Fleetwood Mac Plan to Write Songs With New Lineup
Mick Fleetwood said Fleetwood Mac’s new members Mike Campbell and Neil Finn would probably contribute to a new album eventually.
The latest lineup was confirmed earlier this year after the band's split with Lindsey Buckingham. They debuted their new sound on TV earlier this month, and their first tour starts on Oct. 3.
“This is a huge change,” Fleetwood recently told Billboard. “But we went into it with spirit and knew that it was really, really good and had to feel right. And now we are able to say that and feel that and, now, play that. That's how we got where we are. … With Mike and Neil, that spirit has been ignited in a way that made this really make sense.”
Fleetwood noted that "one of the amazing things is both Mike and Neil have their own credibility in their own right from their careers, but they were thrilled to be playing songs that are not their songs."
"The amount of absolute pleasure they're having in playing these songs energizes the rest of us, and of course their own styles have affected some of the things we're doing, which is invigorating," he added. "They bring their own substance and we're having fun reinterpreting a couple things here and there which I think is going to be different and fun for our audience too.”
Declining to identify any specific songs, Fleetwood said the band now has "two really talented gentlemen who have their own story to tell, and Fleetwood Mac is more than loving being able to pay a tribute to from whence these two gentlemen have come. You'll be hearing a couple things they're connected to from their history. And the bulk of these songs are going to be focused on what people know and love and expect. We're not going to walk on a stage and not play ‘Dreams’ or ‘You Make Loving Fun’ or ‘Landslide,’ so all of that is part and parcel of what we're doing.”
He noted in particular that there had been some discussion about one of the tracks Campbell wrote with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. “He wasn't sure whether he wanted to do it, but we said, ‘You've got to do it!’" Fleetwood said. "I won't tell you the song, but we love it and we are doing it.”
Looking to the future, the drummer said he was looking forward to making music with Campbell and Finn. "I think we all do," he said. "It isn't right now, but this is a highly creative bunch of people that still have a lot in that bag, in that mojo bag, that I would love to see, and I think we will see some of that over the next couple years or so.”