The Fleetwood Mac album Christine McVie claimed to be stoned while writing
There’s no denying that Fleetwood Mac made some great music. From singalong soft-rockers like ‘Dreams’ to impassioned break-up songs like ‘Go Your Own Way’ and shimmering pop hits like ‘Everywhere’, their catalogue is filled with songs guaranteed to pack out the dancefloor at weddings and please a karaoke crowd. But the story of Fleetwood Mac is so much more than their sonic output; it’s intrinsically tied to the drug use and relationship drama that inspired it.
Usually, their tumultuous legacy is tied to their magnum opus, 1977’s aptly titled Rumours. The production of the record was characterised by divorce, break-ups and substance use behind the scenes, each influencing the songs on the record in their own way. Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham penned bitter songs about one another following the end of their relationship, using drugs and drinks to offset the stress and sadness.
But Rumours wasn’t the only album fuelled by substances and strange relationships. After the release of their seminal soft-rock record, Fleetwood Mac got to work on Tusk, allowing Buckingham to drag their sound in a slightly more experimental direction. “Well, I think Mick was worried Lindsey might leave if we didn’t give him leeway to be more… experimental,” Christine McVie remembered during a conversation with Mojo.
“So that’s what we did,” she added, “We didn’t realise it would end up being a double album, but I look back on it with great affection.” Although McVie was able to look back on the record fondly in hindsight, Buckingham’s artistic domineering led to some more creative issues between band members — Nicks even remembered sitting and watching her bandmates, having little involvement in the record, finding the process frustrating.
Just as their internal issues spilt into the production of Tusk, so too did Fleetwood Mac’s drug use. “We were still pretty stoned then,” McVie remembered. Buckingham led the album and the band into more experimental realms, drawing from the burgeoning post-punk scene and from more avant-garde influences. The result was a slightly stranger, more experimental record that would never quite achieve the same acclaim or legacy as its predecessor.
Though the production process was marked by similar behind-the-scenes chaos, Tusk didn’t follow in the footsteps of Rumours. It seemed to be more of a passion project for Buckingham, an effort to push the band to explore new instrumental realms. But by the 2010s, McVie was more than happy to shrug off the chaos that had defined Fleetwood Mac decades earlier, both sonically and personally.
“Walking back into the Village to do this new album was great,” she said while discussing Lindsey Buckingham Christine McVie, the 2017 collaborative album between the guitarist and keyboard player, “It was great to be there sober.” Both Buckingham and McVie had mellowed out and returned to the studio where they recorded Tusk, the Village Recorder in California, in a much calmer environment.
The music was much calmer, too, with Buckingham and McVie working together to create a fairly straightforward collection of pop-rock tunes. The relationships between Fleetwood Mac gradually repaired themselves, and the band looked to mend their relationships with substances, but their legacy remains bound up in those chaotic decades. Their most influential releases, particularly Rumours, will always be tied to the context that spawned and surrounded them.
