“Sausalito was the worst,” moans Stevie Nicks. Sinking into a comer of her cranberry velour sofa, a bowl of split pea soup in one hand, she recollects' the first recording session for Fleetwood Mac’s latest, Rumours.

It was February 1976 when Mick Fleetwood, John McVie, Christine McVie, Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie left Los Angeles for the Record Plant in Sausalito to record—rather try to record—material for a follow-up to the immensely prosperous Fleetwood Mac album. It was then that the pressures of the business and their new-found fame and fortune started to cast dark clouds on the romantic relationships within the band. When the thunderstorms let up, John and Christine, after eight years of marriage, and Stevie and Lindsey, after six years as roommates, had separated. Mick and his lady Jenny were in the middle of divorce proceedings—only to eventually remarry.

“Not only was it cold, what was happening,” says Stevie, “but it was cold to leave and cold to come back. We were all trying to break up and when you break up with someone, you don’t want to see him. You especially don’t want to eat breakfast with him the next morning, see him all day and all night, and all day the day after and all night... Finally [after nearly two months] Mick said one day ‘We’re going home.’ We took a couple days off, spent four days rehearsing and then went on the road for 10 days. At that point, we needed the feedback. We needed to hear the people say ‘ok, we know you’re having problems, but we still like you.’ ”

Fleetwood Mac then traveled to different studios in L.A., North'Hollywood and Miami, in hopes of meeting their deadline for Warner Brothers. “I don’t remember much of anything during that time, recording a little here and a little there,” says Stevie. “It’s like a dream sequence to me now.”

One can’t help but wonder why and, more significantly, how Fleetwood Mac could survive the romantic traumas and ✓remain together on a business level. “Because,” explains Stevie, matter-offactly, “we basically really like each other, and once we go onstage all those problems, the fights, the arguments and disagreements, they all disappear. That two hours onstage is beautiful and

always was, even when things were at their worst.” Before joining Fleetwood Mac, Californians Stevie and Lindsey had released one album, Buckingham/ Nicks (Polydor), but it quickly found its way into the cut-out bins “We were tax write-offs,” says Lindsey) and they were dropped from the label. Emotional entanglements or not, they weren’t about to slam the door in the face of success. “Really, each one of us was way too proud and way too stubborn to walk away from it,” Stevie recalls. “I wasn’t going to leave. Lindsey wasn’t going to leave. What would we have done? Sat around L.A. and tried to start new bands? Nobody wanted to do that. We like touring. We like making money and we like being a band. It was just grit your teeth and bear it.”

Once the couples within the band split up, Fleetwood Mac was no longer groupie-proof; they became fair game for gossip writers and columnists in rock mags across the country. Rumors had Fleetwood Mac breaking up; Christine in the hospital; Peter Green, Jeremy Spencer (original FM members) and Danny Kirwan (the only guitarist asked to leave the band) re-joining the current lineup for a special 10th Anniversary tour this year; and Lindsey and Stevie the proud poppa and mama of a beautiful blonde baby girl (who actually belonged to Mick and Jenny). Rock magazines portrayed Stevie as the Farrah Fawcett-Majors of rock ‘n’ roll, and she, along with the other newly free members of the band, were seen everywhere locked in the arms of others, often rock musicians.

“For a while it was funny,” Stevie says, “but then personally I really started to get angry, because I live a very quiet life. I’m either working or I’m home and all of a sudden I’m picking up these papers and I’m the Siren of the North.” Seemingly attempting to set the record straight, she adds, “Don Henley [of the Eagles] are friends. We’re not into a heavy romantic relationship. How can we be? We’re always on the road. And Paul Kantner [of Jefferson Airplane/Starship fame]—I never went out with him. He called me a couple of times, but basically I wasn’t interested. I don’t even like rock ‘n’ roll stars,” she groans. “I especially don’t like men rock ‘n’ roll stars, mainly because they’re just too egoed-out. And I don’t need it. I don’t need to go out with rock ‘n’ roll stars for their money. I’ve got my own money. I’ve gone through it and I didn’t like it and I won’t do it again. It’s like that lady onstage—I can’t hold a candle to her if that’s what they want.”

There are no rock ’n* roil stars. They’re all dead. ••John McVie

With one of the most distinct voices in the feminine arena of rock and a pair of pouty lips. Stevie evokes a raw, sensual-but-innocent power and, dressed in her black Rhiannon outfit, she cuts a surrealistic image onstage. But, really now, she’s not a witch. “I’m not a heavy psychic weirdo. I just happen to love black and I love to dance. I hate seeing rock ‘n’ roll ladies that stomp across the stage and that are so hard core. It’s so unfeminine. Being a sex symbol has never been my goal in life. I just happen to love beautiful flowing movements: You know,” she continues, “Mick and I are definitely the entertainers. We are the hamburgers. Sometimes the rest of the band just can’t believe us ‘cause we love to do crazy things. It makes us laugh. But we’ve got three real shy people and two extroverts, so somewhere we have to arrive at a compromise. It’s gotta be a group effort—and it is.

“You know,” she continues without so much as a pause, “Fleetwood Mac is real loose. We’re all aware that we’re not virtuosos and that the world will survive without Fleetwood Mac. We don’t take ourselves too terribly seriously because when you do, you start going down the tubes. So we just make our mistakes and continue on.”

“For some reason, Fleetwood Mac is one of the few bands that can get away with making mistakes.” Christine, 33, has been with Mac since the blues days of late 1970. On this rainy Los Angeles afternoon, she’s relaxing in front of a fire in her Hollywood Hills home. “This band is unknown,” she laughs. “Like one time, I don’t know where we were, but during a concert once we started up a song and something happened to Mick’s drum and he said, ‘There’s no way. We gotta stop.’ One of the roadies came up to fix the drum and John went up to the microphone and said, ‘What do you think we are? A profess onal rock ‘n’ roll band?’ The ice was instantly broken. The audience cracked up and we started the song again. But I think a lot of people that go to see us hope something goes wrong. It’s a bit of a comedy show as well. When you look at Mick grasshopping around with his African drum, well, that is not serious. You’ve gotta find that funny or you will have no sense of humor at all.”

Christine, who lived briefly with the band’s lighting director, Curry Grant, after separating from John McVie, wouldn’t term Fleetwood Mac’s massive acceptance as being ‘overnight’

Life does not begin and end with Fleetwood Mac. —Christine McVie

anymore than she would view her break-up with John as reason for Fleetwood Mac to call it quits. “As far as all this recent success, it was timing and a combination of all things connected with this band. All of a sudden we had the properties that maybe the public wanted at the right time. The band projected an exciting image onstage and I think it was quite unique to have two women in a band who are not just backup singers.”

The compulsion to succeed inevitably exceeded the romantic traumas. Says Christine: “After 10 years of struggling, it would have been silly to throw it all away. We proved to each other that we had a pretty strong character, that we could cope with the problems and surmount them —which we did. John and I are friendly now, which at a point we weren’t. The bonds were just too great to sever because there was an emotional ruckus going on.”

When Mac’s three songwriters; Christine, Stevie and Lindsey, finally got their songs together, that emotional ruckus produced the platinum followup to Fleetwood Mac, Rumours. Not so ironically for any songwriter, all three were writing about their crumbling relationships. “But,” says Christine, “rarely do I stand in my own shoes and

Swinging singing, bode tognthnr again?

write a song that is that personal. ‘Oh, Daddy’ is not a song about me, it’s a sonq about Mick and Jenny. ‘Don’t Stop’ was just a feeling. It seemed like a pleasant revelation to have. She ponders that a minute and then adds with a snicker, “It would make a great song for an insurance company. But, I’m definitely not a pessimist. I’m basically a love song writer.”

But even with the platinum success of Fleetwood Mac and now Rumours, Christine hasn’t felt the pressure ease up. “I think we have a lot of proving to do. There’ll still be pressure for another year or sb, but the way we conduct the tours will be a lot nicer for sure. When you have the money to charter your own plane and stay in nice hotels, it makes life on the road infinitely easier.”

Though Christine and John have no immediate plans for divorce, Christine is content for now to simply enjoy her freedom and the money success has piled up. “It’s enabled all of us to realize a few dreams that we never thought would happen. But I haven’t ^goed out. I’m pretty much of a recluse as it happens. What this has done though, well...the doors have just opened. Now I have the money to get my sculpture studio together and the whole way of looking at my life has expanded over the last six months. Suddenly you realize ‘To hell with it. Life does not begin and end with Fleetwood Mac.’ Lately I’ve been mixing with some people that are not involved with rock V roll and that aren’t involved with the business, that know nothing about rock ‘n’ roll and don’t give a shit— that’s been very stimulating. I mean, there’s only so much you can talk about in rock ‘n’ roll. Above and beyond that, it’s a very big world. It just occurred to me quite recently that I was absorbing myself so much in Fleetwood Mac and all the problems that I wasn’t having all that good of a time.

“ ‘How does it feel to be a star?’ People ask this all the time. Ughhhhh! Get out! Or people introduce you— ‘This is John McVie. He’s a rock ‘n’ roll star.’ It’s embarrassing. You try to find something to crawl under.” When it comes to discussing Fleetwood Mac’s position in rock ‘n’ roll, John McVie’s voice is unassuming, his volume soft and his tone far from narcissistic.

“There’s no rock ‘n’ roll stars,” he said adamantly. “They’re all dead. Who makes people who play in rock ‘n’ roll bands non-human?” he asked, then answered, “It’s the managers, the PR people, and that’s the set goal. More sensible would be to put rock ‘n’ roll in its place. It’s just part of being human. Rock ‘n’ roll is not the beginning and end of all life and in the scheme of things rock ‘n’ roll is so unimportant. It’s 95% bullshit.” Then why bother? McVie’s answer is simple: “I enjoy . being a musician.” Beyond that he has no great ambitions except “to be happy and right now that’s being a musician. A few years from now it might be something else. Fortunately, I’ve got the chance.”

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CONTINUED FROM PAGE 34.

The mass acceptance of Fleetwood Mac doesn’t seem to faze Mick or John much at all, though it has increased their business responsibilities in the band. With attorney Michael Shapiro, Mick and John form the management, which is nothing if not Seedy, When former manager Clifford Davis booked a bogus band with the same name on tour in 1973, Mick and John were granted a court injunction forcing the ersatz Mac off the road and into court—the outcome of which may be decided soon. With that, and the fact that the group’s albums had only been selling mediocrely, Mick and John decided to take over the managerial duties. John, acknowledging that Mick is the “more active half,” added, “We thought we knew ourselves better than the rest of them. We understand the vibe and the feeling of the music and the way it should be presented. Plus, we didn’t trust anybody else. When you get burned once, you don’t do it again. It’s a very human trip now; Record companies respond to managers with briefcases, always barking at someone and it’s not like that

here. It’s very low-key. It takes longer to get things done, but they’re done in a much nicer way.”

Through a gradual shift from British blues to a sound that has gripped the nation in a massive Fleetwood Mac attack; through six guitarists, Peter Green (who left the band to find himself and is now confined to a mental institution after brandishing a gun in his accountant’s office in an attempt to stop royalties from early Fleetwood Mac albums), Jeremy Spencer (who left to join the Children of God), Danny Kirwan, Bob Weston and Dave Walker (the first Americans to join the band) and Californian Bob Welch (who left to form his own group, Paris), Fleetwood Mac has adapted and “It will probably be the most successful band in the world this year,” says John. “It’s a good live band,” he adds. “It’s a good recording band and it’s got charisma. That’s not ego...I hope it isn’t.

“A lot of people have come up to us in the last year to interview us and they say ‘Well, now that you guys have become a commercial success, did you just decide you were going to go commercial and make it that way?’ and we say ‘NO!’ ” For Lindsey Buckingham, being called “commercial” comes on like an insult. “Stevie and I joined the band and the way we write happens to be the way we write. We’ve never tried consciously to fit into anything or do anything like say ‘OK, we gotta write a hit.’ ”

Although Stevie and Christine are thinking about solo albums in the future (ABC released a “Christine Perfect” album in England, “But,” she says, “the less said about that, the better”), Lindsey isn’t even considering it. “It’s funny once you get successful, there’s always a million people who’ll offer you money to get away from the unit, like: ‘Hey, man. Why don’t you sign a solo deal?’ Why should I do that?” he asks. “I’m not sure that we have just scratched the surface as far as potential goes for what these five people can do musically. So many groups break up because of egos and all that. Buffalo Springfield,” he muses nostalgically, “imagine what they could have done if they’d stayed together.”

How does Fleetwood Mac plan to approach that potential?

“Well,” Lindsey sighs, “we’ll never be a band like Tower of Power who goes into rehearsal and rehearses a song so that they can just go in and play the whole thing in one or maybe a few takes. The way we approach it is more the way the Beatles used to approach their things in the studio—having a general idea and then going into the studio and letting the spontaneity happen. That’s where you capture the magic.” Spontaneity and “letting it happen” all sounds wonderful and very true to the rock ‘n’ roll spirit, but unfortunately, record companies don’t seem to care much. In the case of Fleetwood Mac, Warner Brothers was just a little bit, shall we say, nervous about the Rumours album.

“They didn’t want us to release a single at all this time,” Lindsey says, “because they were afraid that if it didn’t go, it might hurt the album sales and ‘Oh, wow man, the single bombed out.’ They were really paranoid— understandably—because they hadn’t heard the album. They didn’t know anything about it for 10 months at that point and probably thought we were just in the studio helplessly flailing away. But Mick went down and met with Mo Ostin and the people down there and listened very calmly to all their reasons why we shouldn’t release a single. They he played “Go Your Own Way.’? That was it. They went ‘Yeahhhhh!’ and said ‘Go ahead. You’ve got it!’ They realize the last album wasn’t just a fluke and I think they feel now that we know what we’re doing.”

Since the release of Rumours, Fleetwood Mac has met with its usual run of bad luck; fifteen shows were cancelled at the start of the 1977 world tour because Stevie, suffering from vocal strain, lost her voice and had to resort to lessons to help strengthen it. Then Lindsey had his wisdom teeth out and suffered the side effect of two black eyes, just in time to ruin their cover photo for People magazine. “We get bummed out at times,” says Lindsey, “just like everybody else. But, it’s only natural ’cause the only way to define the high$ is to have the lows.”