“It doesn’t have to be difficult”: Stevie Nicks on the the album Fleetwood Mac overthought
Any band can find themselves stuck in their little worlds when making some of their best records. It’s one thing to keep one’s ear to the ground when making masterpieces, but it’s harder to take anything outside the studio seriously when you are so dialled into what you’re doing. It’s one thing to commit to one’s craft, but Stevie Nicks knew the difference between being locked in and going down into a never-ending musical rabbit hole when working with Fleetwood Mac.
Throughout her time with the group, though, a lot of Nicks’ greatest music relied on her following her instinct. She had already been transfixed by what Peter Green brought to the table when he was in the band, and listening to the way that ‘Rhiannon’ brought a restless spirit to their records, it was easy to see her continuing that mystical aspect of the band’s music through her songs.
But relying on instinct can only take someone so far. That means someone has to be around to crack the whip when things get out of hand, and in that respect, Lindsey Buckingham was both the best and worst thing to happen to Fleetwood Mac when he came in with Nicks. He was in the business of making perfect records, and that didn’t always mean he was the most sympathetic towards other people’s feelings.
To his credit, Buckingham managed to find ways to turn Nicks’ material into musical marvels, but it’s not like the rest of the band would fare that well every time they played. Rumours itself was made under the most extreme tension that a band could be put through, but if Buckingham hadn’t had the same attention to detail when working on his own songs, chances are ‘Go Your Own Way’ would have sounded completely different or the distinct chime of ‘Never Going Back Again’ would be gone forever.
“It was so important to Lindsey and Mick to do something that was nothing like Rumours.”
Stevie Nicks
When someone faces that much success, there comes a point where the pressure starts creeping in. It’s not always spoken, but there are those burdens that the record company puts on your shoulder to make sure that the next record will be equally as great, and compared to every other record in their catalogue, Tusk was the one record that sounded completely unsure of what it wanted to be.
Nicks can certainly appreciate the record for what it is today, but she admitted that the band overthought their approach when working on it, saying, “Tusk was so the opposite of Rumours. It was so important to Lindsey and Mick to do something that was nothing like Rumours. For me, it was almost like we were trying way too hard. Like, it doesn’t have to be this difficult. I mean, we were just making another record, for God’s sake.”
Admittedly, some songs on the album sound like they’re trying to bury the sunny side of Fleetwood Mac, but that doesn’t mean it’s all bad, either. ‘Sara’ and ‘Storms’ are among the best tunes that Nicks ever wrote for the group, and while Buckingham does get more than a little bit zany throughout the rest of the record, tracks like ‘What Makes You Think You’re The One’ alongside every one of Christine McVie’s tunes makes it well worth listening to.
The band was already flirting with moving on to different sounds, but given how much pressure was on them to deliver another stunner, Tusk is a decent example of what can come out of a production this dire. It wasn’t perfect from back to front, but being solid is the best anyone could have asked for.
