Why Mick Fleetwood believed he could never match John Bonham: “He understood the whole meaning”
The art of any good drummer isn’t always about playing the most drum fills as any of your peers. There’s a certain feel that makes every drummer leagues above their contemporaries, and even if all they’re doing is laying down a simple groove, it’s better that they be known as someone who can be recognised in a few seconds rather than the maniac behind the kit who takes away from the song. Mick Fleetwood always fell into the groove-based category in Fleetwood Mac, and he was humble enough to admit that some bands made him look like an amateur.
That’s not to say that Fleetwood is a poor drummer by any means. His rhythmic foundation is the glue that held Fleetwood Mac together for so long, and looking back on how long he and John McVie have been joined at the hip, they are one of the longest-running rhythm sections in the history of rock and roll that haven’t strayed away from each other. That doesn’t mean there weren’t moments when Fleetwood got tripped up.
Even though the band’s bluesy roots were a lot better for him to get under his fingers, no one was going to be prepared for what Lindsey Buckingham had in store. Buckingham may have had more control in Buckingham Nicks, but now that he was calling the shots, perfectionist would be too small a word for what he was doing, eventually making the kind of intense studio environment that put everyone on their toes.
While Fleetwood could usually put Buckingham in his place, he also had his fair share of songs that threw him for a loop. Playing on ‘Second Hand News’ involved him getting the right drum sound by hitting a chair, and although ‘Go Your Own Way’ is still a staple of 1970s pop, getting that off-kilter rhythm was murder for him. For someone who was already scared of moving outside his comfort zone, people like John Bonham made Fleetwood’s job look easy.
Despite Bonham being known as a wild animal during Led Zeppelin’s prime, some of his best moments come when he’s laying back into the groove. Bonzo’s whole appeal was seeing the drum machine getting let loose, but once he locked in with everyone, there was always that distinctive rub between the instruments, with Jimmy Page always fighting against the drummer being slightly behind the beat.
Bonham may have been a bit laid-back in places, but Fleetwood understood that there was no possible way of him measuring up to his colleague, saying, “I liked John Bonham because he had this ability to play in strange time signatures. Actually, I couldn’t go near some of them, but he always made it sound so incredibly easy. Most of all, if you listen to some of those old Zeppelin tracks, he understood the whole meaning of laying a big fat off-beat down, and his bass drum work was incredible.”
Playing in the odd time signatures Zeppelin used was always going to be a bit of a head trip, though. The polyrhythm going on in the middle of ‘Kashmir’ does start to make sense after a while, but there’s a certain mad genius about making a song like ‘The Crunge’ a funk song that’s played in 9/4 time.
Fleetwood Mac may have never been the type of band to flirt around with odd time signatures, but Fleetwood did have his fair share of surprises as well, like using different textures on ‘Tusk’ and ‘Gold Dust Woman’. Still, it’s hard to compete with someone who wields his drumsticks in the same way that Thor wields Mjolnir.
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