[Music]
Monster Shop!
See, there you go.
Oh, look at that! I didn't know you were going to do that.
With the tune. With the tune, isn't it?
That was very, very low.
It was the bass, mate. It was the bass.
That, that, to me, I'm going to do a confession.
Straight off the bat?
Straight off the bat, I'm going to do a confession, because
I'm a massive Formula One fan, as everyone knows. I'm obsessed with racing and cars and Formula One,
and we don't live...
I like cars.
I like cars, I do.
We don't live far from Donington Park and...
There's cars there.
That's the greatest place, because there's cars and rock.
There are. That's just the mecca, isn't it?
As a kid, I was surrounded by it. My dad was a mechanic. He used to go and work and build
stuff, so there was always car engines apart and other bits and pieces,
and my neighbour used to build dragsters and take them to...
No way!
Yeah, and I was just surrounded by it. I learned to drive in the Donington Park paddock at like
12, a bit in race cars, because I wasn't allowed to drive on the road, but you were totally allowed
to get into a random race car with a roll cage in it. So I was obsessed with Formula One,
and that music is... That was it for me. That was my generation. That sound, that music,
it was Murray Walker and James Hunt, and that was my world. I didn't find out that was a Fleetwood
Max song until I was about 30. I have no idea. Not a clue.
Because you only ever hear that bit. You don't hear the bit before, do you?
No, I didn't know there was another bit to it.
Yeah, that's like the outro. That's the end of the song.
Yeah, I thought that's what he was. I remember exactly where I was. I was in Derby.
My friend started a business, and he'd invited a few of us out. I think he was just a bit nervous
about starting his own business, and he'd invited a load of other small business owners, and I was
sitting in a bar in Derby. There were these two girls with my mate, and they were really,
really drunk. They were talking about Formula One and blah, blah, blah, and saying the only
good thing about it was the Fleetwood Max song. I was going, "The what? What are you talking about?"
And then that kind of realization. But yeah, this was a really... I mean,
this was released in '77. I was born in '74, and this album for me, I knew it much better than
I knew the songs, but I didn't know they were Fleetwood Max songs. Does that make sense?
So there was that bit. So there's the intro to F1. The bit that changed my life with this album
was in '92, we would finish college. Every Wednesday, we got cheap cinema tickets.
So we would all go to Tamworth, but not all of us. It was just me and my mate Tony, and probably two
or three of us maybe, but we'd do it every week. I don't know if anyone can remember, but back then,
you would go in, get your ticket, sit down, and they would play music. So they would play music.
There would be trailers and stuff before each movie, but before the trailers, they played music.
And they would play stuff like, I don't know, ELO. They played tons of stuff off of Rumours from
Fleetwood Mac. But it was all that era of '70s rock music. And we used to go... We went to
Burton Cinema initially, and then they built a brand new one in Tamworth. And as they were building it,
I was really into speakers and sound at the time, but not like... Do you know what I mean? I was into
it in the... I like speakers. Didn't really know much about them. And anyway, they were building
this cinema in Tamworth, and there was an article in the paper. And this guy came to design the
acoustics. And I read this piece about him and just became obsessed. This was pre-internet,
right? So you couldn't just go and Google somebody. And I wrote a letter to this dude
and just said, "I'm really fascinated by it." And then he wrote back. And he wrote back with the...
What I felt was super detailed stuff, but looking back, it was pretty high level. But it was just
what they were doing and how they were doing it, and what they were aiming to achieve from it.
And of course, when it opened, we went to that. And we used to go there every week. And the sound
just hit me. But it was these songs. I had no idea it was Fleetwood Mac. But I just remember how
amazing it sounded. I had never heard anything like a really big room. The bass was just... It
filled the place, but it was tight. It wasn't like... Everyone back then had these car stereos,
and they put these big boom boxes in the boot. But it was really wallowy. There was no tonality
to it. It was like one note bass. It was like... And then we would go into this cinema in Tamworth.
And for me, it was just phenomenal, the texture of it. And little things hit me. Specifically,
with this album, they would play Dreams a lot. I remember Dreams being played a lot. But it was
the high frequencies. It was the cymbals. And it was the high frequencies, because there were horns
and not tweeters. So there were horns. And it had an impact when you hear it off a horn.
And it just... Anyway, it just blew me away. And that led to me doing acoustics at university.
Wow, that moment.
Session. Yeah. I remember it. It was probably over about a year, just going there every day,
and then landing at Derby University. Yeah. And just looking at what was on the courses.
And I saw an acoustic, and I just thought, "I've just got to do that." But there were a handful
of songs that I would play every night, if you like. But I guess the other thing is I didn't know
it was Fleetwood Mac. I was just there with my mates. I went down, sat down, and I just loved...
And this sound is amazing.
Yeah. It was just... I loved... But it wasn't the music necessarily. It was just for me,
it was the acoustics and the sound that it made in the room. Looking back, it is the music. It
was the production. It was how it was done. And that combination of having somebody that really
understood how acoustics worked, and then having an album that was beautifully recorded played in
that space. So totally changed. If I hadn't been for that, I probably would have done something
different. Yeah. I mean, from a tonality perspective, it's a pretty exquisite album.
Oh, yeah. It's...
It's a pretty exquisite record in that it travels. The thing about this album is I always look at the
track order, and I go, "Oh, I wouldn't have done it like that. I wouldn't have put them in that
order. I wouldn't have put that there and that there, and that would have gone there, and that
would have been in track seven." But of course it was a different era. And actually Fleetwood Mac
were all about the singles. And there's this interview that we're going to play in a bit
where it was like there are different incarnations of Fleetwood Mac. I love this idea that it's the
same band name, but a few years before they did Albatross and they had the Peter Green thing,
and it was all very bluesy and very kind of a little bit rock and roll.
Peter Green is where the name came from. So he came up with the name Fleetwood Mac,
which is made of the two surnames, which just blew me away a little bit. I don't know why,
I just thought, "Oh, that's incredible." But yeah, you're right. They are a band that...
I think it was this lineup that kind of solidified that. That's what Fleetwood Mac is.
Well, this is it. I think there's a thing that, again, it will pop up in a bit,
but it was this idea that it says, "Crikey, Fleetwood Mac do hits," and it was that. It
was this jump between doing fantastic music that people revered, and it was a big part of the kind
of movement at the time and huge guitar guard and all that sort of thing. And then suddenly moving
from this sort of like Eric Clapton-y kind of world, sort of Yardbird, I suppose, that kind
of thing where the thing was built around the guitar. That was what the thing was built around
and the sound of the guitar and the way the guitar moved. And then it moved into the top line,
the vocals. The pop hooks. The song, the craft of the song. And it started with the Eponymous album
when they had this kind of lineup set, and then it moved into this album, Ruevmas. And there's a
great story behind it, which I'll sequence in. I'll sequence into our conversation.
You're good at this, aren't you? I like doing it like this.
Just shiv it in. I'd like some feedback from it though,
because it's a very different way, because we used to do it where we used to announce the
interviews and we used to do all that. And now just put them in at a relevant point.
If it makes you happy. It's like telling a story.
Yeah, we just carry on. I do think that you make a really good point, and that they became a pop
band. And like you say, it kind of shocked people a little bit. They were not expecting that. They
came from that kind of blues guitar, and then all of a sudden there were pop hooks in there.
And I think a lot of it came from Lindsay, but I think a lot of that kind of pop sensibility came
from him. But yeah, it's really interesting when you listen to this one. Like you say,
the album before it, the Fleetwood Mac record, there's a lot of similarities. I mean, I think
Ruevmas is just this... The songwriting feels a lot better, but also they seem to manage to
pull these... They make a better job of the riffs that they've got, of the kind of melodies. Do you
know what I mean? Of the melodies that are there. We mentioned it a few times where we talk about
The Wild Hearts and Ginger, where he kind of has these incredible melodies and just like throws
them away. He loses it once for like four seconds. And you think, that was brilliant. You could have
an entire album just on that. And then he's like, "I've got onto something else." And I kind of feel
that Fleetwood Mac album was a bit like that. There were some melodies in there, but there weren't...
No, there were just moments. It's like somebody didn't really grab it and go, "Ah, that's it."
Whereas here on Ruevmas, it feels like the best melodies have been grabbed and then just taken
to this level. The production and the engineering, but it's the songwriting as well as the way they're
all working together. It's absolutely phenomenal. One of the best things about this record is,
and it's kind of a good hole to fall down, is the layering. The layering and the arrangement of the
instrumentation, because you've got this really solid rhythm section backbone. That's the bit
where they've retained the bluesiness really. They've really got that in the drums and the bass.
That's John McVeigh, isn't it? Those incredible bass lines as you go through. Again, do you know
the thing that I love is the fact that there's space to hear it. That is a big thing of this
album. But that's because of the way they're arranged. So what you tend to find, particularly
with some of the albums we've done in the past that are rock or whatever, everyone's playing
similar things. Whereas with this record, there's gold everywhere and it's just scattered. It's
scattered within there. Purely by feel. I don't think anyone's sat with any sheet music or anything
like that. But it was that thing where they've just felt what the song needs at the time.
And they weren't shy of experimenting. They weren't shy of experimenting with the instruments you
use. There's loads of synths in there. There's loads of interesting things. There's huge vocal
harmonies that are layered. You have to really listen out for them because you're that used to
just zoning in on the top line, or zoning in on the beat. You miss this kind of beauty that's in
the middle. There's a lovely bit in the interviews where the engineers fading the vocals in and out.
And it just absolutely hit me that they... And I forget which track it was that he was demoing,
but he first of all brings up the baseline. So you kind of know where you are in the song and
you think, "Yeah, okay, I get it right." Because the baseline underpins the majority of these
records. And then he brings the bass down and starts to bring the vocals, the primary vocals
in. And then there's harmonies everywhere. And it's like, as he brings the vocals in, you realize
just how incredible... They're not just... You miss them. You wouldn't... They're not just singing.
It's not just like, "Oh, I'm going to do the same thing in a different slightly higher counterpoint."
It is. It's like they're singing a different melody, but it's almost like dancing around.
It's kind of this kind of floaty... But when it's all done and it's all in place,
you almost can't tell who's doing what. Do you know what I mean? And it's just absolutely
exquisite. I think the vocal harmonies here reminded me of... A Queen do this really well.
Another band is Def Leppard, where you almost can't hear who's doing...
Because they're all great.
Yeah, they're all really great vocalists.
And they blend. They all blend together so nicely.
It is phenomenal.
I want to talk about Lindsay Buckingham, if that's all right. Unless you're going to go somewhere,
I can cut you up there. I'm going to stay here. So Lindsay Buckingham is... There's a thing about...
We'll hear this story in a bit where the whole... Although we're talking about how amazing the album
is and how kind of together and united everything is, actually it couldn't have been any different
in the studio. There was some bad stuff going on in terms of their relationships and the way
they were with each other. But Lindsay Buckingham, maybe now, but certainly I don't think he's given
the credit as the absolute master guitar player that he is. Incredible. Manages to play things
that you think is two parts, it's not. He's doing it all on one. And I want to play "Never Going Back
Again". Because my story with this album is that although I knew the songs, a lot of the songs,
I had a bit of a click with it and it was much later. I was in the mid-30s and that kind of thing.
And we do this thing with the kids at school, so I'm a teacher. And we do this thing every year
where we take the kids to the... He's not just a stalker. We just hang around the school gates.
We take the kids to the town hall and we build a show. Oh, my youngest did... I hated you because
you did one with... What was it? Was it Steps? Yeah, it was one of those sorts of bands. That
wasn't my choice. No, not Steps. No, no, no. S Club 7. S Club 7. Was that what it was? Yeah,
it was. And my 10-year-old was singing S Club 7 songs in the car for months. And I was like,
I've just write that down. I hate you. Yeah, it wasn't me. I helped. That wasn't my choice.
Yeah, I'd kind of disappeared from the arrangement of it. But the year... I think it might have been
the year before or the year after that, this album... Well, Fleetwood Mac was the chosen band.
So what it was, they'd choose the band and then they'd pick some songs that the kids could sing.
So they're like popular music songs. And then make up their own storylines for a show. There's a world
of difference between this and S Club 7, my friend. And what it was... And this is me. You did a
confession earlier. I'm doing a banger of a confession here. So what it was was we did this
show and they said, can you kind of arrange it? Can you arrange the songs and do a thing with a
guitar so that the kids can sing to it live? And I can't remember if it was... It might have been
just me. Me and a guitar and then the kids sang all the songs. And I can't remember... With S Club 7,
I think when they got to there, they were doing it with pre-recorded tracks and backing tracks and
karaoke things. But for that one, we did it where I was playing live. And they said, can you do an
arrangement of it? And I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, no problem. I've done this before. Yeah,
this is fine. I'll wing it on the night. And mate, I went back to them and I went, for these children,
we should probably do a simpler version for the kids. And it's because I wasn't good enough.
So this was a song that I had to play, Never Going Back Again. And honestly,
I'm not a bad guitar player. I'm all right. I can do guitar, not this.
She broke down and let me in
Made me see where I've been
Been down one time, been down two times
I'm never going back again
Oh, you don't know what it means to win
Come down and save me again
Been down one time, been down two times
Never going back again
No chance, mate. Honestly, it was like my fingers were inside out. That's the only way I could,
you know, I am not because it doesn't even sound that complicated. It doesn't. It sounds really
simple, like a thing and all that. It's like, no, no, no, no, no. What he's playing there is like he,
no one else could, but him can play that. That's just unbelievable. I've heard other people play
it. Yeah. And they're good. Did not like this. There was a, um, as an interview this week from
with Rick Beato. Yes. And David Gilmour. I don't know if you've seen it. No, I haven't, but I think
I've heard a couple of clips from it. Yeah. But there's a lovely bit in there where it's all about
playing fast, isn't it? There's a, there's a lovely bit in there where Rick is talking about bends.
Yes. And he said, um, and he said, um, you know, he said, I, I saw you playing and, um, he said,
you know, and they were talking about gear. They're talking about, uh, you know, so he was
talking about how basically he's using, um, like digital, uh, digital sounds, essentially like the
Kemper to kind of get the tone that he wants. And he said, like, yeah, I, that's kind of how I like
to do things. And then I run it through my cabs and I can get whatever I want. Um, and then Rick
was saying that, um, he says, yeah, he says, you're, you know, you're, the sound was, was
different. It sounded absolutely great. He said, but, um, I could tell it was you playing the
guitar. The second you, the second you bent the first note, I knew it was you. He said, nobody
can sound, I can play the same notes as you and I can bend at the same time as you, but it doesn't
sound the same. And they were just talking about that. It is, and you've talked about this tons
of times that, that it's an instrument and it's, um, it isn't about playing the note. No, it's about
how you play the notes. It's everything around that. And I think, um, I love the, um, the band
name dead can dance from the eighties, the goth band. Yeah. Um, and so well, late eighties, early
nineties, I suppose, but they, um, they, uh, that band name comes from that. It's the idea if you've
got an inanimate object, you bring to life through, through sort of interfacing with it, you know,
that's really cool. But there's that thing where, you know, the, an instrument, when it's someone
like David Gilmore, where they're so stylistic, they're so, so idiomatic as a player and Lindsay
Buckingham, you know, where no one else can play it and make it sound like that because it's an
extension of the self. And I think, and I think that, you know, I always, I'm on a bit of a thing
at the minute where I'm, you know, I don't feel like music as an art form is respected in the same
way as other art forms are. Yeah, it's different. Well, I'll come back to this. Yeah. Yeah. But,
but I think that it should be mainly because of the craft and the art. So it's because it's become
about in industry and sales and num, you know, numbers and popularity and social media and all
the things that it's all become takes it away from the essence of what I think music is, which is,
is just, it's just an extension of the self. It is, it is the embodiment of creativity in on,
on something, on a format and the art of song craft is and the art of instrumentation. And when
you combine the two, I don't think there's a more perfect art form. I, I think that it, it's not
just music because I think it goes across all kinds of stuff. Yeah. And so in the photography
world, it's you hear exactly the same. Right. And I think some of this stuff is the pervasive of
digital. So, so if you wanted to be a photographer in the sixties and seventies, you needed quite an
expensive camera and you needed film or you needed to know what you were doing. And so, you know,
not that many people did it. Yeah. And it was a respected art form because there was a, there's
like a barrier to it. Right. You, you not anyone could do it. Yeah. And I think music was similar
back then. So not everyone could do it. You could have an acoustic guitar at home, but you probably
weren't going to get into a recording studio. You probably weren't going to be able to, to do that.
Whereas now anyone can go and like spend a few hundred quid on eBay, get a full-frame digital
camera and produce, you know, images that have the same like sharpness as the best photographers on
the planet. Yeah. Right. And there are, one of my favorite photographers is a guy, he's a motorsport
photographer guy called Kim Ilman. And again, back into the F1 days, his photographs are phenomenal,
right. Really difficult to, to, to imitate those, those images. Right. And he does really,
really well. He was really, really popular. But like pretty much anyone could go and do that
today. Right. You would need, you know, I guess the barrier to entry there is you need 10 grands
worth of lenses. Yeah. So that's that barrier of entry. But what I see with lots of other areas
of photography, like gig photography is a brilliant example. It used to be difficult
because it's dark and you need a, you need a big fast camera sensor to go and take good, good shots.
And they used to be really expensive. So there's a barrier to entry. So to go and do it, you know,
you had to be really committed to go and do that. You don't anymore. You can do it with your iPhone
and people do. So the number of times you would go and shoot a gig and then you would look at
Instagram. Yeah. You look on Instagram when you got back and you would see, you know, pretty good
shots from somebody with a phone that was behind your, behind your head. And I think because of
that, and because of the number of that, like the appreciation of that as an art form disappears.
And I think the same is true of music where anybody can go and spin up a Mac book and
start, you know, spazzing out a record. So, so because of that, it's, it's like this and not,
you know, there is still a real radical difference between, you know, what's happened, what,
what happens in a, in a studio and what happens in someone's bedroom to some degree. But I think it's
like this quantity thing where it's just, there's just so much of it where when there was a barrier
of entry, it was kind of special in and of itself that somebody had bothered to go and record a song
and go into a studio. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now it's, it's not. So it's kind of like the,
it's just, it's just so much of it. The quantity is just so big. I think the same is happening
with writing and, you know, the quantity, the quality of writing at the moment, because it's,
you can go and publish your own book if you want to, you know, no, no, there's no barrier to entry
anymore. You just go and vomit the things out and then off you go, you're done. So I think,
and I don't know where that, I don't know where that leads, but certainly that like the quantity
of stuff isn't helping, you know, because what you get then is, is because there's so much,
you know, the investment is in there and because, you know, music doesn't really make any money
anymore as a, as a, as a thing. Well, that's true. But none of this art makes any money. No,
no, it just doesn't make any money. The album cover for Rumours was, was shot by a dude called
Herbert W Worthington. That's a good name. I think if I was going to rename myself,
it'd be something like that. That's a good name. I hope it's a brilliant name for a dog.
Yeah. If you've got a dog. What do you think the W stands for? Worthington.
Worthington. No, I don't know. Well odd. Hubert Worthington, Worthington. Yeah. If you, if you
were, oh, I would, yeah. Worthington, Worthington. That's what I've got. Somebody will write in and
tell us that, are you stupid idiots? His name's Worthington, Worthington. But I don't know,
but I do know he's a great photographer and the thing that's lovely about, so A, there's the front
cover, which is, you know, which is, which is super cool. Really iconic. Oh God, yeah, yeah,
you know, you know exactly what that is. The bit that I think is. You mean the font, sorry. Oh,
the font. Yeah, yeah. It's great. Yeah. It's, it's, it's very flowery. Yes. Yeah. The bit I love
about it though. So on, if you go to our blog, if you go to monstershoprock.com and you find the blog
for the making of this. Oh, well done. I've put the outtakes of that, because the studio shoot,
I found like, I don't know, 15 or so outtakes from it where you've got kind of Stevie and Mick just
dicking about basically. And there's some, there are some really, really, I think quite cool images
there that were in the outtakes, but the bit that I thought was fantastic and I've never owned this
album. So I've never seen this before until we did the prep for the show on the back cover.
There is a lovely shot of the band together, right? So this kind of, they're all standing there.
As a photographer, it's, it's really nicely lit. It's lit. The various, somebody who really knew
what they were doing for film, like back in probably Ilford 400 or something back in the day.
And they've shot that. It's got quite a hard light. So it's got, it's quite flattering to the skin,
pick out lots of details. Ilford 400 is that the tape? That's the film. Yeah. Is it? Yeah. It's
lovely. Ilford 400 is lovely. If you're, if you're into photography, Ilford, yeah, everyone is,
Ilford's lovely. That's a really lovely tone to it. But anyway, it's really, really nice to
shot. But above it, so above that back image, there's like a, there's like, I would, I think
it's probably three or four shots. It looks like three shots. And the band just started hugging
each other. So given that we've not really talked about the drama involved here, but essentially,
a good time to dive into it. Essentially all of the band are splitting up. Cause they were
in relationships with each other, weren't they? Yeah. There was, there was Lindsay and, um,
so they were not married, but basically marriage. Yeah. And then you had Christine McVeigh and John
McVeigh. And then, um, so, uh, I didn't realise as well until I wrote this, that Mick Fleetwood's
wife was having an affair with the lighting guy in the studio or the sound room. And he's like,
and you listen to Mick Fleetwood talk about it. And he's like, well, he was my best mate. And so
I was quite pleased that it was him and not somebody I didn't know. But it was the hippie
thing. It was the free love thing. It was a, but it was that era where there was probably,
it was probably quite, quite open. I don't know. I'm making, well, there's that lovely bit in there
where Christine McVeigh in one of the interviews says that they were, uh, all of the songs were
about each other. But like she said, it sounds unbelievable, but we didn't really know that.
People were bringing songs and it was, we didn't, we didn't really realise that they were about,
do you know what I mean? We were just, oh, we'll do this in this key and we'll change that. And
it was about the song and it was about the music. And then, you know, she said, looking back on it,
that it was, we're essentially saying the things that we couldn't say to each other.
By the time we got to Sausalito to start rumours, the roller coaster was in motion. The two
challenges really, one was a musical challenge and make another Fleetwood Mac album. And two
was knowing that what was going on personally, which was everyone splitting up because Stevie
Lindsay, they were very much a couple. They were basically in many ways married, although they,
they were never married. And John and Chris, who were married. In my personal life, you know,
I was going through a divorce, which is like a semi-divorce and then living with someone,
buying a new house, not buying a new house. Um, I said, okay, do the next album in Sausalito. And I
went, great. We're out of Los Angeles. This will be focused. We were all writing songs about each
other, basically, although we were unaware of it at the time. Uh, all the songs were about our own
private relationships and our own troubled relationships. And I think it was John that
suggested the, the name rumours because we were writing sort of journals and diaries about one
another, which we hadn't realised. So we heard all the songs all strung together.
So Christine and John didn't speak. She said that we didn't talk in the studio. So Stevie and Lindsay
did speak in the studio and they were mainly arguing, but they should, they, they, they,
they seemed functional to some degree. We just avoided each other completely. So we would have
had the only conversation might've been, you know, what key is that? You know, what song is it? What
key is it in? And we wouldn't speak at all. Um, and then, but then I had, I said, well, okay,
that's pretty brutal, right? So you've got, you've got all that stuff going on. Everyone's kind of
basically going through a divorce. Um, and I said, well, poor Mick, that must be awful for him. And
then, and then his wife was having an affair at the same time. He's like, oh my God, just brutal.
Can you imagine the poor engineers? They're just like, oh God, this is going to be brutal.
I've always been a firm believer that much of the appeal of rumors, uh, went beyond the music itself.
That's not to take anything away from the musical accomplishment,
but you have to understand that we were five people. Stevie and I had been a couple for a
long time. John and Christine McVie had been married. So you had these two couples. By the
time we got up to Sausalito to start recording rumors, Stevie and I, although not quite as
well defined, we're estranged. We're not living together. We'd for all intents and purposes broken
up. John and Christine McVie were divorced. So normally when people break up, when there's a
pain involved like that, disappointment, heartache, people are allowed a requisite amount of distance
and time in order to let the dust settle before they move on. Well, we did not have that luxury.
We were, you know, in very close quarters, never had the luxury to be apart. So therefore never
really had the luxury of closure. And also you had three writers. So Stevie was writing songs,
basically dialogues to me. I was basically writing dialogues to her and Christine McVie
was writing dialogues to John. So you could say that what we did beyond the music was really tap
into the voyeur in the audience. People really were able to invest in us as people because they
could see, and it was very well documented, thank God it wasn't today where everything is so much
more, you know, there's no decorum at all anymore. But you know, I mean, there was nothing to hide.
Everyone knew that this was what was being written about. Everyone knew that these songs,
the subject matter was what we were living. And I think that there was an investment in
not just the music, but in the people who made the music because of that. Well, you know,
the drug use was part and parcel with the subculture. You can't talk about us
in any different light than you can talk about anyone who was in there doing what, and I talk
about this on stage, you know, this was what we all thought we needed to do back then in order to be
rock and roll and to be creative, which turned out to be not true. Well, I never went to rehab. I
never did anything. In fact, when I took leave of the band after Tango in the Night, it was really
just to say, okay, this is the most crazy album I've ever made. The road is like times 10 from
whatever goes on. I'm taking a break. I was very grounded in a process. Again, just to sort of take
it back to the whole making of rumors for a second, the reason we did get through that was because
we all knew that we needed to somehow fulfill the destiny that had been laid out for us. And to fail
to do that would have been the weak way to go. So there's this kind of underpinning of heroism that
may strike people without maybe thinking of that word, you know, that we did accomplish what we
accomplished under pretty adverse circumstances. And just for myself, you know, it was about choices.
It was about saying, well, I'm hurting from Stevie. Here she is. She needs me to do this.
I guess I could do a crappy job or I could do the job I know I can do. What's the choice? And so you
try to make the right choices and that accumulates and adds up to something. And I guess the same
could be said of drug use or anything that gets some people into trouble because they can't
really think about it in terms of choices. But what a capture. What a snapshot of time
that's captured. Cause it was a year, wasn't it? It was a year process to record, which you just
wouldn't see that anymore. That wouldn't happen. I think the last time I've had anything like that
was the stone roses second coming in the studio for like 10 years. But yeah, this idea of like,
if that that's the classic thing of it, if, um, and it's awful to say it, but if that wasn't going on
and these awful things weren't happening, you wouldn't get these songs, beautiful pieces of
music. And you've talked about this before, but it is, it's that it's that capturing a moment in
time. And that's what makes, I think it's why we love albums. It's like, you know, for everyone
talking about, I heard someone talking about, Oh, EPs are the future. Um, it was, um, uh, Michael
Amott, Arch Enemy saying that he says, I love albums, but actually I don't think the kids of
today do. So, uh, it's expensive to go and make an album. So, you know, there's a, uh, a point of view
that just says, why don't you just bang out and EP every like year or every six months or so,
you know, why, why go and do it? If no one's going to listen to it, everyone just wants to
pick these singles and sticks them on playlists. What's the point? And what's the point in agonising
over album art and blah, blah, blah, blah. Right. What's the point in all of that when, um, you know,
no one's going to buy the vinyl. No one's going to buy the, no one's going to look at the sleeve.
No. So, and I think that's changing a little bit, but yeah, it was, I, I think this, this was a time
where, you know, people did, but I mean, the only way you could have bought this really was I suppose
77. So you could have bought it on reel to reel and vinyl. And that was it. That was all you were
getting, you know? Um, so you were, you were either going to get it in, you know, I mean,
I suppose, I bet it's a good album to listen to on vinyl. It's got a very, I can say this is what
really turned me onto acoustics. It was, um, you have to bear in mind that like in 92, I would have
been listening to Slayer and Megadeth and Pantera, um, Exodus, you know, it would have been, um, fast,
heavy, thrashy stuff, right? Which is, um, it's like a wall of sound, isn't it? It just kind of
slams. There's no nuance to it at all. There's no texture to it. It's just visceral, like punk
kind of thing. And like to sit in that theatre and hear something come at you in, in, in, in like
these just kind of exquisite layers where you could, uh, you could almost imagine if you closed your
eyes, you could almost imagine somebody was there playing that instrument and you could, you could,
you could zone in and listen to that particular player. Um, they just blew my mind. It was just
that. I mean, that was what really turned me onto acoustics. It was just this, this, this kind of
magic that, do you know what I mean? It was, and, and it was the, like the magic of it is just that
this thing was recorded, you know, at that point, this would have been 92, I would have guessed
something like that. So like 15 years ago, some dudes went into a studio, recorded some stuff,
and I'm now listening to it and it sounds like they're in the room sounds like someone's in the
room playing it. And it was just this, um, I, I'd never, you know, we had a record player at home.
It was awful. Like everybody's, you know, you had, you had those kind of Sansui plastic crappy
things. If you were really, you know, you might have had a Technics stacking system
and as much as everyone loves them, they sounded awful. But do you know what I mean? And it was
just this thing where I was just, I was just like rabbit in the headlights kind of, this is the most
amazing thing ever. And it's, there's a, it's a very, very specific tone to this record. It's that
vinyl tape. Um, do you know what I mean? And it's just, yeah, it's phenomenal. Something you said
before we, um, before we hit record was, um, that every song sounds very different. Yeah. It doesn't,
it doesn't sound like someone slammed it through pro tools and kind of gone, oh, well, that's a bit
fast. That's a bit slow. I don't like this. That's a bit loud. That's a bit quiet. And you know,
oh, Christine's vocals are a bit too loud on this one. I'm going to nudge it back. So it sounds the
same as the track before it. Do you know what I mean? Like, you know, like a mastering engineer
with it where they would, they would kind of make the album sound like it flowed together, like a,
like a hysteria or, you know, where it's kind of coherent thing. Yeah. Like it mean if you took
hysteria, you could, you could pretty much, um, overlap each track and, and you know, you wouldn't
be able to tell where one finished and one began because they're, the tonality is so similar as,
as you go through them. Now the kick drum sounds the same on every single one of those records,
those songs. They don't on this at all. It's the, I think the miking was different for each track.
I think the, um, you know, the way they were like doing the layering of each track is everyone is
different. It's like, you know, like you mentioned it was totally done by feel and by ear. And I think
that sums it up. When we mix these songs, we usually look for the heart and soul of a song and
we kind of tear this mix down in different areas and see what worked, what didn't work
and what did we build the song around it. And you can see right there,
it's pretty well the core of the song.
Whatever Stevie's music was, somehow I was this soulmate that just knew exactly what to do with
it. And that never went away. It just became a little bittersweet in terms of wanting to do
it. Um, there were times when I had the urge not to want to help her and that's a weird thing to
admit, but, uh, these were the challenging things. Well, what, what, what they would have had to have
done is think about this process. So you've got this studio, I believe it was an API vision
console. Yeah. So yes, I'm looking at, I'm looking at my fact sheet. Yeah. It's an API console.
Yeah. So it's API vision, which was the, this sound, you know, if you wanted this sound,
this, it was the API vision you got for it. I've actually got an emulated thing on this of that.
I'm sure you have.
And what you do with that is you send all your instruments into individual channels and that
goes to tape. Yeah. So you record each, each individual channel onto tape and then you probably
do overdubs, which means you play the tape back and then you record more things onto it. Over
the top and you layer it up. At the time that thinking about the amount of layers that are on
this record, you probably would have bounced the view down. So let's say you've got all the
vocals recorded to single tracks on the tape. You then replay the tape and then bounce them
to a left and right. So you've got some spare channels. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So you've got,
yeah. So you've got that going on. And then at the end of that process, what you'd have is like
groups of instruments on faders and some individual instruments on faders. And then what you do is,
is in order to like create the mix, you would start the tape at the start of the song and
then you would physically manipulate the faders manually through the track to get it what you
want. And you might do a few passes, you know, to get it right. And it will almost be like,
I mean, I've heard stories, particularly with, you know, bands where there's loads of layers,
where you've got three or four people on the desk and actually come in to move one of the faders.
Yeah. Yeah. And you've got loads of people like with different things, right? You're doing the
drums, you're doing that, you're doing that, whatever. And they would almost like have to
orchestrate physically, right? This bit, you do that, bring that up and, oh no, we've always
screwed it up. We have to start again, you know, and all that kind of stuff. Well, there's talk
of that at Abbey Road. You know, I forget which album it was we talked about being recorded at
Abbey Road, but there was a lovely bit in one of the interviews. I don't know whether we used it,
but there was a lovely bit in one of the interviews where they talked about this
progression. Oh, it was Dark Side of the Moon. Yeah. There was talk of the progression of like
a tape guy. So, you know, there would be a job and you'll be like Tape Monkey and your job would be
to run tapes from like the physical cassettes from where they were kept in and out of the studio.
Yeah. And that's job one. And then the tier above that would be somebody that sometimes
was allowed in the studio to move the faders. And it was, I just loved it. And then, do you know what
I mean? You had to have a badge for that. Yeah. And then it went from there. And you were slowly
given more and more responsibilities. It's just lovely, isn't it? And it's, yeah, I love that.
There's the manual desk and you can see it. You can see it when they, there's a few bits in the
videos. In fact, we're going to do like a mailing list thing where I'm going to write a little bit
about each one of these things that we do. And I'm going to include the link to the videos that we
grabbed some of these interviews from. But there's lovely bits in there where the engineers are kind
of using the desks and kind of using the faders and stuff. It's just nice. Looks nice. We should
get, you know, I wanted to do video for this for our podcast at some point. And I thought, you know,
when we do the studio with Dave, I want a big desk and then that's what we're going to do it.
I think it's going to be awesome. We'll have like a camera and then it's just going to be the best.
Yeah. I like the idea of a big desk. I didn't used to. I was like, oh, I've got the inputs.
Why do we need a big desk? It's nice to have a big desk. It just looks good to me. Do you
know what I mean? Just looks brilliant. And Rick Beato has got a big desk. He's got a desk. We
should have one. I don't know where we're going to get one from. I reckon eBay. Yeah. It doesn't
have to work. No, no, just have it there. Yeah. Oh, we could make it work, I suppose. But I love
the idea of that. We would take the album, ram it into some AI, break the stems out. And then we
could, you know, when we're talking about all, you know, all the bass line in this bit. Yeah,
yeah, yeah. We could, we could, we could whizzy, whizzy, whizzy do that. It'd be great. Oh, I bet.
Oh, that's an idea. What? Because, because this, this, this, this thing is evolving over time.
I bet there's stems. I bet there's stems. I bet you could, I bet you could go and get some
stems for this record. Probably. Yeah. I found an AI model that does that. Oh, it just breaks it out.
Yeah. You just, you just, you ram it in and then you say break it and it gives you stems.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's dead clever. Yeah. We should do that. Yeah, we should. We need a desk first.
Yeah. When, when house, he gets his act together and built a massive studio in his back garden.
Yeah. So stems for those people who hear in that go, what does that even mean? Is that flowers? So
that is when we spoke earlier about the individual tracks going to the tape, the stems are those
individual tracks or groups. So you might have a drum stem or a, or, you know, individual kick drum,
snare drum, hi hats, all that sort of stuff for anyone interested in, in that side of things.
Very, very cool. Should we do some facts? Yes, go for it. I don't have, I do have a lot of facts,
but it's, it's an interesting record because everyone knows everything about it already,
I think. So it's got two release dates. Two? Two, February 4th, 1977 in the United States,
who I read today, Elon Musk says he's going to invade us and liberate us. I'm not sure
who he's going to liberate us from, but he's going to invade the UK and liberate us from.
Let's say we've already been liberated from the EU, haven't we? So I don't know. It's too late,
Elon. I don't know what's, no one knows what's going on over here. You're just going to get a
lot of confused. Shrugging, just shrugs. Yeah, just a lot of confused people. If you bring,
if you bring tea, you're sorted, you'll have you sorted with that. And to be fair, Elon,
if you could like fix the windscreen wipers on the Teslas first, that'd be bloody brilliant. So if you
could just nail that particular issue, then do the invasion, that'd be awesome. Then it got released
on February the 11th, 1977 in the United Kingdom. That's when we used to have different release
dates. Can't get away with that anymore. No, once it's out somewhere, it's got to be out somewhere
else, isn't it? Yeah. Nonsense. Stupid nonsense. Do you know why they used to do it, by the way?
Was it because they had to come out on a Monday? No. Oh. It was because the PR teams
couldn't cope with a global release. So they would do it and they would focus on,
it would be the same team. Like a country at a time sort of thing. Yeah. And then they would focus
on the next country, or region. So then they would focus on another region, another region.
Which is why they're split into territories. Okay. And then Australia would get it like seven years
later, because it's a long way away. Ah, it's interesting. So that runtime, how long is it?
It's short, isn't it? It's brilliant. Is it 40 minutes, 50 minutes? 39 minutes,
30 seconds, 11 songs. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I love it. Three minutes a song, bang in.
Very, very good. See, I think songs should be 30. That's what I've said this earlier.
One song, 30 minutes. One song, 30 minutes. Yeah. Proper few movements in it. Be good.
Opeth style. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Producers, it's credited as Fleetwood Mac and then Ken
Kylat and Richard Dashot, both of whom were on the interview, the YouTube interviews, which I will
share with you if you are on our mailing list. If you want to get on our mailing list, go to
monstershoprock.com, click the mailing listing. And if you stick your email in there, Chris will
come in your inbox. Monstershoprock.com is kicking off, mate. Massive. Yeah, it's working.
Massive. Got loads of stuff on there now. It's really busy as well. You should go on it. You
should have an hour on it. I didn't realise. When we did it, essentially... Not you, I mean
the listener people. But for those that are new to us and maybe... Because this is the first pop
album I think we've done. Yeah, very true. So it might attract some new people, but
for the history behind this, I used to have a sheet. When we did these shows,
I would write a sheet and on that sheet would be facts. It would be notes. It would be, you know,
who did who, who played on it, who didn't, what the rumours are, you know, all of that kind of stuff.
And then I would come into the studio with it and Chris would make fun of me for having a sheet.
And then he would say... I particularly liked it when you had a sheet with a table.
Oh, I always liked it. I love a table. But then listeners, what he would do is he would say,
can I have a copy of your sheet? So I'd have to do two sheets. And then I just... So then I started
to put it in a word document and share it with Chris. And then we just kind of said, well,
we just want to stick it somewhere. So then we created a blog site, a WordPress site,
and just dumped them on there. And it was just reserved.
It was. And then what happened was Google found it and then it got really busy. So like lots of
people go on there. So much so that I had to go back and rewrite and correct all the mistakes in
the early stuff. But you'll see... But essentially everything on there is stuff that we have thought
about doing a podcast about. So it's just kind of their articles. And they're just facts about
who played on it, when it was recorded, where it was recorded, what the tracks were,
and that kind of stuff. But anyway, it's worth a look. Monstershoprock.com.
There's other bits creeping in as well on there now. There's bits about text, bits of reviews.
Oh yeah. You did a bunch of stuff about studio recording, tech and software, which is... Again,
they've been super popular. But also on there is the mailing list stuff. So like I say,
the idea is we'll link... That was a circle, wasn't it?
Yeah. Well, we will write... I will write a little bit about, I guess, the journey and some of the
things that we've gone through for the show and that kind of stuff and some behind the scenes.
It's serious now, mate, isn't it? It's proper. It's all very exciting. Anyway, where am I doing?
Oh yeah. So the album was remarkable. So back to the album. The album was remarkable for
lots of things. It was hugely popular. 20 million albums were sold in the US alone,
40 million worldwide. When you're talking about those numbers,
that's the stuff where we're talking about the Dark Side of the Moon, Led Zepp 4, those kind of
absolute iconic... That's those numbers. That's insanity, isn't it? It's hard to understand.
It's hard to visualise 40 million of anything, isn't it? Your brain's just like, that's a lot.
It's just absolutely crazy. We've talked about it a little bit before, but the band were essentially
in turmoil. So everybody was breaking up with everybody else. Two couples involved at the
beginning of the album and no couples at the end of the album. Even Mick Fleetwood got involved
and his wife was having an affair during the album as well. So it's absolutely chaotic.
All of them since kind of made up afterwards. With the exception, I don't think Lindsay and
Stevie talk. Oh, that's interesting. Or maybe not. Maybe more recently that sorted itself out.
Maybe. I just kind of got this thing where there's a lovely bit where they were talking about time
healing and just saying, "Look, we're functional now." Because they were touring not that long ago.
Maybe it's just that they just don't hate each other, but then perhaps...
Yeah. I think that's where it's at. I think time's healed a little bit.
The album name Rumours came from that. Essentially, the fact that everybody was talking
about everybody else. So they were just like, "Let's have a play on that." And that's where the
album name came from. Spelled correctly for Elon Musk with a U. Is that because there's British
people in the band, you think? I don't know. Because it's a US, UK thing, isn't it? I think
the Brits and the Americans work really well together. I work for an American company and
a lot of it, I like working with Americans. It's great love. Really good fun. I don't know,
I think it's lovely, but Elon should wind his neck in. Just saying that as if he's listening.
Maybe he's a big fan. Yeah, probably. Yeah.
He's been supporting us hugely on X. Some of our posts have had like 50,000
interactions. It's bonkers. Our dodgy little show has had 50,000 people talk about a post.
I think Elon secretly loves us. Yeah, I think so. Yeah.
Sorry, Elon. Oh yeah, so the band went through tons of lineups before this album. The album
before this, the self-titled Fleetwood Mac had the same lineup. Yeah, that was where it kicked in,
wasn't it? Yeah, tons of lineups before that, which was really interesting. The famous story
of Stevie Nicks and Lindsay Buckingham joining the band were because they needed a guitarist.
The reality was there had been many incarnations of Fleetwood Mac, and this rumor's incarnation is
without any question. It's a huge mindset deal involving success and a huge amount of music
put out. And the only resemblance to that was the original Fleetwood Mac with Peter Green,
which was very short-lived. So we'd had all the number one hits and the Screaming Girls and
stuff like that, and come back from it, and if you like, gone down from it, and then come over
to America and had a period where we were feeling out and still going forward, and then suddenly
again. Mick Fleetwood was looking for a studio to record an up-and-coming album,
and I think he suspected that Bob Welch was going to be leaving the band. Bob Welch was the guitarist
that I replaced, but at this particular time he was just looking for a studio. Keith Olson had
engineered the Buckingham Nicks album, and so Keith put a track from that up for Mick to listen to,
really just to demonstrate his own engineering skills. Well, Mick had not only bought into Keith's
engineering, but also had bought into my guitar playing. Mick sort of came back and said he'd
found this fantastic guitar player, and we didn't know who the girl was at the time,
because it was really only guitar player that we were interested in at the time. I was asked if I
wanted to join, and I said sort of politely that Stevie and I were a package deal. In the next three
days, I went to the record store and bought all the Fleetwood Mac records and listened to them back
to front, and I made the decision. I pretty much, you know, Lindsay said, "What do you want to do?"
You know, I basically said, "I think we can add something to this band." Once you got in the studio,
there's that, I wouldn't say magic, but there's a core. We are doing something that is worthwhile
here. This music is happening, Stevie's song, Chris's song, Lindsay's song, whatever. It's happening.
It all seemed to come together very quickly. Stevie and I had a backlog of material, and it was easy
for the three people to make choices, which reflected something that would hang together
with Christine's material, and certainly the vocal blend was very important. Just the personalities
of the three writers, distinctive, hanging together as a trio. All of that helped to kick in the
success of Fleetwood Mac, Fleetwood Mac, the first album that Stevie and I were involved with, with
Fleetwood Mac. And it was really after Rhiannon, the second single, kicked in that people started
saying, "Fleetwood Mac with hits, my God." The Fleetwood Mac on "Before Rumors" was just starting
to do well, and by the time Rhiannon came out, it was a major hit. I think it was up to almost
three or four million by the time we were in the studio, or at least over a million. So there was
suddenly, suddenly, it wasn't just a matter of going in and having fun and doing what we do,
do your music, don't worry about it, don't be self-conscious. Suddenly we had a definite reason
for doing a great job. When it came time to do "Rumors," Lindsay pretty much took the point on
that, because he was the one with the strongest opinion. He probably had more vision than any of
us. The rest of the band had a lot of experience with blues, which is where they came from. But
blues, it's more like a live thing. Blues comes more from the heart, and it's not as forcefully
created as pop music, shall we say. Lindsay really had the craft of record making.
And then the rumor being that they said, "Oh, okay, you can come and do an interview kind of
thing and come and have a play." Stevie Nicks had practiced all of the Fleetwood Mac tracks,
so she absolutely smashed it, and of course they loved it, which was epic.
She's very driven. She's very driven as a person. I think she's lovely. Even the way she speaks,
she's constantly on it. Yeah, she's dead good. I like her. She's dead good.
We had made one record that was called Fleetwood Mac Fleetwood Mac, and it had been made in three
months. Very unself-indulgent, because we didn't have money then, and the record company gave us
some money, and we had enough money to make a good album in three months, so we didn't waste
any time, and we didn't mess around. And then we went on tour. It was very successful, and Lindsay
and I were a millionaire by the end of that year. So I was a waitress in January, and I was a
millionaire in October. So then we started Rumors. And so we were a little more indulgent,
because we had some money, and we could spend a little more time, so we started our songwriting
process. And then we went in, and everybody was breaking up, and of course that always adds for
really great songwriting. So that happened very fast, too. And I think that when we first joined
the band, everybody wasn't breaking up, so it was still pretty copathetic. When we went into Rumors,
everybody was, so it was much more there was a kind of a passion thing that was going on,
and some anger, but still we never let that get in the way. That was never brought into the studio,
so that was outside. And so what was brought into the studio was great words, great poems,
great music, and everybody dug it. Even though we were all kind of in chaos, everybody was like,
"Well, I was great." So that'll never happen again, either. That was a moment that we could
never recreate, just like in your dreams. Never recreate. I like it a lot. And then bizarrely,
lots of interviews call out that financially, it says financially, there were some challenges,
and the band faced a tight budget. In a studio for a year, that's not a tight budget. Maybe a tight
budget for the time, but that's it. And artwork designed by Herbert W Worthington, who we've
described as either Worthington Worthington or Wellington Worthington. Any of those would be
appropriate. It features Mick Fleetwood and Stevie Nicks in a whimsical pose, which I liked, and the
offshoots of that, the kind of outtakes, are really, really cool. Back cover features the band all
hugging after the tumultuous recording process, which I really, really like. I love photography
for that. Just like the album itself captured a point in time. So did those photos, which
I think is excellent. It was recorded in Sausalito, California. All done analogally.
It quotes 24 track tape machines here. I don't know. This is 1977. I'm not sure whether...
Possibly. Yeah, possibly. When was Dark Side recorded?
A bit earlier, I think, wasn't it? I don't know. I'm not very good at time. I don't do time very
well. Yeah, you might be right. Because Dark Side was 16, wasn't it? Dark Side was eight initially,
and then as they were recording, I think they bought in 16s and 24s. For those that don't know,
you can't just bring technology into Abbey Road. It has to be approved. And they desperately wanted
these, because obviously Pink Floyd were layering and layering and layering, they desperately wanted
these fancy 24 tracks that the US studios had, but the techs in Abbey Road wouldn't approve them.
They hadn't been through the approval process, and they were really frustrated, like, "Oh,
give me that 24 track." And they were white coats and everything.
Oh, with the pen, with the bic in the top pocket. That's when I know I've done life well.
When you get a bic. When I've got a white coat. White coat and a pen.
Yeah, that'll be it. That's interesting.
Scientists. Scientists. What else did I want to talk to you? Oh, yeah, there was some
kerfuffle with the album release, because there were some technical issues with the tapes.
So the tapes were lost. There were some issues with being able to get hold of them,
and it delayed the cutting of the vinyl. Imagine that, though. Because I bet
their posters stuff are bad, isn't it? Where were the tapes? I don't know.
Oh, good. Yeah, it's gone. It's gone. That's it.
The original masters would have been copied and sent for cut when they did the vinyl back then,
because that's one of the big things. The vinyl wouldn't have been cut from the masters.
It would have been cut from a copy of the masters. And when they did, I think, was it 2008? I'm going
to look in my notebook. I'll get to it. I think there was a big refocus on this record in 2008,
where it was remastered. Now, they would have been done from the studio masters to digital,
and then that would have gone off to be cut again. So I think that sounds better than the
original. I've got both. I think it sounds better than the... I wonder if there's ever been an album
where it's been lost. Yes, there has. The Tiger Tales.
Okay. This is going to be totally off your radar, right? But there was a
band from Wales called Tiger Tales. They're brilliant. Hair metal, did quite well,
pretty good. They had some brilliant tracks and they had spiky hair and all of the things
that were great. They got a big record deal and recorded it. Now went to the US, recorded the record
deal. The record company dropped them before it was released. And there's no trace. And they keep
saying it was the best album ever. There's no album ever better than that. And then it was just
lost. And they weren't allowed to... He said, "We wanted to go back in the studio and re-record it,
but the record label..." So they dropped us and then just said, "But we own those. We own that."
So if you- I reckon they did it because they lost it.
Do you reckon? Yeah, we totally lost it. I'm sorry. You're dropped now.
That's it. Singles from the record, for back in the day, you would normally get one or two singles
off an album. This had Second Hand News, which is excellent. Dreams, which-
It's just a classic. It's an absolute standard.
Stevie Nicks talks about... There was stuff happening and she wasn't really welcome in
the room. So she went down and recorded this. She wrote this on her own.
Dreams was written on one of those nights where there wasn't anything for me to do.
So I went down the hall to a studio that was here in the record plant that was Slystone Studio.
And when I had nothing to do, I could take all my stuff down there. And so I would take an
electric piano with me and my crocheting and my journals and my books and my art. And I'd just
stay there until they needed me. So one day, sitting in Slystone's bed with this big black
curtained bed, fabulous, totally. It wasn't my room, so it could be fabulous. It was somebody
else's room. I just went in there one afternoon and wrote Dreams. And I knew when I wrote it,
that it was really special. And I was really not self-conscious or insecure about showing
it to the rest of the band. I knew they were gonna really like it.
[music]
Dreams is a great example of the band just pulling it together. Stevie and Lindsay, when they were
solo, lived together. Stevie could wrap her voice around Lindsay's so well, he'd do harmonies with
her, she'd do harmonies with him. It was really a great blend. When they joined Fleetwood Mac,
Christine came in and the three of them created this sound. It was amazing. And it was even more
amazing for me because they oftentimes had to sing on one microphone or on three microphones
in a small room, looking at each other. And you can imagine the turmoil they were going through
and all these relationships are breaking up. And through all the turmoil, they'd come out
with vocals that sound like this. Imagine that. I don't feel very welcome
in here. I was going to blast this out. I was going to write Dreams. I'm like, what?
Don't stop. Go your own way and you make loving fun. What I love about this,
sometimes the tables in these blogs look a bit crap because it says writing credit and it lists
the band, it lists everybody. This one, secondhand news, Lindsay Buckingham, Dreams, Stevie Nicks,
Never Going Back Again, Lindsay Buckingham, Don't Stop, Christine McVeigh, Go Your Own Way,
Lindsay Buckingham, Songbird, Christine McVeigh, The Chain was Buckingham, Fleetwood, McVeigh.
Yeah, that would have been a jam, wouldn't it? You could hear that. That would have come out of a jam
a bit more. Yeah. You make loving fun, Christine McVeigh, I Don't Want To Know, Stevie Nicks,
Oh Daddy, Christine McVeigh and Gold Dust Woman, Stevie Nicks. We talked about this album feeling
a bit disjointed when you listen to it. If you listen to it analytically and you think, oh,
this track doesn't sound quite like the song. Oh, because it's different writers.
No two tracks were written by the same people back to back. You know what would happen today.
Producer would dump all the Lindsay Buckingham tracks together. I think they would definitely
concur and sing. Song meaning lyrics. We've already covered that. They're all about breaking up
basically. Lots of people talk about that's why this record was so successful. So the songs and
the melodies are phenomenal, but the meaning behind them is universal. People are breaking up
and going through divorces right in the second. There will be someone listening to this that's
going through a divorce right now. And if you are, very sorry, but you've just been empowered to go
and do whatever. It's a great record for you. Go and write some songs. And if you're a girl,
go and listen to Jagged Little Pill. That's what girls do. I was thinking about this earlier.
I can't write songs like that. I have to write songs about existentialism and the human condition
and things like that. 30 minute long epics about life, the universe, everything. Can't do it. Can't
do simple things like that. I'm really angry. Yeah. Yeah. Write about love. Yeah. No, I'm not
interested. I'd love to write a song about pie or the square root of two. Did you know? I thought
you meant the food. You meant the number. Oh God, no. Did you know? Do you know what this is? So I
haven't, this is how nerdy I am. People don't realise this really. What goes on in my brain.
And I told you about this when I used to, I worked for a really, really large software company. And
if I ever interviewed you over the years and you didn't get in, I'm really sorry. But I used to ask
people when I was young and naive, I used to ask people, it's making me laugh thinking about how
stupid I am. I used to ask people what the square root of two was. And I once got asked the question
from our HR team. What's that got to do with anything? Why do you ask people about the square
root of two? And I was like, it's a really important number mathematically. And I remember the HR,
they're always kind of young girls. What do you mean? And then I went on this like 15 minute rant
about how the square root of two underpins the A4 paper scheme. So you can't. We've got to send
that. We've got to send that to a blind boy. He'd have a field day on that one. So this is why I
didn't attract girls at school. So you know, if you've got two A4 sheets of paper and you put them
together, you get an A3. And if you put two A3 sheets together, you get an A2. And you can keep
going until you get to like minus 40 or something. It's a big enough sheet of paper to cover the whole
world. It's massive. And it's brilliant. It's universal. So you don't have to describe the
sizes of all these sheets of paper. You kind of just have what you define A4. And then that works
to A5. I mean, you can take it wherever you want to do. But the aspect ratio is 1.414,
which is the square root of two. And that's why it works. Just remembering how stupid and nerdy I
was. That's what I write a song about. Because I think that's really important.
Really meaningful.
Yeah, it is really meaningful. Listen, if you can't see Chris's face, his look of disdain,
of just like, oh my god, you're boring. Oh my god, isn't it?
It's fascinating, mate. It's really interesting.
All right. Thank you very much for that. Should we talk about legacy and things? Back to the band.
The quotes of influence on the band are like the Beatles and the Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan.
I'm not sure I can hear a huge amount. What are the bluesy stuff? I suppose the Beatles,
pop melodies and stuff in there. But I think it's kind of interesting to some degree.
This very important thing about Room is it's been preserved in the National Recording
Registry for its cultural significance. I kind of feel like I need to know more.
What else is in there?
Yeah. Seasons in the Abyss better be in there.
One thing to think about bands who it's influenced, because there'll be some famous ones.
So, Cheryl Crowe. She coached them massively. I always think she was really hard done by it.
She never really got there because she's a great songwriter. Everyone was like,
oh, all the songs are written for her, but they're not.
No, she's amazing.
She's dead good. The Dixie Chicks. I love the Dixie Chicks.
Yeah, great. There's a local group from around our end, our listeners particularly.
SAF Derbyshire.
If you're not from around here and you don't know this area, 88 Miles.
Oh yeah.
Stunning. Great band.
They played at the Sonic... Did they play at the Sonic Boom?
They played Sonic Boom, yeah. But they also played at Silverstone when we went there.
I watched them play The Chain. One of their big things is they cover The Chain.
But they're great.
Did they do all of it or did they just start in the middle?
All of it. Yeah, just start that bit. No, they're great. Great band.
And guitarist's brilliant. And singer's Ellie Shee's a fantastic songwriter.
Really good songwriter. And yeah, should check them out because they're good.
Excellent. We should have them on the show.
I think they're playing... they're doing quite big stuff this year, I think.
Are they?
They're doing a few bits and bobs, yeah.
Well, come on, they'll squeeze them in and they could tell us.
I'm sure they'll come and say hello.
It'd be great. I've got something else for you in my fact sheet.
A very important film was released this year.
When this was released? In 1977?
Yeah.
It's not Top Gun?
No, it's not Top Gun.
Psycho? Not Psycho. What's the one? Exorcist?
I don't know. Time.
It's a brilliant clip and we can't play it because it's too sweary.
But it's from the thick of it.
And I'm going to play it to you in a minute so that you know what I'm talking about.
It's making me laugh thinking about it. I mean, it was Star Wars.
Oh, of course.
1977. I cannot believe...
Can you believe? 1977. That's absolutely ridiculous.
Yeah, that's just absolutely bonkers.
It won a Grammy in 1978. The band performed 90 shows that year.
I just think that's absolutely bonkers. It's been used in media and TV everywhere.
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. I love Guardians of the Galaxy.
Great soundtrack. They never really thought about that.
It's got ELO at the beginning. I just love that.
So they played The Chain, "Go Your Own Way" is in Forrest Gump.
That's a good song.
It was played all over Glee. It was also in The Crow.
Oh, right. I've never seen that film.
You know what? No.
1996. He's dead. He dies. He gets shot.
Like in real life as well?
Yeah. What was his name?
Brandon Lee.
Yeah, that was it. And it was some mix up with the gun, wasn't it?
Phenomenal. Reviews. Everyone says it's great.
You're not allowed to criticise. You're not allowed to say anything bad about this record ever.
I don't know what it is. I think the most you could say is boring.
I don't think you're allowed to criticise it.
I think Elon Musk will probably come and beat you up or something with his leather jacket.
What else did I want to talk about?
Oh, yeah. There's been a couple of remasters. There was one in 2008 and there's another one
in 2013. There was a 35th anniversary in 2013. I think the 2008 version is...
That's the one.
Yeah, I like that one. I skimmed through all of them and that's the one that I prefer.
I don't know why there's something about it. I think the 2013 version seems a bit
bigger and I'm not sure I want...
That's the thing. I'm glad you said that because I think the imprint that these songs have left
and also sometimes the way in which people retranslate them when they're performing them.
Obviously, a lot of bands will cover these songs as part of their sets if they're going to play
somewhere. They make them too big. They make them rock or pop and they're not. The essence
of Fleetwood Mac is kind of like blues, really. Pop blues with top lines, in my opinion. There's
pop moments on this and obviously stuff like that, but it's actually very light sounding.
Delicacy.
Yeah, it's not a big epic sound. It's quite groove based. Everything's got a bit of a feel
and a groove to it. People don't translate that very well when they re-perform these songs.
I think the impact and the imprint of these songs in your mind isn't the same as the thing
when you listen to it. I think people have turned them into something else.
I think for me, this is very similar to Dark Side of the Moon in that it is quite a delicate
record. You wouldn't go and big up Dark Side. You just wouldn't do that. You wouldn't make
it bigger. I think the same is true of this and I do think that it is quite a delicate
record. It's something that sounds great anywhere, but if you listen to it when it's
quiet or with headphones on, it's like a space. It produces and that's what hit me from it,
listening to it in the theatre. It puts you in a different place. If you close your eyes,
it's like you're in the mix. You're there and you know what I mean? It was something that was
explained to me way, way, way later on at university after studying this stuff for a long
time. This less is more. The more vibrations you have to approximate with audio gear, the less
accurate it gets. The more you muck about with compressors and the more you muck about with
stuff and you have more stuff going on. The harder it is for speakers and amplifiers and all of that
stuff to convey it. I think that's one of the things that makes this one super special because
it's simple enough that what gets conveyed back is I think really close to what they intended in
the studio. I think this is where people go wrong with mixing and I have, even now with mixing,
because we've spoken before about this. I'm getting really good at engineering and really
good at getting sounds into the thing and layering things up and arranging and that sort of thing.
When it comes to the mix, I struggle because everything has to happen. You make everything
massive. I want everything massive. You can't do that. But I think Nirvana, you totally can.
Do you know what I mean? Prong. I don't want my prong sounding delicate. I want it to be smashing
me in the balls. I don't want it to be delicate. But there are some albums and some bands that you
do. Does that make sense? Some records, some music I think should sound... I mean, you don't
want to be taking... Imagine taking 2000s era hard rock. It just isn't going to... Oh, Slipknot.
Yeah. No, it's got a sound. Oh, it's got a sound, doesn't it?
I mean, fascinatingly, Slipknot in 2000, that album was recorded analogue in South City.
I think it's fascinating, but it still sounds like a freight train hitting you in the face.
I'll tell you who does manage to do it. Devin Townsend. He manages to make it sound big and
exquisite at the same time. He's phenomenal, Devin Townsend. I love Devo. Heavy Devo.
We should probably sign off now and then talk about what we're doing next.
Okay. Unless there's any more things about this album to talk about.
I think... I'm sorry, I was doing my facts, wasn't I? And I didn't conclude my facts.
I've concluded my facts. I've run out of facts.
♪ Ooh, the sun will be shined and I feel that when I'm with you, it's all right. I know it's right. ♪
♪ To you, I love you the world. To you, I'll never be cold. 'Cause I feel that when I'm with you, it's all right. ♪
♪ I know it's right. And the songbirds are singing like they know the score. And I love you, I love you, I love you like never before. ♪
♪ And I wish you all the love in the world. ♪
♪ But most of all, I wish it from myself. And the songbirds keep singing like they know the score. ♪
♪ And I love you, I love you, I love you like never before. Like never before. Like never before. ♪
Can I throw an album in that while we're going all poppy, I'd like to do the...
Look at that blog. Sorry, Neil's got the blog on his iPad.
I have.
It looks amazing. Everyone should look at it. Monstershoprock.com.
Google's sending everybody there. So much so we've had to move the server because the place we used to host it started charging us so much bloody money that we've had to move it somewhere else.
But I would like to do... While we're going a bit poppy, I'd love to do a Lioness Morissette.
Are we doing it?
Shall we do it?
We've been saying this. I don't know if we've said it on the mic, but we've definitely been saying it through WhatsApp for ages. We've got to do Jagged Little Pill, mate.
Back in the genesis, we started off just doing really metal-y, grungy, and that's what we did. But I kind of feel like it's a celebration of albums. That's kind of what we intended, wasn't it?
And I think our biases, we're both... You're 10 years younger than me. So for me, it's probably like 85 to 95. That's kind of peak me for any albums that were released and bands that were big in those times.
But it was all rock and metal. And then there's a bunch of albums that I've discovered from people that have recommended stuff and I've grown to really, really love over the years.
They're like Counting Crows, Pink Floyd even, and Fleetwood Mac, and Led Zeppelin. I mean, I loved some stuff from back in deep purple and I love Black Sabbath, but this was stuff that kind of came to me much later.
And I love the idea of us revisiting these albums that are probably not... They're a little bit on the outskirts of where we started and really celebrating albums that are iconic.
Because otherwise we're going to... I've missed the wrong word, but I think we're missing the opportunity of getting into stuff.
Well, I think that what we also do... I mean, for me, ever since we began Monster Shop, we've had lots of different iterations of this over the years we've been doing it.
And it's always for me been about a music discovery engine. For me personally, if I'm being greedy about it, it's always been a way for me to just listen to something else that isn't melancholy.
I'm still dreading the day when you say, "I really want to do melancholy." It's like two hours long, isn't it? It's like, "Oh my God."
I really liked it. Melancholy is massive. It's an album that we will have to do. I think we'll do that in two... I think that's a two-parter.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, that's a good idea, yeah. I don't think we can do that in one. It's a double album, isn't it? It's massive.
It's CD1 and CD2. It's huge. But I like the idea. I'm not sure what else we... I don't know if you... Let's go there. Let's go there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a good idea.
I quite like the idea. While we're verging into this kind of poppy territory a little bit, I like the idea of doing that.
Everyone I knew had a copy of that album. Every girl I knew had a copy of that album. It was compulsory.
I've got this theory that boys are all born knowing all the lyrics to every John Bon Jovi song, up to New Jersey.
Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then genetically that stopped after that. And girls are born knowing all the words to Jagged Little Pillow, all of them.
Yeah. And they all sing them. But they're born knowing them. It's not a learned thing. They're just born knowing them.
No, that's it, yeah. Gen X girls particularly just... That's it. Gen X boys all know Bon Jovi. Gen X girls all know Alanis Morissette.
That's the way it is. Alanis Morissette, to me, I love her in Dogma. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think she's excellent in that. And she's very funny.
Yeah. I love the way she was so difficult in interviews. And you could just... You know when she got... You could see when she got bored being asked the same questions.
And she was mischievous. Same as Meat Loaf. Yes. Yeah, naughty man. Meat Loaf was when he made that interview, I called him meat.
I called you meat. What did you say? It was a TV show, wasn't it? Yeah. And he made her call him Mr. Meat for the duration of the interview.
And I just thought I was just epic. Can you imagine PR like today? You do what? What do you mean you made her call you Mr. Meat?
And imagine him today just like sticking his finger up and going... Yeah, do what I want. I'm Meat Loaf, you're not. Yeah.
Yeah, so we should do that one. I think that'll be really good. Oh, I'd actually say that. I'd love to do a Meat Loaf album.
Oh, which one? Like Bad Out of Hell 1, then Bad Out of Hell 2, then probably not Bad Out of Hell 3.
Oh, I know one. I don't know two. My cousin had one. One was about the same time as this, rumours. I'm sure it was. I'm sure it was late 70s.
Do you know we don't have an article about those. So I shall endeavour to do those. They'd be good ones, yeah.
We'll do those this week. Yeah, because we're doing them in a sequence as well. We could do one one week and one the next week.
Yeah. Because one was in the 70s, one was in the 90s. Oh, no way. It's that big a gap. Yeah.
But these are the big ones, I think, that we've skirted around. It's like a thriller. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That we've skirted around. We've talked about and mentioned that we've not covered. Because thrill is interesting.
And this Prince as well, which I don't think I've ever listened to a Prince album from start to finish. No, I don't think I have either.
Every time I've seen him live, and he blew me away. Yeah, it's unbelievable time. And then went home and listened to Slayer.
But it's one of those things where I tell you what this music is. It's grown up music. Yeah.
And I'm not particularly a grown up. I mean, we talk about albums that are released on the day in our socials.
Yeah. And there's two this week. So The Ultimate Sin, Ozzy's album came out this was released on a day in this week.
Prongs, The Cleansing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're my albums. Yeah, of course. But the thing is like as much as they're meaningful to me, they're meaningful to me.
Yeah. And I'm sure we'll cover them. There's no way we're going to not cover a Prong album at some point.
I quite like the idea that we cover stuff that isn't. Yeah, not necessarily our bag, but yeah, because I think that if we're not careful, we end up being those biases.
We just like you say, we just talk about melancholy or Slayer records, you know what I mean? And I think that will be, I don't know, that'd be a bit boring.
So it'd be nice to kind of meander around. I desperately want to cover. We've not done a Slayer record. I really want to cover.
I don't know. I'm really torn with Slayer, whether we do something like my favourite is Seasons, which is the best, that's the best Slayer record ever.
Or if we did something a bit earlier, like Hella Waits, kind of we could talk about the scene. I like the scenes that it doesn't happen so much in pop music.
No. I suppose the Manchester, you know, the Manchester scenes, you've got kind of all the wastes and all of that stuff.
But you don't, those scenes don't come up that often in Pong, I don't think.
No. Whereas they kind of do in rock, which I like. And there's the underground stuff, isn't it?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Do you know what I mean? They're kind of the, there's a lot of scenes in rap as well. They all shoot each other though.
Yeah, I'm not bothered about that. Don't like rap really. Yeah, don't shoot each other.
No, I know. Or there's a perfect circle I've covered there on the blog.
Which is, I'm just, I was just skimming through the, skimming through the blog. Yeah, there's a perfect circle, Med Noms, which is really interesting.
It's just scraping, I think. So that's released on 23rd of May, 2000. So I think, I don't know. Tell us. Is, is a perfect circle allowed?
Yeah, is that allowed? I always said that we would do like from '75 to, or say '75. We did, wait, because it was kind of '70s, '80s and '90s really.
Yeah. Because, I mean, the idea- But there's even that thing where, you know, do you dive back a couple of years and do a Sgt Pepper's one or a-
Yeah, yeah. Or a, or a Pet Sounds or, you know, the-
The Stones as well. They were kind of the beginning of-
Well, we said we were going to do Rolling Stones as well. Yeah, we did. I love the Rolling Stones. But again, it's slightly later than that for me.
It's kind of the ones that really hit me were like 'Let It Bleed' and 'Beggar's Banquet'. That's kind of, those two just floored me.
I remember the first time hearing those and just, super bizarrely, I was on a train to London. I was consulting on a train to London.
Didn't know what to listen to. Put my earphones in. It was a Spotify thing. And I just, I just opened Spotify and I went-
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it was just that album that came up. It was 'Beggar's Bleed'. 'Beggar's Banquet', sorry. So, I think we're done.
I think we're done. We will see you- Well, we won't see you, obviously. But we will talk to you next week.
If you- What I'm going to do for the- For, yeah, I'm not sure what I'm going to do with the mailing list because at the minute there's only me and you on it.
So, that means if I did it tomorrow, only me and you would get it. What I might do is write it and dump the first one on the blog.
Oh, very good. And then people will see roughly what it's going to be about. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And then I'll do the rest on there. But if you'd like to be part of that, it will include the links to the interviews that Chris has woven in.
Some just stuff, really, as I kind of go through and think about the week and the experience of doing this particular show.
Nice. And yeah, I'm just going to dump one of those out each week. Beautiful. It's nice.
Lovely Jubilee. What's that film that you love? What film? The one about the fucking hairdresser, the space hairdresser and the cowboy.
The guy's, he's got a tinfoil pal in a petal bin. His father's a robot and he's fucking fucked his sister.
Lego. They're all made of fucking Lego. Star Wars. That's the one, right? It's like that, okay.
Gonna fucking kill all the bad guys and you'll be able to blow up the big- The Death Star. The Death Star thing. Yes.
Then you can go and live happily ever after on the planet of the teddy bears.
It's a fantastic analogy. Well done. Love you, bye. Bye, love you, bye.