Q: Watching you beam as you play "Stop Messin' Around," "I Can't Hold Out" and "Doctor Brown" in the new concert film "Mick Fleetwood & Friends Celebrate the Music of Peter Green and the Early Years of Fleetwood Mac," I have to ask: Is there is anything more enjoyable for you, as a drummer, than to play a great shuffle beat and just lay into that groove?
A: (laughing) That would be a very clear answer: No! I just got off he phone with John McVie two hours ago and we were talking about playing. John wasn't able to join us (at the Green tribute concert) and I told him that, right at the beginning of that show, (guitarist) Andy Fairweather Low looked at me said: "The king of the shuffle!"
With all the connotations, I can't think of any better place for me to be with John McVie, (because) no mater what, we always aspired to playing a shuffle. And if you listen to the first Fleetwood Mac album, the whole premise of Fleetwood Mac was (saluting) Elmore James and playing shuffle after shuffle after shuffle, so much so that one of the blessings of looking back on Fleetwood Mac's crazy heritage and history would be (the 1977 song) "Don't Stop." It's one of the most famous songs we ever played, and it takes not even two seconds to hear that it's a blues shuffle. We have put the shuffle to good use, on and off, through the years. That would be my sate harbor, playing a shuffle.
Q: I am curious if you recall the first song with a shuffle beat you learned to play, and just how big a light bulb went off when you first nailed it?
A: I I would not be surprised if it was "Dust My Broom" by Elmore James. We, Fleetwood Mac, were a four-piece band — Peter, John, Jeremy (Spencer) and myself. After the initial period, (guitarist) Danny Kirwan joined. But that first Fleetwood Mac album is one big shuffle! Obviously, I'd been listening to music with the guidance of Peter, John Mayall and John McVie, who were way more conversant with listening to blues music than I as at that point.
Peter said: "You've got to listen to this," and it was a drummer called Sonny Freeman, who played with B.B. King in his original band. It was the "Live at the Apollo" album and Sonny Freeman was, to my mind, literally the finest exponent of all the blues shuffle drummers and greatly talented in general as a percussionist. That album and Elmore James was my shuffle initiation.
Q: In 1964, The Cheyenes — the band in which you then drummed — accompanied Sonny Boy Williamson II at the Marquee Club in London. You were thrilled, until he stopped in mid-song and chewed you and the band out for not following his musical changes and cues. It must have been mortifying for you, but was that also when you realized you really had to up your game?
A: Well, you are very well-informed, first of all. And that's a classic example you cite of a musical kick in the ass. As a player, any type of player — but especially being a support system, a rhythm section — it's predicated not entirely, but basically, on making whatever happens at the front of the stage look good. No matter what, with Sonny Boy that was a lesson well-learned, especially for a band of little white English dudes. We rehearsed on our own, listened to his albums and learned his songs and the arrangements, note for note and beat for beat. Then we get on stage and realized it was all in the moment, especially with Sonny Boy. He turned around and he was like: "What the hell are you doing?"
And what we thought we were doing is keeping him on a straight musical line and reminding him of what he should be doing. Big mistake. What you do is listen and learn, in real time, to whatever is going on at the front of the stage. I was playing it like I'd heard it (on the records). And it came from my being too innocent to know better, but a lot of blues players would suddenly change key or the tempo. One kick of their foot would mean: "I'm changing." And if you were not looking at their foot for the cue, you didn't realize it.
If you're a drummer, you can change the beat. But as a support group, if you miss the cue, you've just made the person at the front of the stage look stupid because you don't know what you're doing and not being completely compliant in the moment. That was one of the lessons learned that night. We thought we were being supportive and he stopped the band, turned around and gave us a you know what in our rear ends. I never did that again. I learned that, no matter what, I'll keep my eyes and ears open and take direction as best I can from the person delivering the goods at the front of the stage.
Q: I interviewed Peter Green in 1998 when he was doing a U.S. tour with his band, the Splinter Group. I asked him to reflect on how he had evolved, and he said: "I've come a long way since that time. I'm a little older. When I look back on Fleetwood Mac, there are things I would have done differently. I used to drink a little. There's nothing that's different, but the boys I'm with now (in the Splinter Group) are quite a bit older. They feel safer in some way; they are married and more straight."
You were all young guys in Fleetwood Mac, finding you way in the world. Hindsight is 20/20, but could you have done anything different or was Peter's fragile state — combined with the heavy dose of LSD he was given in Munich in 1970 at a German commune — too much for him to overcome?
A: That's a really good question. And the fact you and I have spoken all this time today — and I didn't know you had spoken in this context with Peter — is a really poignant thing to speak about at the end off our talk. I often listen to the very telling lyrics Peter wrote for "Man of the World" and "The Green Manalishi (With The Two Pronged Crown)," which is the last song Peter recorded with Fleetwood Mac, and we weren't equipped (to deal with his condition). Peter had already left. He had been full of humor and objectivity back in the day and he had a nice form of aspiring to be successful, but not desperate to be successful.
He just wanted Fleetwood Mac's music be heard and his illness then was completely unknown to us. It was completely unknown to him. 'Forget about drugs; we weren't that profoundly connected to that culture, at all. And anything you might feel is relevant (drug-wise) only happened right at the end of his tenure with Fleetwood Mac, when, literally, only a rocket scientist with a degree in psychology would have sensed something amiss. There was nothing (to warn us). Believe me, I've beaten through the bushes of: "Could I have done this?"; "Should I have done that?"; "If only I had known, what would I have done different?" I can never find anything that (happened then) that would have said: "You knew that. You knew what was happening (to him)."
... I don't mind touching on it. Peter was so sensitive as a human being that the last thing on earth he needed was to be made more sensitive (with LSD). And that one time (in Germany) is what took him away, and that's really my only explanation of it. We weren't major drinkers; we were not major, major anything. But his memory (he shared with you) of that is his own commentary. But for me it had to do with something we didn't know about that was happening within the realms of his own (personal) chemistry. The combination of (those factors) was maybe hidden for so long. And the truth was imbedded in one or more things he had written in his (final) songs ... In hindsight, with the lyrics to "Man of the World" (I guess I've got everything I need/ I wouldn't ask for more/ And there's no one I'd rather be/ But I just wish that I'd never been born), he was certainly reaching out, and we had no idea, none.
The (2020 tribute) concert was about celebrating the joy of who Peter Green was and what he did, creatively, so I've always steered away from (discussing his decline). But I'm fine talking about that, too, since you interviewed him. For me, though, this is not about the "long fingernails" or someone who became disengaged from creating — and from life — who fell prey to the voices in their head and (moved away) from what we would consider a more 'normal' state of mind. This film and concert are all about celebrating someone who was vibrant.
