The Fleetwood Mac drum part Mick Fleetwood thought was “stupid”
During every era of Fleetwood Mac, Mick Fleetwood never wanted to play anything flashy. Fleetwood was able to play whatever was needed, but he certainly had a preference for the band’s backbeat to be simple wherever possible.
From the band’s blues-infused roots to their flirtation with the pop charts throughout the late 1970s, Fleetwood was the epitome of a drummer who served the song, taking the raw sounds of his kit and doing whatever he could to make the track come alive. Although he may have been able to push the band forward at every chance he got, he admitted that not everything he played was necessarily sophisticated, either.
When working on the first Fleetwood Mac projects, though, Fleetwood had the idea of putting together a band to give every other blues act a run for their money. After bringing in blues legend Peter Green into the group, the band ruled the blues scene with various hits on the charts, like the spellbinding ‘Oh Well’ and the instrumental sounds of ‘Albatross’.
By the time Fleetwood had started to find his voice on the instrument, though, Green would be out the door, later replaced by jazz guitarist Bob Welch. While the band would keep a revolving door lineup for a few more years, Fleetwood would always be the beating heart of the group, always laying down a precise pulse while knowing just when to explode when the track called for it.
Despite being a blues act, the band’s decision to draft in Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks after Welch’s departure led to their most significant successes. After the overnight success of songs like ‘Rhiannon’ and ‘Say You Love Me’, the pressure was on to make something equally commercial for their next album, leading to the band making their classic album Rumours.
While the sessions would be marred by the members fighting amongst each other and inter-band relationships disintegrating, Fleetwood would steer the band forward, knowing that the track could be great as long as he counted it in. Even though tracks like ‘Go Your Own Way’ were difficult for him to grasp, one of Nicks’ signature compositions was almost too straightforward for his taste.
Trying to take the optimistic approach to her failed relationship with Buckingham, Nicks would write ‘Dreams’ about wishing her lover peace, all while a gentle pulse plays in the background. Although Fleetwood plays very understated throughout the whole thing, he thought his performance was one of the most rudimentary things he could have done.
Speaking to MusicRadar, Fleetwood remembered just how easy it was to settle in, saying, “The intro, I think, is one of those stupidly simple things that came from the drummer who played with Al Green and The Staple Singers, so it’s from my love of what I call ‘greasy music.’ It has a real feel, and it’s lazy, behind the beat – stupidly simple but well-thought-out”.
Finding affection for something truly simple is usually a pastime reserved for the best musicians. It is only natural that, after being in a band that seemed to effortlessly blend jazz, blues and rock music, the reduction of the beat to something he deemed to be so simple it was “stupid” is a blessed relief.
Across the rest of the album, Fleetwood would create some of the greatest tracks of his career on songs like ‘The Chain’, all while paving the way for more adventurous approaches to percussion to come on the following album, Tusk. While ‘Dreams’ may not be the hardest thing for Fleetwood to play, his performance is a good lesson in doing the most with the fundamentals of the instrument.
