band and our lifestyle choices, they didn’t stand a chance. If there’s one thing I would like to do, it is to make amends for that. Talking about it here certainly doesn’t solve it, but I’d like to think that at least they know I’m aware of it. I can’t change it, but maybe there’s some comfort to be found in my admission and my comprehension of the trauma they were caused. I sure hope so.

That spring Fleetwood Mac went back on the road for a month of outdoor shows with the Eagles, Boz Scaggs and others. I had my parents along on that stretch and I loved spoiling them, even though my father was embarrassed by the extravagance that he saw, from the fleet of limos to our latest outrageous idea, the inflatable penguin. I commissioned it to be built, about sixty feet high, to float over us when we played outdoor concerts and I intended it to be one of our permanent props. Unfortunately it never worked properly, logging just one successful flight at a gig in Florida. My father found this hilarious and pointed out the obvious to me: ‘Mick, you do know that penguins don’t fly, don’t you?’

Our success was wonderful but victory came with greater tension between our band members with each passing day. There were frequent fights because our art, our business, and our personal lives were all the same, and we lived it out on stage and off, every single night.

Our relentless live schedule had begun to put a dangerous strain on Stevie’s voice and we were all concerned. She is not a classically-trained vocalist and she sings with her throat rather than her diaphragm, which is how she creates her inimitable, gorgeous vibrato. Midway through the tour we decided to bring Stevie’s close friend Robin on the road to look after her, because Robin was a voice coach, and we decided she should be a permanent addition to our tour family. But despite Robin’s presence and all the advice in the world, Stevie could not be tamed when the spirit moved her; she’d tear her instrument to shreds in deference to her songs.

We were in Las Vegas in August 1977, when my mother phoned to inform me that my father had been diagnosed with cancer and that his prognosis was dire. He’d never been sick a day in his life, but he’d contracted melanoma, and I can’t help but wonder, if he’d had his skin checked regularly, whether he’d still be here today, sitting next to Mum on her terrace in Maui. Dad had pretty much been told that he was finished, no matter what, because his cancer had got into his lymphatic system. Rather than embrace conventional methods of treatment, he chose to fight the disease through holistic methods, which I didn’t understand entirely, other than he didn’t want to be dehumanised by radiation. That call was horrible to hear and I was devastated, but I had to carry on, because we had a fully-booked tour.

The remainder of our dates saw us through Arizona, the Pacific Northwest, and Canada. We were done by October, at which point every member of our touring family was utterly spent. By then Jenny had moved our family from Topanga to a house in Bel Air that was properly suburban, complete with a pool for our daughters and space for my parents to stay with us, because I wanted them nearby during my father’s last days.

That month Warner Brothers released ‘You Make Loving Fun’, another chart-topping single, resulting in the sale of an additional two million copies of the album. That, of course, meant more live appearances because the wheel did not stop spinning. After a brief ten days at home we were off again to Australia, New Zealand, Japan and Hawaii.

To complicate matters even further, before we departed, Stevie Nicks and I began an affair during our break at home in LA. It was bound to happen, I suppose, because the two of us are cut from the same cloth, but we’re more brother and sister–soulmates, not romantic partners–which is why it didn’t last. We are so much the same that we fell into each other’s arms, albeit at the worst possible time.

Lindsey predicted it, years before, in a moment that to this day he insists he doesn’t remember. It was just when the two of them had joined the band, and we were down South in Memphis, staying in the first Holiday Inn ever to have been built. I don’t know if he and Stevie had ever stayed in one, but in any case it was a milestone of sorts for us all. That night after our show I ended up in Lindsey’s room, where we shared a joint and got properly stoned.

We were relaxing, sitting there, when out of the blue, he said, ‘So… it’s you and Stevie, isn’t it?’

‘What?’ I said. I was sure I’d heard him right, but wasn’t sure what he meant. ‘What do you mean? She’s your girlfriend.’

‘Yeah…’ he said, giving me an odd look. ‘It’s you and Stevie.’

It freaked me out completely but I neither reacted nor said anything else, because I was in shock. What he’d said hit me in the gut, amplified all the more because I was stoned. As off the wall as it was, I felt terrible that he’d thought that about her and me even for a minute! At the time, I’d not given it a thought. Of course I found Stevie attractive, I don’t think there was a man or woman who didn’t, but nothing more. She was Lindsey’s girlfriend. This conversation took place years before the spark of anything between us began, but the irony is that Lindsey was right. It was pure intuition, because his interpretation at the time was incorrect, but his premonition that there was something powerful between Stevie and me was entirely correct. What he felt finally manifested itself; eventually I fell in love with her and it was chaotic, it was on the road and it was a crazy love affair that went on longer than any of us really remember–probably several years by the end of it. What else can I say, other than Lindsey has always been ahead of his time.

When it actually did start between Stevie and me, no one really knew at first. We met in secret, because I was with Jenny and Stevie had a boyfriend. Only Stevie’s closest friends knew and just a few people in my life knew. Lindsey didn’t know and neither did John or Chris. I’d adored Stevie from the start, but until then it wasn’t romantic.

It does make sense that things happened when they did, because we were both stretched so thin from the exhaustion of the road, and the unhappiness in our private lives, that we found solace in each other and in all the ways that we are alike. It was the great escape, we’d sneak away and take long drives through the Hollywood Hills. The clandestine nature of it was romantic and it was even more so on tour, in our world within a world, where we could do as we pleased. In New Zealand, after a show, we spent the night driving up to a crater to see the sun rise. A light rain started to fall and we huddled close together on the ride back to the hotel, and afterwards we spent the entire day in bed together without a care in the world.

When we returned home from that tour, my relationship with Stevie was something very real. I was in love with her, and she loved me, and it was not something passing in the night. We were both in love with each other. So I went to Lindsey’s house and I told him about it. He and Stevie had been broken up for a very long time, but that didn’t matter. I felt a responsibility to tell him, because I knew that there was still something between them, that is still between them. Whether it’s enjoyable or some kind of purgatory, they will go to their graves being connected, like it or not.

I went to see him, the day after we returned from tour. We made some small talk until I could delay no longer.

‘Lindsey, I have to talk to you,’ I said.

‘Okay, what’s going on?’

‘I need to let you know that I’m seeing Stevie. I’m not quite sure how it’s going to end up but I don’t feel right having this going on without you knowing.’

‘Okay,’ he said. ‘I understand.’

‘I’m not asking your permission, I just don’t feel right that you don’t know.’

I don’t recall exactly what he said afterwards other than he appreciated me telling him. I’m glad I made the effort, and also glad that I waited until I knew that I was in love with her to do so.

Sometimes I think about what would have happened if Stevie and I had agreed to make a go of it. We got distracted; she had a boyfriend and I was still hemming and hawing with Jenny, so it never happened, but there was a moment when it could have. I remember that time distinctly. I wanted it to be more than our circumstances allowed, I wanted it very badly. I wanted to let my family know how I felt for her and I wanted to tell them I was going to try and make it work. It would have been utter madness, just so complicated because of our other entanglements, from our bandmates to our significant others, to everyone else in our lives. But I assure you that there was a time when all of it seemed worth the suffering to me.

Stevie and I used to slip away and go on adventures after gigs, which was an easy way to get away. After the band played a show in Hawaii, we went to Maui and drove up to the land I’d bought in Olinda and we stayed with a chap called Steve Cafferty, whose house overlooked my property. While we were there, Mo Ostin and his wife Evelyn, who were on the island for the gig, sent a helicopter for Stevie and me and that was very romantic. We had wild crazy times; we drove around Maui and found a house that we fantasised about buying. It’s one of the most beautiful houses on the island to this day, on fifty acres and just huge. The place is a gorgeous, Victorian nineteenth-century estate owned by the Baldwin family, who were one of the earliest missionary families to settle on Maui. It needed a bit of fixing up, which made it all the more romantic. That’s what Stevie and I would do, we’d dream. Today that house is owned by the Coca-Cola family and has been restored to perfect condition. Shoulda, woulda, coulda!

Anyway, things were hot and heavy between Stevie and me. At one point on tour, when my mother and father were out with us, we were in Santa Barbara after playing a show there the night before, and Stevie came down and joined us for breakfast. Jenny wasn’t there, just my parents and my daughters, and I remember wanting to say something to them, come what may. I had to fight the urge to blurt it out, because I wanted my parents to know that I was completely in love with Stevie. It would have been such a scandal, because of Jenny, so I remained mute, but just barely. Sometimes I ask myself what would have happened if I’d laid it all out on the table that morning. Whether it would have changed things or not at all. I wonder if Stevie and I could have made a commitment to each other, and if our love would have grown, or if it would have been torn asunder by the circumstances.

None of that happened, so it will always remain an unfulfilled love, but in terms of the intensity it was a proper Hollywood affair on a par with Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor. In terms of our relationship with each other, we still have the same connection to this day; we just love each other in the true sense of the word, which transcends passion. I will take my love for her as a person to my grave, because Stevie Nicks is the kind of woman who inspires that devotion. I have no regrets and neither does she, but we do giggle together sometimes and wonder what might have transpired if we’d given that passion the space and time to blossom into something more. We’ll never know, because we were moths drawn to a certain type of flame for a while. It was exciting, it was romantic, and our lives met behind closed doors. It suited something in our make-up for a while and we were each other’s perfect playmates. That’s not all it was, but that’s what we needed and what we needed it to be. It was the perfect fantasy.

With my father dying, I did all I could to retreat into the world of the band, and spending time with Stevie was all part and parcel of that. When the band wasn’t on tour, I’d spend long nights out, doing all I could to work with the artists on Seedy Management’s label, or planning Fleetwood Mac’s next moves, or anything work-related to avoid the reality unfolding at home. Jenny and I grew further apart, even more so since she’d stopped drinking and devoted herself to helping my parents find holistic doctors for Dad. I couldn’t face what was happening to my father, so I usually found myself drunk and in tears whenever I tried to spend quality time with him.

I didn’t know which way was up really; I loved Stevie but I also loved Jenny and my family, so the two of us took a vacation to the island of Bora Bora in the South Pacific, in an effort to grow back together. We were still on the see-saw, trying to make it work, but knowing it probably wouldn’t. Regardless, in that tropical paradise, we discussed whether we should remain married and both of us acknowledged how great the gap between us had become. We were open with each other, but I was still unable to tell Jenny of my feelings for Stevie. I wanted to, but words failed me.

I was in a bind; I wanted my married life to work but clearly it wasn’t going to. And I was in love with Stevie. I held out for the hope that something would happen, a lightning bolt to strike and show me the way down one path or the other.

In May 1978, we began work on the follow-up to Rumours, the album that became Tusk. The explosion of the punk movement had changed the musical landscape and the popular conception was that bands like ours, Led Zeppelin, the Stones, Elton John and everyone else from our era, were a bunch of dinosaurs who’d lost touch with the real world. That wasn’t true, of course, we were in touch and aware of all those changes in culture, Lindsey most of all. He was intrigued by punk bands like the Clash and lots of New Wave artists such as Talking Heads and Laurie Anderson, and he wanted to follow that muse creatively. The issue for him was whether or not he was going to be able to do that with the rest of us.

The expectation, as far as our record company and the general public was concerned, was that we would continue in the Rumours groove, which was something we had perfected and obviously become quite comfortable with. The band would have been just fine carrying on as before, because together we are a creative enough group that we could have elaborated in that vein without running out of ideas. But that didn’t happen on Tusk. There are songs which sound stylistically like the band who did Rumours and those are the songs we approached as a band. They are peppered, in a very conscious and deliberate way, with stuff that throws you off the scent, and those elements were created purely and exclusively by Lindsey.

Tusk was a bit less ‘we’ than any other record we’ve ever done because it was Lindsey’s vision. Today the album has all the power, and has received all the kudos, that it deserves, which is what Lindsey wanted when we put it out, but that didn’t happen at the time of release. The record was certainly not a failure, but neither was it the celebration of the quantum leap we felt we had taken.

Lindsey wanted to produce and record this record differently than we had the last two and I don’t know if he thought I’d fight him on it, but I do know he was careful about approaching the subject with me. When he did, I was all for it, I thought it was a great idea. And what he may have not realised is that John and and I had been through a similar journey with Peter Green when we made Then Play On. When we began work on that record, Peter started playing six-string bass, so John didn’t play on a couple of songs, and Peter did his timpani thing so I wasn’t always doing percussion. On that album we suddenly went from being a blues band to a group with flutes and cellos all over the tracks. Lindsey saw us making the same degree, if not the same type, of musical departure. I was up for it, as was everyone, because we wanted to do for Lindsey as we had with Peter. We were happy to follow their lead out of a deep respect for their creative genius. He wanted to record a lot of things on his own at home and use much of those completed demos as was on the album. The rest of the band had to go through a slight education at first, because they weren’t used to hearing tracks and being told that it wasn’t me on drums, it was Lindsey banging on a Kleenex box. Once the die was cast, however, we were all on board and had lots of fun making the album.

I was still the acting manager of the band, though my days were numbered. By then the other members had got their own business managers and advisors, all of whom had opinions on how their money and our band money should be spent, which is why one of my last scatterbrained ideas as manager never came to be. I wanted us to invest in building our own studio and I even had a partner who would underwrite much of it. It would be done completely to our specifications, so we wouldn’t have to waste time moving ourselves between a handful of locations over the months we typically spent recording. If we built a studio, it would be ours; we could own it and it would be our home for years to come. When we weren’t using it, we could rent it out. My partner in this idea was Jordy Hormel, one of the heirs to the Hormel meat fortune. Jordy was a patron of the arts and a close friend of the band and he was willing to go into business with us to see this vision through. Jordy owned the building where the Village Recorder studios were housed, allowing us to gut a pre-existing studio and rebuild it.

Unfortunately my idea was not supported by the band. No one else wanted to take on the responsibility of owning a recording studio, so in the end Jordy bankrolled a full renovation of Studio D down to every single one of our specifications, then rented it to us. It was completely taken down to the bones, then re-floated so that it was sonically balanced in every corner. We had our choice of wood, of sound panelling, and all of it still exists. When you walk into Studio D at the Village Recorder you are seeing the vision that Richard Dashut, Ken Calliat, Lindsey and I had. We designed the place blow for blow as if we were going to be partners, and Jordy, God bless him, is a true visionary who understood completely what we were doing, so he paid for it all. The irony is that if we’d gone into business with Jordy we would have saved money, as I predicted. We worked there for a year and a half, over which time we racked up bills that exceeded what our investment would have been. Not to mention the income stream we lost by not being partners in the studio; eventually it would have paid for itself and continued to earn for us.

I understood why I was being met with resistance–why build a studio to make an album? But I knew how we made albums and I knew that this one, with all that Lindsey was striving for, might take even longer than the last, which it did. Regardless, that place became our home base, and it is still special to us. In fact, we’ve returned to it for what I hope to be the next Fleetwood Mac album. As of the writing of this book, Lindsey, John, Christine and I have been laying down the foundations for that album in Studio D, and I can honestly say that it sounds even better than I remembered.