COVER STORY 9

OE HT UN: CRNCE F LEWO MAC FLEETWOOD OF CHRONICLE A BURNS: THAT LOVE RM FROM OE HT UN: CRNCE F LEWO MAC FLEETWOOD OF CHRONICLE A BURNS: THAT LOVE RM FROM

Mick Fleetwood, centre; the teen drummer with his first kit, top left; with Australian musician Billy Thorpe in 1991, bottom left; Fleetwood in the early 1960s during his time with the

EE RISTEVSKI PETER Cheynes, above

ment of the band in 1974, the year Love long after he’d shelled out on Wensleydale, a leased several albums under his own name, he That Burns finishes, the same year he sprawling property in Mittagong in the south- still lives in Southend on Sea, 65km east of Lon- overheard a folk duo called Bucking- ern highlands of NSW, having fallen for Austra- don, a virtual recluse, the subject of ongoing fas- ham Nicks performing in a recording lia on Fleetwood Mac’s regular visits (a world cination. studio he happened to be visiting, and tour next year is in the works). Fleetwood will be visiting his great friend in a was stopped in his tracks. “It was a pipe dream of a utopian lifestyle,” couple of days, as he likes to do when he is in Still, forget drum solos. “I hate them. Inher- “The book concludes with a picture of me says Fleetwood, forgetting that we’ve strayed Britain. Whether Green appreciates the gesture ently drummers are forced into shit like that, outside the restaurant where I introduced John off-book. “Typical me, Irish dreaming nut case. I is hard to say. “Peter is not the same person he like when the power goes off in a club. You ever and Christine to these two lovely people that I intended to live there, emigrate, the whole was back then. He’s quite detached. He is some- seen Charlie Watts do a drum solo? Ringo? Any heard by happenstance,” he says. “How did all thing. But it became apparent that Australia was one who should never have taken acid, but that drum solo I do is buffoonery, theatre; I shout in this happen?” too far away for me as a sort of gatekeeper of was only part of the reason he left Fleetwood the microphone, talk in tongues. Though Peter The question hovers, rhetorically. “It’s unbe- Fleetwood Mac’s survival. Mac.” Fleetwood shakes his head. did give me a talking drum once,” he says of the lievable!” he says. “So I am looking up at the sign “The politics of Fleetwood Mac are well “Life became so heavy for him. I’ve had my West African tama, an instrument that is and over to what will be the next part of this his- known and I couldn’t see the band going on if I whole life to look at what happened with Peter clamped under an elbow and played with a toric journey.” kept the house. It was hard, all of it,” he sighs, with sadness; we lost someone so dear who be- stick. “I had great fun running around the The story has long been out there: of how “including getting my green card back.” came so altered that you didn’t, you don’t, really stage with that.” Fleetwood and Nicks had a brief intense fling Still, nothing seems to have affected Fleet- know …” He pauses, recalibrates. Green is a spectre in our conversation, gar- after the recording of Rumours. How Fleetwood wood as much as the departure of the legendary “There isn’t a reciprocal connection. You go, nering more mentions than, say, any of Fleet- dumped Nicks for her pal, Sara Recor, which a Green. According to rock ’n’ roll legend, ‘Well, he might not even miss me.’ But I love wood’s ex-wives: Jenny, sister of Pattie Boyd wounded Nicks then wrote a hit song about. Green’s drift away from the band was tied in him and in many ways owe him everything.” (who was married to Eric Clapton), who he mar- The post-1974 Fleetwood Mac wasn’t shy about with health problems caused by his increasing So of all the iterations of Fleetwood Mac, was ried and divorced twice (and is the mother of his airing dirty laundry (Sara, Over My Head, Go LSD use. Having quit the band in 1970 and re- the blues-playing, Swinging London version — two daughters, Amy and Lucy); Sara, the former Your Own Way), all while fulfilling every Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac — his favourite? bestie of Nicks; Lynn, with whom he has twin rock ’n’ roll cliche going. “It was the most important because it’s how girls, Ruby and Tessa. His current partner, Fleetwood’s 2014 autobiography Play On we started. We were doing what we wanted to Chelsea, here today, is a language teacher who tells of cocaine use that began modestly enough do in this hugely exciting place, London, which lives with him in Maui, on a spread with three (“We discovered a toot now and then relieved WE PLAYED CLASSIC was full of creativity and possibility and like- dogs, a pig and her daughter’s 25 exotic chick- the boredom of long hours in the studio,” he minded people. I can picture it so well.” ens. “They’re like cockatoos.” writes); he has previously estimated that if his SONGS FOR BETTER Fleetwood nods towards the street. “I still get More mentions, too, than his band mates lines of coke were laid end to end they would a buzz being back here, even now.” past and present — especially, and consciously, run to about 11km long. OR FOR WORSE. AND Buckingham and Nicks, the blonde fairy god- The bankruptcies came later, too. Fleetwood Mick Fleetwood is at two evening events in dess whose quavering voice and wafting chiffon admits he has never been great with money, al- GOT BETTER Sydney on November 28 and 29 and Melbourne on outfits became a vital part of the Fleetwood Mac though his current sideline, a restaurant and bar December 1 and 2. brand. “Well, the book is not about them, and in Maui called Fleetwood’s, where he performs MICK FLEETWOOD Love That Burns — A Chronicle of Fleetwood the whole point of this interview is about the from time to time with a blues band, is healthy Mac, Volume One: 1967-1974 is published by book,” says Fleetwood, who took over manage- enough. His first bankruptcy came in 1984, not Gensis in a limited edition run of 2000 copies. PIPILOTTI Now open RIST Sydney exclusive A major new exhibition by pioneering Swiss artist Pipilotti Rist – from her early videos Sip my to her large-scale immersive installations. Ocean

Strategic Presenting Major Exhibition Pipilotti Rist, Gnade Donau Gnade2, from the Mercy Garden Family, 2013–15, installation view, Komm Sponsor Partner Patrons Schatz, wir stellen die Medien um & fangen nochmals von vorne an, Kunsthalle Krems, Krems, Austria, 2015, courtesy the artist, Hauser & Wirth and Luhring Augustine © the artist, photo: Lisa Rastl

Catriona and Simon Mordant AM

theaustralian.com.au/review November 25-26, 2017 V1 - AUSE01Z01AR