Nine MSN (Australian TV network)

Fleetwood Mac's back with old line-up

AP - Seven years ago when guitarist Lindsey Buckingham began working on a solo album, he was confronted by a cold reality: his record company had no interest in a Lindsey Buckingham solo album.

A Fleetwood Mac album, however, was a different story.

The company got its wish. One of rock 'n' roll's brand names - and longest-running soap operas - has been revived this spring with four-fifths of its most famous lineup.

A new album, "Say You Will," is the first project with all-new material for Buckingham, Stevie Nicks, drummer Mick Fleetwood and bass player John McVie since 1987. Missing is retired keyboard player Christine McVie, making this edition more muscular and guitar-oriented.

"All of us in this band, every time it comes around and happens again, are surprised and delighted, because we never think it is going to happen again," Nicks says.

The classic lineup - with Christine McVie included - had reunited for a nostalgia tour and live album in the late 1990s. But becoming a creative unit again was another thing entirely.

Even before the tour, Buckingham had invited the band's old rhythm section to work with him on his solo album. But Buckingham's solo work has never sold very well and Warner Bros. was disinterested. Realizing it was the only way to get the music out, and after years of work, the three men decided to invite Nicks to join them in the summer of 2001.

She was just about to leave for a long concert tour to support her own solo album. So she sent a disc of 17 songs she had written over several years - but never released - to Buckingham, Fleetwood and John McVie, who were working in a California studio.

Buckingham, the band's producer, saw Nicks' gift as a test. And the Fleetwood Mac soap opera began a new installment.

"Her involvement emotionally came in stages," he says. "She had sent stuff over, but I don't think she had a lot invested in what she sent over."

Not so, Nicks says.

"I didn't feel like I was dipping in my toe," she says.

"I had to go on this tour because Warner Bros had just released my record. ... I gave them the CD and said, 'I'll be back as soon as I can."'

Buckingham and Nicks with different interpretations of the same event?

There's a shock. Even cursory fans know their history: The couple's romantic breakup fueled the mega-selling album "Rumours," and they've danced delicately around each other's psyches ever since.

"All of that is never going to be behind us," says Nicks, as she gazes at the ocean from her California home. "Our destinies are so entwined. We fight a lot. We have a lot of arguments. But in the long run, we've worked it all out."

Buckingham is now a married father of two. Nicks is single, and has spoken candidly about how hard it is to mix relationships and her career - the new song "Silver Girl" is a big-sisterly ode to friend Sheryl Crow, who is confronting the same issues.

Pop Quiz - Stevie Nicks

LOS ANGELES (People) - Stevie Nicks hits the road this month, donning her platform shoes to tour with Fleetwood Mac following the release of their new album Say You Will. Scoop talked with Nicks, 54 late one night after band rehearsal in L.A.

How's rehearsal?

If I sound like I'm spaced, I'm not. I've been listening to really, really, really loud rock music since 2 o'clock, for almost eight hours now. But that's how it is-very long hours.

And you still love this?

I will like it if I'm having fun out there. I think we need to go out and make music that makes people happy.

How do rock and menopause mix?

Well, it has not been easy. I fight it every day. It takes over your life. It makes you not feel good. I've heard women say menopause is wonderful, the "change" is great, but it's not. It sucks. It forces you to make a choice-whether you want to get old or you want to stay young.

And you?

I have a 40-city tour starting on May 17. I can't give in.

At what age do you start worrying about falling off your platform boots?

I was trying to prepare everyone that I wasn't going to wear them on this tour, and I got a terrible reaction. So I guess they're back.

What do you think of the new crop of female rockers?

I just met Michelle Branch. Pretty impressive. I told her to write her own songs. That's where you make the money. I also laughingly said, "Don't ever gain 20 lbs."

Out of curiousity, have you seen American Idol?

Whenever I can. I love it. It makes me laugh. If I was 20, I'd be down there trying out.

If Simon said you couldn't sing, how would you react?

I could handle him.

And if you were a judge?

I'd be just like him. "Get another job. Next!"

'We're back together for the right reasons,' Stevie says

Interviewed separately, Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks discuss a variety of musical and personal topics.

THE CURRENT CHEMISTRY
Buckingham: "I would say it's elusive some of the time. Stevie and I have had many moments where we were able to acknowledge some things and get closer to closure than before."

Nicks: "The chemistry is good, and we're back together for the right reasons. We don't need the money. Our royalties will take care of us like a pension. What's really important now is to share this magical year."

CHRISTINE McVIE'S EXIT
Buckingham: "We did get her blessing. We asked her to come back, knowing she would say no. She was working through her own issues, and I think she had to burn a lot of bridges. She got a divorce, sold her house in L.A. and moved to the country in England."

Nicks: "We weren't sure we could do this without Chris. She told us to go ahead and have fun. We did let two or three years go by. We didn't want to make a wrong move. We finally decided she doesn't care what we do. Under those circumstances, we can continue. Fleetwood Mac always continues."

EFFECT OF LINEUP CHANGE
Buckingham: "I saw it as a challenge and an opportunity. In the past, there was never quite enough space for me to do what I wanted. Now there was 33% more room. Stevie and I were forced back into this mirror image, something closer to what we did before joining the band. My best guitar playing is on this record. Mick will tell you the best drumming he's done is on this record."

Nicks: "It pushed Lindsey, John and Mick back into a power trio. It made us focus more on guitar. We thought about bringing someone else in, but we can't replace Chris, and we're not going to try."

SPECIFIC CONTRIBUTIONS
Buckingham, on his Murrow Turning Over in His Grave: "I started this song when the O.J. Simpson trial was on. Before he retired, (pioneering journalist) Ed Murrow made a speech about how TV is used to delude and distract, and that people controlling TV needed to be more responsible. He must be turning over in his grave. Corporations own the media, and much of what passes for news these days is propaganda or fluff."

Nicks, on her Silver Girl: "It's an ode to the girl rock star inspired by Sheryl Crow, though it could be turned around and be about Avril Lavigne. I really feel Sheryl would have been much happier to be in my generation. She's not a coward, and she says what she feels."

WRITING HABITS
Buckingham: "I've built a studio in my new house, and I'd love for Stevie and myself to sit down and do some stuff from the ground up with two-part harmonies. If we had one complaint about this album, it's that we used a lot of older material, and a lot of mine was set in stone. Co-writing would be interesting. We've never done that."

Nicks: "Since 1969 in San Francisco, Lindsey and I have always written separately. And we've always been respectful to each other. He'd never say, 'I think you need to change this line.' I'd never say, 'I don't like the chorus.' We both understand that once a song is written down and presented, it can't be changed."

WAR, 9/11 AND POLITICS
Buckingham: "We're not a political band, and we never will be. Some songs seem to make a specific political comment only because certain events occurred. It's a strange coincidence. On What's the World Coming To, I tried to address insensitivity to the individual. Peacekeeper is a peace song that looks at this increasingly desensitized world. It asks what is peace. You can't expect to have a static condition called peace. You can only work toward that as an ideal. It may have certain reference points that apply to events of the last couple of years. Attaching a narrow interpretation is not necessarily bad, but it probably robs those songs of a richer interpretation. Lyrics need ambiguity to be rich enough to be a Rorschach."

Nicks: "I was in New York on 9/11 during my tour. I've never been a political person, but suddenly I felt like I was in the middle of history. We were at the Waldorf with all these foreign diplomats. It was very scary. I watched people jumping (from the twin towers) on a Mexican TV channel. We put wet towels in the windows to keep out the burning iron smell. Illume is a poem about 9/11 and about getting through it and getting back home. Part of me wanted to pack my bags and cancel the tour. But my parents and friends like Tom Petty and Don Henley kept saying, 'People paid to see your show, and if they're willing to go out in this frightening world, don't you dare come home.' It was hard to walk on stage and not burst into tears. I was almost hysterical. All my songs suddenly seemed to be about 9/11."

SOLITARY CONFINEMENT
Buckingham: "When I was little, I spent a lot of time in my room playing guitar. Later on, music certainly was a sanctuary, especially when I wasn't feeling very safe in the band and feeling maybe not appreciated, certainly not understood. I did a lot of work on my own. When I did that with Tusk, it was not with the sanction of the band. The result was a little more radical by virtue of being a knee-jerk reaction to (Rumours). It's tiring to stake out a space for myself and experiment, but I love it."

Nicks: "Writing songs is the love of my life. I didn't come here to be a mom. I'm here to write songs. I knew that at 15, when I wrote my first song. I flat-out stated, 'I will never be a secretary. I'm never going to get up at 8 to go to the office.' I can be very content alone with my journals."

PERSONAL
Buckingham (married father of two): "Having kids changed my view of myself. There's an irony there in terms of my world and how obsessive I had been for so long, even after leaving the band. Working on albums was my whole life. I had something to prove, and maybe the reasons were not particularly noble to begin with, but they were the seeds for developing some incredible work habits much to the exclusion of everything else. It was not good for relationships or anything. There's a reason to strike a balance now. Having children gave me a new mantra. I'm settling down, taking everything down a few pegs."

Nicks (unattached but looking): "I had two really nice relationships (since The Dance). Relationships seldom work for people like me. I'm simply too busy. Very few men are strong and secure enough to wave bye-bye when the limo pulls up to take me away. For it to work, someone would have to be incredibly secure, richer and more powerful than me and not bothered by my fame. I love to be in a relationship and be a caretaker, but it's frustrating when I don't have the time. Then I'm a half-assed girlfriend and a half-assed rock star."

MAC'S LEGACY AND CURRENCY
Buckingham: "It's not like we have to conform to what might be considered current. We have a base audience that's been around a long time. At the same time, it's hard to predict how sales will go. This is not a band resting on its laurels in any way. I can't think of anyone who's been around this long who's come up with some of the best stuff they've ever done. We're up against the pervasive clichι of a rocker burning out at 40, but look at writers and composers in other art forms who didn't hit their stride until 50."

Nicks: "We are very blessed. Our music has been the tapestry of so many people's lives. People in their 50s will hear this music and go, 'I want to go back and live in that time.' We are like the Pied Piper. We'll draw them in and lift them up with these songs. I don't care if we don't sell 20 million copies. If we sell 2 million and add a couple of songs to the repertoire people love, that's more important to us."

OUTSIDE PROJECTS
Buckingham: "I could probably write three or four more songs (to add to a backlog) and put out a solo record. And I will do that if there's no interest in continuing the band. The current circumstance is a lot easier and certainly more profound potentially. It seems so fitting that we've found each other after all this time. It seems a little bit sacred and worth nurturing. I've known Stevie since I was 16 and the others since I was 24. I don't see any reason to put out a solo album at this point."

Nicks: "Fleetwood Mac comes first. But I also want to do an animated movie of Rhiannon. And I want to finish a children's opera I started at 17 called The Ladybug and the Goldfish. In a dream I had when I was 14 or 15, I saw myself winning an Academy Award. I never figured out what for, but it would never be for acting. I'm not a good actress, and I'd never let people say, 'Oh, that Stevie, a songstress, writer extraordinaire and the worst actress we've ever seen!' I'll stick to writing."

THE BAND'S FUTURE
Buckingham: "I can't speak for Stevie. I can't predict how she'll feel in a year. All I can do is try to cultivate the right feeling and the right atmosphere for us to go on. We had some disagreements toward the end of the album, but we found common ground. Can we survive the land mines that may exist down the road? I hope so, because I would love to do another album. There's so much promise if we hang in there."

Nicks: "I'm used to going back and forth between Fleetwood Mac and my solo career. It seems right to me. I try to make sure my solo career doesn't ever take anything away from the band. Fleetwood Mac is more important. We should continue as long as we're having fun. It's a great band with so much history."

THE LAST WORDS

Buckingham: Say Goodbye, track No. 17:
"Saw your face yesterday thinking on the days of old
And the price that we paid for a love we couldn't hold
Oh I let you slip away, there was nothing I could do
That was so long ago, still I often think of you."

Nicks: Goodbye Baby, closing track:
"Goodbye baby, I hope your heart's not broken
Don't forget me, yes, I was outspoken
You were with me all the time
I'll be with you one day."

'Say You Will' Marks Fleetwood Mac Return

Seven years ago, when guitarist Lindsey Buckingham began working on a solo album, he was confronted by a cold reality: His record company had no interest in a Lindsey Buckingham solo album.

A Fleetwood Mac album, however, was a different story.

The company got its wish. One of rock 'n' roll's brand names — and longest-running soap operas — has been revived this spring with four-fifths of its most famous lineup.

A new album, "Say You Will," is the first project with all-new material for Buckingham, Stevie Nicks, drummer Mick Fleetwood and bass player John McVie since 1987. Missing is retired keyboard player Christine McVie, making this edition more muscular and guitar-oriented.

"All of us in this band, every time it comes around and happens again, are surprised and delighted, because we never think it is going to happen again," Nicks says.

The classic lineup — with Christine McVie included — had reunited for a nostalgia tour and live album in the late 1990s. But becoming a creative unit again was another thing entirely.

Even before the tour, Buckingham had invited the band's old rhythm section to work with him on his solo album. But Buckingham's solo work has never sold very well and Warner Bros. was disinterested. Realizing it was the only way to get the music out, and after years of work, the three men decided to invite Nicks to join them in the summer of 2001.

She was just about to leave for a long concert tour to support her own solo album. So she sent a disc of 17 songs she had written over several years — but never released — to Buckingham, Fleetwood and John McVie, who were working in a California studio.

Buckingham, the band's producer, saw Nicks' gift as a test. And the Fleetwood Mac soap opera began a new installment.

"Her involvement emotionally came in stages," he says. "She had sent stuff over, but I don't think she had a lot invested in what she sent over."

Not so, Nicks says.

"I didn't feel like I was dipping in my toe," she says. "I had to go on this tour because Warner Bros. had just released my record. ... I gave them the CD and said, 'I'll be back as soon as I can.'"

Buckingham and Nicks with different interpretations of the same event?

There's a shock. Even cursory fans know their history: The couple's romantic breakup fueled the mega-selling album "Rumours," and they've danced delicately around each other's psyches ever since.

"All of that is never going to be behind us," says Nicks, as she gazes at the ocean from her California home. "Our destinies are so entwined. We fight a lot. We have a lot of arguments. But in the long run, we've worked it all out."

Buckingham is now a married father of two. Nicks is single, and has spoken candidly about how hard it is to mix relationships and her career — the new song "Silver Girl" is a big-sisterly ode to friend Sheryl Crow, who is confronting the same issues.

Nicks was pleased with the work Fleetwood, McVie and Buckingham did on her songs, and she asked for a month to write fresh material and then joined them in the studio.

"Stevie and I were just checking each other out for a long time when she showed up," Buckingham says. "What's going to happen? Is it all going to explode and degrade to what it used to be or have we truly grown and can we truly elevate this beyond what it used to be?"

Join us next week on "As Fleetwood Mac Turns."

"It was only after going through some major traumas and coming out the other side are Stevie and I treating each other differently," Buckingham says.

The soap operas (Christine and John McVie worked together for years as divorced partners) may be a secret weapon for Fleetwood Mac. Fans feel they know these personalities, and the stories lend resonance to the work.

Seeing Buckingham and Fleetwood, now grizzled and gray, in a Manhattan hotel room is a reminder that a quarter-century has gone by since they were on top of the rock world.

The two men are planning for an early-morning television appearance the next day. Hmmm. A 4:30 a.m. wakeup call. That's 1:30, California time. Should we just stay up?

There was some discussion during the making of "Say You Will" that Christine McVie, who quit and moved back to England because she was sick of traveling, might participate. She's even listed as a side musician for some keyboard work.

But Nicks says it wouldn't work to have McVie contribute songs but not go on tour. Suppose one of her songs was a hit. Who would sing it?

"For years, we thought we can't do this again because Chris was gone," Nicks says. "Five years went by and we thought, maybe it's OK, because it's not like Fleetwood Mac hasn't made changes before. And it's not like there weren't 25 guitar players in this band before Lindsey and I joined."

She misses McVie personally, saying there's a new dynamic to the band.

"It's a boy's club now," she says. "That's been a little hard for me. But from a musical standpoint, it was really kind of fun to go back to a more guitar-oriented genre." Buckingham's guitar is now the lead instrument, as opposed to sharing space with McVie's keyboards, which makes for a tougher sound.

And, of course, there's more room for Buckingham and Nicks' material now that there are two writers, instead of three. The freedom nearly got the best of them. They recorded 23 songs but could only cut five, and Nicks concedes the resulting 76 minutes of music is too much.

Buckingham says the new album combines his esoteric instincts — "Tusk" was largely his idea — and the pop classicism of "Rumours."

"That's a great place to be in terms of a style for an album," he says. "I think this is the best work we've ever done."

Oh, and don't pine for the lost Lindsey Buckingham solo album. The nine songs he wrote for it are all on "Say You Will."

'Say You Will' says Fleetwood Mac's on again

By Edna Gundersen

Pop's longest-running soap opera has been renewed for another season. Harmonious negotiations, a revised cast and a fusion of two scripts yielded Fleetwood Mac's long-awaited studio reunion, Say You Will, which enters Billboard at No. 3 after selling 218,000 copies its first week.

Singer/songwriters Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham, former lovers whose Rumours-era split left a bitter wake, each contribute nine songs, some originally destined for their solo albums. Drummer Mick Fleetwood and bassist John McVie, founding members of the storied band, returned to the fold, while keyboardist Christine McVie opted to retire.

Sturdy musical roots and fragile emotional ties make Mac both a reliable and unpredictable commodity in rock. Fans embraced the band's lucrative comeback in 1997, yet the players retreated into uncertainty. Buckingham resumed work on a solo album, but when a Warner Bros. executive disparaged it, he shelved it in anticipation of a leadership change at the label.

"It was a lame-duck situation, so I played a waiting game," he says. "I said to Mick, 'Let's cut some tracks with Stevie.' If there was no interest in my solo album from the new regime, I figured it could morph into something else."

Incoming chief Tom Whalley did fancy Buckingham's songs, but it was a moot point, since a Mac homecoming was in full swing. Before Nicks left on a solo tour in July 2001, she handed Buckingham a 17-track demo containing songs dating back to 1976. On New Year's Eve, she listened to the tracks Buckingham had polished while producing the record.

"I realized I needed to add new material," Nicks says. "I told Lindsey, 'I know you've already been waiting for me for six months, but I need 30 days.' I told my brother, 'Fire up the 12-track Akai,' I got all my journals and went to work."

She delivered four songs in four weeks. Smooth sailing? Not quite. Sparks flew when Buckingham's desire for a two-CD set was overruled, despite his willingness to absorb any financial loss entailed in a configuration that yields less profit per track than a single disc.

"Some things conspired to force me to rethink that: politics in the band, certain things that were said," Buckingham says. "Then we had a confrontational experience in getting a running order everyone was all right with."

Now he's fretting over the set list for a tour starting May 7 in Columbus, Ohio, and heading east. The tour swings to the South and Midwest in June and hits the West Coast in July.

"It's more daunting than ever," he says. "The new album needs to be dignified, but people with a bottom-line mentality say you can't do too many new songs. How do you do a show that's not too much of one thing? I'm losing sleep."

Nicks says creative tension and her uneasy dance with Buckingham are the least of her worries.

"Mick and John could fire us and start over," she says.

The Mac is back
By JIM FARBER

Fleetwood Mac records first new studio album in 16 years -- without Christine McVie

Twenty-eight years after Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham joined Fleetwood Mac, they still don't view the group the same way. The making of "Say You Will," their first album of new material recorded with the band in 16 years, proves it.

"If I had my way, I would have started the album with the material most likely to offend as many people as possible," Buckingham says with a giggle. "Stevie would bury all that stuff at the end."

"I am not what you'd call an envelope-pusher," Nicks says. "Lindsey is there to make sure our band isn't too safe. I'm there to make sure it isn't too nuts. It's all about that balance between us."

Never more so than now. "Say You Will" -- in stores on Tuesday -- represents the first time that songwriters Buckingham and Nicks have recorded a Fleetwood Mac album without the band's third writer and harmonizer, piano player Christine McVie (who joined the band in 1970, five years before Nicks and Buckingham).

The result changes the Fleetwood dynamic crucially. Lacking the light touch of McVie's sentimental pop songs, as well as her jaunty keyboard, "Say You Will" ends up a heavier, stranger and riskier work than Fleetwood Mac has made before. It's as big a leap ahead as they made with 1979's "Tusk," their eccentric and unlikely followup to one of the most popular albums of all time, 1977's "Rumors," which sold 14 million copies.

The perception of "Say You Will" as a quirky work pleases Buckingham to no end. He says he wishes the band had kept getting weirder after "Tusk," instead of putting out such pop-oriented '80s albums as "Mirage" and "Tango in the Night."

"The politics in the band at the time put the lid on that," the 55-year-old guitarist says. "I felt like I was treading water."

One reason for the more adventurous approach on "Say You Will" has to do with its convoluted origins as a Buckingham solo project. Back in the mid-'90s, Buckingham was making a solo album when he invited the band's old rhythm section -- drummer Mick Fleetwood and bassist John McVie -- to play along. They all got on so well, it led to the 1997 album "The Dance," the first full Mac reunion since 1987.

Halfway through the roadshow to support that album, however, Christine McVie told the other members she didn't want to tour or even be in the band.

"We spent the next eight weeks trying to change her mind," Nicks says.

According to Buckingham, the pianist was having problems with her marriage, and longed to return to England. She wound up divorcing and moving to the outskirts of London.

The group says there are no hard feelings; Buckingham stresses that he relates to her need to flee, given his own escape from the band in the '80s. But the band members have rarely spoken with McVie since. (The pianist wouldn't comment.)

While Buckingham then wanted to complete the solo album he'd started before the reunion, he says the band's record label, Warner Bros., had no interest in it. So the material he had begun recording became the basis of "Say You Will." Nicks, who was committed to her own solo tour at the time, handed over 17 demos of her songs to the band to let them hammer them into shape.

Without McVie's piano playing, Buckingham says, "the remaining musicians had 33-1/3 percent more room to maneuver. We were able to flex our muscles and explore a more masculine sound. It's closer to what we're like live."

According to Buckingham, the absence of McVie's songs also allowed "Stevie and I to squarely face each other and create the kind of dynamic we had before we joined the band." In that respect, "Say You Will" recalls the solo album released by the duo before they joined Mac -- 1974's "Buckingham Nicks."

In the lyrics to the new album, the pair make eager use of their complicated personal histo ry. Several of Nicks' songs refer to her busted romance with Buckingham, which ended more than 25 years ago. The album closes with farewell numbers to each other. Nicks, 54, wrote hers in the '70s. Buckingham composed his around the time of "The Dance."

Of course, the group has been airing its dirty laundry (with hugely profitable results) ever since the "Rumors" album, which chronicled two simultaneous breakups within the band (the second being the McVies').

Buckingham marvels that "after all this time, Stevie and I still have something to give each other." (He has been married to Kristen Messner since 2000.) Nicks says of her relationship with Buckingham, "We can never replace each other."

They say they understand each other far better now than they have in decades. But Nicks emphasizes that they still argue every day. "That will never change. We are very different people. Stick us in a house together for a year and trauma will come out of that. But the result is, we don't make a blah record."

They also don't make a short one. "Say You Will" features 18 songs. As Nicks jokes, "You need two days to listen to this record."

But it's time well spent. The set features some of the fastest and most intricate guitar work to date from Buckingham, and some of the most honest lyrics from Nicks. The group wants to bring as much of that excitement as possible to its upcoming tour, which will feature several old Christine McVie songs.

But the band faces a dilemma in capturing what Buckingham calls "the spirit of the band now."

"There are forces that would be happy just to present this as a nostalgia act," he says. "But we want to walk a line -- to be fresh and dignified and yet not alienate too much of the audience."

No doubt, the members will argue about how to accomplish that, not just for this tour, but for as long as they continue to play.

Mac drama continues in new CD
BY HOWARD COHEN

Decades since Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks turned their rocky romance into the aural soap opera classic, Rumours, the Fleetwood Mac pair still find new ways to get on each others' nerves.

Case exhibit: the recording of Say You Will, in stores Tuesday and the duo's first album of original material with the band in 16 years.

''We had a few little bumps near the end of the project when she came in off the road after her tour,'' Buckingham says. ``We had made quite a start on her stuff and I think she was glad to have the collective arms around her because her tour was quite a burden on her. But, in some ways, she was looking at me, [thinking], `What's he going to do to my songs?' ''

Nicks, a rock star in her own right, hadn't had to answer to her old boyfriend in quite some time. But, among other roles, Buckingham produced the edgy Say You Will and it originated from his aborted solo album.

''There was plenty of drama, plenty of arguments, things we really had to hash out,'' Nicks says. ``But that's what makes a great record. If everything went blissfully smooth it would be a blissfully boring record.''

Song sequencing and selection were the primary issues.

''In the beginning it was a double record with 23 songs,'' Nicks says. ``But in January we decided to make it a single record. With the way the country is going and the economy, maybe we don't want to put out a double record right now.''

Say You Will, like the risky 1979 Tusk, reveals the differences in approach taken by these songwriters.

Buckingham, 55, aims not only to push the envelope, but to light it afire with scorching guitar leads and quirky arrangements that, on songs like Murrow Turning Over in His Grave and Come, border on industrial metal. Nicks, 54, prefers a more conventional pop-rock style.

TOUGHER SOUND

Say You Will represents the first time since 1970 that Fleetwood Mac has recorded an album without vocalist-keyboardist Christine McVie, 59, who opted out of the band following the 1997 reunion tour and live CD, The Dance. Her backing vocals remain on two tracks Buckingham reworked from his solo project.

Minus McVie's buoyant love songs, Say You Will ends up a heavier, fresher, guitar-oriented opus -- an antidote to the comparatively tepid pop of '80s albums Mirage and Tango in the Night, records that led to Buckingham's departure.

''I had left the band in order to keep growing and to make sure that I allowed myself to remain in a creatively nurturing environment which Fleetwood Mac had become the antithesis of in 1987,'' he says. ``When we went into this project I was able to take on more responsibilities.''

Now the primary voices, Buckingham and Nicks were also able to return to the confessional hallmarks of Rumours.

But yesterday's gone. Buckingham is now married to photographer Kristen Messner and the couple have a son and daughter. ''I have nothing but good memories of growing up in an upper middle class family in northern California. I always thought I would have kids,'' he says. ``I never found the right person but I wasn't the right person at the time, either. I happened to meet someone that I get along with very well.''

Nicks, still single, contributed to the new CD Smile at You, reputedly from an old '70s demo. Guess the target. What you did not need was a woman / Who was stronger / You needed someone to depend on you / I could not be her.

Such politics-of-the-heart tunes also rub against topical songs with a broader world view. Buckingham offers a caustic media commentary, Murrow. Nicks delivers her melancholic poem, Illume (9-11).

In hindsight, then, Say You Will is the balanced album that probably would have been a better followup to Rumours than the eccentric Tusk. It's also, with the possible exception of Rumours, the first studio work to approximate this band's energy on stage. (The tour hits the Office Depot Center June 7.)

''That's no accident,'' Buckingham says. ``Approaching things without Christine gave us some opportunities to play differently. With everyone having that much more room to maneuver as a musician it allowed it to be more masculine.''

POP LANDSLIDE

The timing for a new CD couldn't be better. The Dixie Chicks' recent cover of Nicks' 1975 composition Landslide became a big crossover hit.

'They took Landslide to a whole other genre of people -- a k a much younger people! They opened up dialogues from kids: `Hey, I love this Landslide song, so let's go see what else Fleetwood Mac wrote.' For that, we are forever in debt,'' says Nicks.

So spirits are high. ''We get along very well now,'' Nicks says. ``I think all of us are realizing how lucky we are. . . . Who wouldn't want to be in Fleetwood Mac? That's what I keep telling myself any time I have a problem.''

Then she laughs. The recording hassles all but forgotten. Until it's time to write for the next CD.

Mac drama continues in new CD BY HOWARD COHEN
hcohen@herald.com

Decades since Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks turned their rocky romance into the aural soap opera classic, Rumours, the Fleetwood Mac pair still find new ways to get on each others' nerves.

Case exhibit: the recording of Say You Will, in stores Tuesday and the duo's first album of original material with the band in 16 years.

"We had a few little bumps near the end of the project when she came in off the road after her tour," Buckingham says. "We had made quite a start on her stuff and I think she was glad to have the collective arms around her because her tour was quite a burden on her. But, in some ways, she was looking at me, [thinking], 'What's he going to do to my songs?' "

Nicks, a rock star in her own right, hadn't had to answer to her old boyfriend in quite some time. But, among other roles, Buckingham produced the edgy Say You Will and it originated from his aborted solo album.

"There was plenty of drama, plenty of arguments, things we really had to hash out," Nicks says. "But that's what makes a great record. If everything went blissfully smooth it would be a blissfully boring record."

Song sequencing and selection were the primary issues.

"In the beginning it was a double record with 23 songs," Nicks says. "But in January we decided to make it a single record. With the way the country is going and the economy, maybe we don't want to put out a double record right now."

Say You Will, like the risky 1979 Tusk, reveals the differences in approach taken by these songwriters.

Buckingham, 55, aims not only to push the envelope, but to light it afire with scorching guitar leads and quirky arrangements that, on songs like Murrow Turning Over in His Grave and Come, border on industrial metal. Nicks, 54, prefers a more conventional pop-rock style.

TOUGHER SOUND

Say You Will represents the first time since 1970 that Fleetwood Mac has recorded an album without vocalist-keyboardist Christine McVie, 59, who opted out of the band following the 1997 reunion tour and live CD, The Dance. Her backing vocals remain on two tracks Buckingham reworked from his solo project.

Minus McVie's buoyant love songs, Say You Will ends up a heavier, fresher, guitar-oriented opus -- an antidote to the comparatively tepid pop of '80s albums Mirage and Tango in the Night, records that led to Buckingham's departure.

"I had left the band in order to keep growing and to make sure that I allowed myself to remain in a creatively nurturing environment which Fleetwood Mac had become the antithesis of in 1987," he says. "When we went into this project I was able to take on more responsibilities."

Now the primary voices, Buckingham and Nicks were also able to return to the confessional hallmarks of Rumours.

But yesterday's gone. Buckingham is now married to photographer Kristen Messner and the couple have a son and daughter. "I have nothing but good memories of growing up in an upper middle class family in northern California. I always thought I would have kids," he says. "I never found the right person but I wasn't the right person at the time, either. I happened to meet someone that I get along with very well."

Nicks, still single, contributed to the new CD Smile at You, reputedly from an old '70s demo. Guess the target. What you did not need was a woman / Who was stronger / You needed someone to depend on you / I could not be her.

Such politics-of-the-heart tunes also rub against topical songs with a broader world view. Buckingham offers a caustic media commentary, Murrow. Nicks delivers her melancholic poem, Illume (9-11).

In hindsight, then, Say You Will is the balanced album that probably would have been a better followup to Rumours than the eccentric Tusk. It's also, with the possible exception of Rumours, the first studio work to approximate this band's energy on stage. (The tour hits the Office Depot Center June 7.)

"That's no accident," Buckingham says. "Approaching things without Christine gave us some opportunities to play differently. With everyone having that much more room to maneuver as a musician it allowed it to be more masculine."

POP LANDSLIDE

The timing for a new CD couldn't be better. The Dixie Chicks' recent cover of Nicks' 1975 composition Landslide became a big crossover hit.

'They took Landslide to a whole other genre of people -- a k a much younger people! They opened up dialogues from kids: 'Hey, I love this Landslide song, so let's go see what else Fleetwood Mac wrote.' For that, we are forever in debt," says Nicks.

So spirits are high. "We get along very well now," Nicks says. "I think all of us are realizing how lucky we are. . . . Who wouldn't want to be in Fleetwood Mac? That's what I keep telling myself any time I have a problem."

Then she laughs. The recording hassles all but forgotten. Until it's time to write for the next CD.

Buckingham gets back into 'that thing' of Fleetwood Mac

Joel Selvin, Chronicle Staff Writer

Lindsey Buckingham started working more than six years ago on the new Fleetwood Mac album, "Say You Will," that hits stores today. He just didn't know it at the time.

Buckingham originally thought he was making another solo album when he started recording with former band mates Mick Fleetwood on drums and John McVie on bass for the first time since he left the group in 1986.

"At that point, some sort of light bulb went off somewhere," Buckingham said, "in Mick's head or Warner Bros.' Probably everywhere, unbeknownst to me. People started saying 'We got John, Mick and Lindsey in the studio maybe.' "

The band did reunite for a 1997 live greatest-hits album, "The Dance," and sold-out tour, but Buckingham went back to his solo album. "The live album and the tour that followed was basically the result of a kind of an intervention that we had on me to sort of say 'You've got to put your album down and do this,' " said Buckingham, a notorious obsessive who has spent years sealed away recording albums.

When he did finish the solo album, the label wasn't all that enthusiastic. "When we got off 'The Dance' and I got finished with it maybe a year after that, and took it to Warners, they had been bought out by AOL and they were sort of on their way out as a regime. (Warner Chairman) Russ Thyret didn't like my stuff anyway. It was like, well, geez. And Mick and I decided to start cutting some tracks of Stevie's and it just sort of morphed into that thing."

"That thing," of course, is what the Warner publicity campaign is calling the first new Fleetwood Mac studio album since the 1986 multiplatinum "Tango in the Night," conveniently omitting two entirely forgettable, far less successful albums released under the franchise name with different lineups in the interim. But Warner is right in spirit -- "Say You Will" is the second coming of the '70s supergroup, even without keyboardist-vocalist Christine McVie, a triumphant return to form for a group that has been all but washed up for the better part of 20 years.

"We rented a house over on the west side (of Los Angeles) and we moved all of my gear over there," Buckingham said on the phone before a rehearsal for a tour that starts May 7 (July 8 at the HP Pavilion in San Jose). "I started engineering. Probably 95 percent of the time spent in this house was really spent working on Stevie (Nicks) 'cause my stuff was pretty much completed and the other 5 percent was just opening up my tracks, recalling my mixes and getting her voices on them."

The 76-minute CD -- at one point in the session, band members pondered a two-CD set -- rekindles the trademark sound with magician's ease, simultaneously recalling such varied past efforts as "Rumours," "Tusk" and "Tango in the Night." "Certainly on the album, you do have things that fall in the category of being very familiar or very Fleetwood Mac," said Buckingham. "Then you have things like 'Come' or 'Red Rover' or 'Murrow Turning Over in His Grave,' which, in many ways, are more adventuresome than anything we've ever done."

Buckingham and Fleetwood Mac apparently need each other in important ways.

Not only has the group failed to produce any memorable records since Buckingham left, but Buckingham has spent countless thousands of hours crafting brilliant solo albums that are appreciated by no more than a slender handful of big Mac's audience. After the current project changed from a Buckingham solo album to a new Fleetwood Mac record, he noticed a different attitude at the label.

"I was always seen as the troublemaker," he said, "as someone who would shake up the status quo of what was a good thing. I was really trying to be honest to what I thought was important, which was to do your work, look into things that help you to grow. To think long term and to do it for yourself. And not run one thing into the ground because that's what sells. There's always been a kind of wariness between myself and the record company and vice versa and none of that helps in terms of getting the machine behind you."

Without Christine McVie, the songwriting and vocals come down to Buckingham and Nicks, who recorded an album as Buckingham Nicks before joining Fleetwood Mac. They first met when Buckingham attended Menlo Atherton High School and they began working together seriously when they were at College of San Mateo. At this point, almost 40 years later, they blend like the seasoned collaborators they are.

"It's that inexplicable thing that we've always had," he said.

"There's a song on there called 'Thrown Down' that I think she tried about three different times with three different producers and never made it anywhere. It was supposed to go on a solo album. It was just obvious to me it needed a guitar riff in the chorus. It was a fairly simple thing, for some reason. There seems to be an understanding between us as to what to do."

Buckingham talked about "reconciling" the styles of recordings he used with "Rumours," the band's 1977 release that still ranks among the best-selling albums of all time, and "Tusk," a 1979 double-record set that was a stark departure from the band's sunny trademark sound.

"If you go back to 'Tusk,' " he said, "that was an album where I was trying a certain approach, you might call more of a painting approach, where I was sort of working on my own in a studio with a machine and kind of allowing things to happen. It was kind of a subconscious approach, one-on-one with the canvas, as opposed to working with the group, which is more verbal and political, more like moviemaking, probably. I had to lobby to get that album made the way it was made. Everyone was quite happy with how it turned out. In fact, Mick would tell you now it's his favorite album, as it is mine. But at the same time, when it did not sell 16 million albums, a dictum kind of came down from the group that we're not going to do that anymore." Buckingham, 55, is recently married, raising a son, 4, and daughter, 2.

For someone who once groused that he would rather belong to the Clash, Buckingham has more than made his peace with Fleetwood Mac at this point.

"The subtext of all of this is really that we are here," Buckingham said, "and, in many ways, are better than ever, maybe breaking the mold a little bit.

I know there certainly are enough '80s Boomer acts still making music. But the fact is that we are here and still caring so much about it and, in many ways, doing the best work we've ever done at a point in our lives where, you know, the cliche of rock 'n' roll being: By the time you're 40, you're either burned out or tapped out. It feels very fresh and very new, and still solid. The history, it's deep. And we're just thrilled to be here."

'Will' Power

On "Say You Will," due this week from Reprise, Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks have collaborated together on their first Fleetwood Mac studio album since 1987's "Tango in the Night." Drummer Mick Fleetwood and bassist John McVie are both on board as well, but Christine McVie appears on just one of the set's 18 tunes and will not be touring with Fleetwood Mac this summer.

Luckily, Nicks penned the set's sunny title track, which is catchy and destined to be a radio hit. Buckingham's meaty, bass-heavy stomper "Murrow Turning Over in His Grave" is another highlight, while the driving rocker "Running Through the Garden" showcase's Nicks' passionate vocals. The single "Peacekeeper" is No. 15 on Billboard's Adult Contemporary chart this week.

"The whole energy in Fleetwood Mac right now is incredible," Fleetwood says. "Our story is a really happy one at the moment. We've pushed some envelopes with this new album. We've made an album that we love, and we're not frightened or insecure about who we are." The group's first tour since 1997 will kick off May 7 in Columbus, Ohio.

Dysfunction doesn't fluster Fleetwood Mac

By George Varga
POP MUSIC CRITIC

LOS ANGELES – If personal and creative tension between band members is essential to musical success in rock 'n' roll, Fleetwood Mac's new album, "Say You Will," is already a winner.

"It hasn't been an easy road," said singer-guitarist Lindsey Buckingham, who produced or co-produced all 18 songs on the album. "It had some fork-in-the-road moments, and it had some very profound bonding moments.

"Near the end it had some quite confrontational – and very pleasant – moments."

Due out April 15, the meticulously crafted collection is the first new studio album by Buckingham, singer Stevie Nicks, drummer Mick Fleetwood and bassist John McVie since 1986's "Tango in the Night."

It is also only the group's second album since 1970's "Kiln House" that does not prominently feature singer-keyboardist Chistine McVie, whose songwriting credits include such Fleetwood Mac favorites as "Don't Stop," "You Make Loving Fun" and "Say You Love Me."

She quit after completing the enormously lucrative first leg of the quintet's 1997 reunion tour, which then ground to a halt. Her departure came 10 years after singer-guitarist Buckingham had quit to pursue a solo career, over the heated objections of Nicks, Fleetwood and the two McVies, who were divorced in 1976 (a year after Buckingham and Nicks joined the band).

"The Fleetwood Mac world certainly can be dysfunctional at times," Fleetwood said, with classic British understatement. "But having been in this band for what seems to me forever – since 1967 – this is one moment in time that I think the band has done something quite exceptional."

Last month, on a day that – fittingly – was sunny one moment, cloudy the next, Buckingham, 55, Nicks, 54, and Fleetwood, 55, discussed their band's tumultuous past and (for now) relatively peaceful present in separate interviews.

Nicks spoke at her elegant, two-level home overlooking the ocean in Pacific Palisades. Buckingham (her boyfriend until the mid-1970s) and Fleetwood (who had an affair with Nicks that same decade) took turns chatting in a luxury trailer in Culver City.

The trailer was adjacent to a massive sound stage, where Fleetwood Mac was rehearsing for its upcoming tour. At least for now, the three-month trek (which may be extended) skips San Diego in favor of a July 16 show at the Arrowhead Pond of Anaheim.

Nicks and Fleetwood agreed that, in the years since the band achieved superstardom in the mid-'70s, its fortunes have ebbed and flowed depending on Buckingham's degree of commitment.

Buckingham, conversely, downplayed his importance to Fleetwood Mac, whose 1995 album without him and Christine McVie, "Time," was such a commercial and artistic flop that Fleetwood and John McVie temporarily disbanded the group.

"I don't think the weight is so much on me," Buckingham said matter-of-factly. "And I do think this thing is bigger than all of us."

That opinion was strongly disputed by Nicks, his former paramour.

"Fleetwood Mac never would have broken up if it had been up to me, Mick, John or Christine. So this is all Lindsey's ballpark," said Nicks, as she curled up in front of the fireplace in her living room, filled with state-of-the-art workout equipment.

"Lindsey either wants to be in Fleetwood Mac, or he doesn't," she stressed. "So he decided he wanted to do it again. And when he decides he wants to do it again, we all either say 'No,' or we say 'Yes.' Christine said 'No,' and the rest of us said 'Yes, we'll do it, we'll give it one more run.' And we all felt that we could do another great album, or we wouldn't have done it."

In fact, Christine McVie is featured on "Say You Will's" title track (written by Nicks as an homage to McVie) and on the Buckingham-penned song "Bleed to Love Her," both of which date back to the band's 1997 reunion tour. The majority of the new album, however, was recorded over the last 18 months in Los Angeles.

With or without Christine McVie, this new album is the harmonious-sounding result of some of the same friction that's fueled the group since 1977. It was then that "Rumours," an album made in the wake of the McVies' divorce and the Buckingham/Nicks split, made Fleetwood Mac one of the best-selling rock bands ever.

"Say You Will," while unlikely to match the success of the 17-million-plus-selling "Rumours," has some of Buckingham and Nicks' best work in years. It also boasts several likely hit singles, including the just-released "Peacekeeper," although the 18-song album would be far stronger had it been trimmed by a third.

"This was going to be a double album," said Buckingham, who is dismayed that five songs had to be cut to contain "Say You Will" to one CD.

"We ended up – in the process of the confrontations we were having about the (songs') running order – pulling back and making it an aggressive single CD."

Fleetwood, who has headed the band through countless lineup changes over the decades, sounded fatherly when he weighed in on the album's length.

"Lindsey's mind works on what's right for the art, and I'm not devoid of that," Fleetwood said. "But at some point I will be at least practical."

Buckingham is clearly proud of what he brought to "Say You Will." But he sounded peeved that, while the rest of the band went to Hawaii on vacation, he had to remain behind to complete mixing and sequencing the album.

"Well, somebody had to finish the record!" he said. "So that (process) went through a whole series of political spasms and not-very-pleasant phone conversations. But we got there."

The album showcases the most fluid and biting guitar work of Buckingham's career. It also features nine songs he wrote or co-wrote, and nine that Nicks wrote or co-wrote, although the two do not share any of the co-writing credits.

But Buckingham didn't hesitate to express his disappointment that his work had yet to be praised by Nicks.

"I know she must be thrilled with the album, on one level," he said. "And yet, she's never said anything to me, like 'Nice job.' That's just been hard for us. So, in that sense, in the way that I'm almost disgustingly warm and fuzzy, she's probably slightly defiant. But she's great. I think all she needs to do is find her rhythm."

Her cosmic, hippie-dippie image to the contrary, Nicks was perfectly grounded and in sync as she spoke at her home.

"I'm my own worst critic," she said. "But I think my material on this album is some of my best material ever. And I think that Lindsay's material is his best material ever. So I feel that whatever it was that made us reform, there was a real reason for it. And maybe it was all this material that needed to come out."

Buckingham regards Christine McVie's departure as an "opportunity," the next phase of the band's evolution. Nicks agreed, if only to a degree.

"The good news is that, without Chris, you take out the piano influence, since none of the rest of us play piano," she said.

"Since she's gone and she doesn't want to be here, and we have certainly done everything we can imagine to talk her into coming back, we have to accept that and move on. So it's just the four of us. It's going to be more guitar-oriented, it's going to be more Ginger Baker and Eric Clapton and whoever the other guy (Jack Bruce) was (in Cream, rock's proto-power-trio in the 1960s). . . .

"The bad news is that I miss her, terribly. There's not a day that I don't think, 'Where is she?' It's more about the friendship and her humor, and her funny, funny, stupid English jokes and how she could make everything lighten up with a flick of her personality. She was a joy to be around. And she was my best friend. So as much as I think that everyone else would like to hear me say, 'Oh, it's much better (now),' no, I can't say that. Because I miss her so much."

Ever the diplomat, Fleetwood carefully cast Christine McVie's departure in a pragmatic light.

"I think it's just a change, and God knows we've changed as a band," said the balding, white-haired drummer. "It's allowed a whole new chapter of Fleetwood Mac, musically, to take place."

That new chapter should appeal to veteran fans, who made the band's 1997 reunion one of the biggest-grossing tours of the 1990s, even without an album of new material. And Fleetwood Mac's influence continues to be felt through the work of such admirers as the Dixie Chicks, who scored a major hit last year with their version of the Mac chestnut "Landslide."

The key questions now are whether or not Fleetwood Mac can draw a new generation of fans, especially if pop radio shuns its new album and whether the group's appeal will be limited to nostalgia-hungry veteran fans, and if so, does it matter?

"I think it's always important, but it's certainly not a tragedy if we don't (reach new listeners)," said Fleetwood, the father of 1-year-old twin girls and, from a previous marriage, two daughters in their early 30s. "If you really want to know my opinion, I think this album is going to be huge. And I think it's going to mutate into something that not even we can imagine."

"You know what?" Nicks asked. "I think that Fleetwood Mac's fans' children love Fleetwood Mac. I do. And that is what I seem to get through all my fan mail. Everywhere I go, really young kids come up to me."

She laughed.

"If I had children, of course my children would have listened to exactly what I wanted to listen to for the last 20 years," Nicks added with a grin. "I can't help but think that people will love this record. But who knows? It could just tank completely."

Buckingham, the father of a 21/2-year-old daughter and a 41/2 -year-old son, is especially eager to attract younger fans. Accordingly, "Come," one of his songs on "Say You Will," is delivered with a musical and lyrical ferocity that should impress even the most hardcore, young industrial-rock fans.

"It's not a matter of playing down, but you can't play to the age group that you think is your traditional buyer," he noted. "Nor can you be something you're not. We're just trying to do what we think is interesting, and to be ourselves, but still push the envelope."

And should the members of this edition of Fleetwood Mac decide to go their own ways, will honcho Fleetwood put together a new version of the band that has been his life for nearly 40 years? Don't count on it.

"I would venture to say that that would just not be on the cards. This is it," he declared with finality. "This is it for how I see this. And if this can work and (we can) be happy, my hope would be to go forward. That's how I'm approaching it."

Fleetwood Mac returns ready to serve up old, new

Howard Cohen
Backstage Pass
Fleetwood Mac is back.

The group, armed with the upcoming Say You Will, easily its best studio album in 24 years, brings its tour to Sunrise's Office Depot Center June 7.

The lineup includes singer-guitarist Lindsey Buckingham, singer Stevie Nicks, drummer Mick Fleetwood and bassist John McVie. Expect a 2 ½-hour concert and some surprises. Since singer-keyboardist Christine McVie is gone, most of her songs will be retired. 'The songs we'll do of Chris' will be the ones we shared,'' Nicks says, suggesting Don't Stop, Tusk and You Make Loving Fun might make the set.

In addition to the new single, Peacekeeper, expect some older songs to make their first live appearance. ''I think we're going to do a version of Beautiful Child,'' Nicks says, referring to a 1979 ballad found on the Tusk LP. ``It's just the saddest song you have ever heard. It's working out, and I think it'll make the set. We're going back into our trunk of gazillions of songs and picking a few dark-horse Fleetwood Mac songs. We'll still do Rhiannon and Gold Dust Woman and Go Your Own Way and Monday Morning. The songs everyone will want to hear will be there.''

With some notable changes. ''One thing we can't do is open with The Chain again,'' Buckingham says, laughing.

Tickets for Fleetwood Mac are $126.50, $76.50 and $49.50 and go on sale at 10 a.m. Saturday.

Fleetwood Mac Links With NBC

Fleetwood Mac has joined forces with NBC for a major media campaign centered around the band's new Reprise album, "Say You Will," due April 15. Last month, the band offered an exclusive preview of the album's first single, "Peacekeeper," on NBC's show "Third Watch." The week of April 14, the band will be featured daily on NBC's weekday morning show "Today." On April 18, the band will perform on "Today" and will be profiled on NBC's news magazine "Dateline."

"Say You Will" is Fleetwood Mac's first studio album of new material with Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham since 1987's "Tango in the Night," which featured the top-10 Billboard Hot 100 hits "Big Love" (No. 5) and "Little Lies" (No. 7).

Guests on the album include former Fleetwood Mac member Christine McVie (who is on an indefinite hiatus from the band) and Sheryl Crow. The set features a Buckingham-penned song, "Bleed To Love Her," which previously appeared on Fleetwood Mac's 1997 live album "The Dance."

As previously reported, the group will kick off a North American tour May 7 in Columbus, Ohio. Presale tickets for fan club members begin tomorrow (March 13); tickets go on sale to the general public beginning Saturday. For more information, visit Fleetwood Mac's official Web site.

Here is the complete track listing for "Say You Will":

• "What's the World Coming To"
• "Murrow Turning Over in His Grave"
• "Illume (9/11)"
• "Throw Down"
• "Miranda"
• "Red Rover"
• "Say You Will"
• "Peacekeeper"
• "Come"
• "Smile at You"
• "Running Through the Garden"
• "Silver Girl"
• "Steal Your Heart Away"
• "Bleed To Love Her"
• "Everybody Finds Out"
• 'Destiny Rules"
• "Say Goodbye"
• "Goodbye Baby"

-- Carla Hay, N.Y.

Fleetwood Mac Announce Tour

Updated 07:49 PST Thu, Mar 06 2003

Fleetwood Mac are back in a big way this year. The band has both a new album - Say You Will, their first studio album in 15 years, to be released April 15 - and a big arena tour on the docket.

According to the band's Web site, 42 concerts are scheduled to begin in May. However, it's not clear if those are all North American dates or if they include the world tour Mick Fleetwood talks about on his site.

For now, 31 shows are confirmed. The tour launches May 7 in Columbus, Ohio, and runs over the summer.

It's Fleetwood Mac's first tour since 1997 when they single-handedly sold out arenas around the States.

Official fan club members will get first crack at the tickets, with the "best 20 percent of the house" being saved for members. The presale, through Ticketmaster, is already going on for select markets. General public tickets are expected to go on sale sometime this month.

Noticeably absent from the album and tour is Christine McVie. However, mainstays Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham, and founding members Mick Fleetwood and Jon McVie are all onboard.

Veteran rock band Fleetwood Mac will preview a new song, "Peacekeeper," Monday (Feb. 24) on the NBC series "Third Watch." The song, which premieres at the end of the episode, is from the group's new album, "Say You Will," due in April on Warner Bros. The set is Fleetwood Mac's first all-new studio album with founding members Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks since the 1987 set "Tango in the Night."

Drummer Mick Fleetwood recently told Billboard, "The whole energy in Fleetwood Mac right now is incredible. Our story is a really happy one at the moment. We've pushed some envelopes with this new album. We've made an album that we love, and we're not frightened or insecure about who we are."

The band is expected to launch a tour by this summer. Sources say that the first leg of the tour will include about 40 U.S. cities. "We're going to have fun with it," Fleetwood says of the tour. "And I'm pretty sure we'll come out intact."

Fleetwood Mac Say New Album

"Say You Will" due in April, world tour in May

Fleetwood Mac will release their new album, Say You Will, on April 15th. The album is their first full collection of new material with Lindsey Buckingham onboard since 1987's Tango in the Night. However, Say You Will, the group's first release since the half-new/half-unplugged The Dance five years ago, doesn't feature keyboardist/singer Christine McVie, who had been with the band since 1970. Some of Buckingham's contributions to Say You Will are as many as nine years old, as he initially considered using some for a solo release. "[Christine's departure] kind of freed the Fleetwood Mac situation to be looked at in a fresh light and in some ways in the dynamic that Stevie and I had going before we joined the band," Buckingham told Rolling Stone. "But this music is the best that I've ever done on my own, or with Fleetwood Mac, tapping into some new areas. And after all of this time, Stevie and I have managed to get to a point where we're comfortable. There's nothing we can't talk about. I talked to Don Henley one time about the Eagles, and it seemed like there was so little love or idealism left in that group of people and perhaps that's more the norm for people our age. But we seem to be slightly more arrested, and I think there's some potential for some good stuff because of that."

Drummer Mick Fleetwood says that Buckingham's input on the record reminds him of the band's segue from 1977's Rumours to the more sprawling 1979 release, Tusk. "His whole life is so involved in doing what he does," Fleetwood said. "Quite frankly, I'm not sure how he stays focused all those years on pieces of music, but he does. It has a lot of the sensibilities [of Tusk] and Lindsey's definitely pushed some envelopes that are exciting. I don't think people will accuse us of standing still."

Nicks' contributions came from a similar flood of material. The singer gave Buckingham, Fleetwood and bassist John McVie eighteen songs to work with, before she went out to tour behind her 2001 release, Trouble in Shangri-La. "So it was the power trio," Fleetwood said. "And that was great, because we did a lot of reconnecting." Nicks' friendship with Sheryl Crow also resulted in a guest appearance by Crow, who added harmony vocals and keyboards to Say You Will.

Fleetwood Mac are planning a world tour, to launch in May.

ANDREW DANSBY

Fleetwood Mac back on track
By Edna Gundersen, USA TODAY

Rumours confirmed Fleetwood Mac's place in rock history. The question now is whether the storied '70s band has currency in 2003.

Four of the five original members of Fleetwood Mac reunited for the recording of Say You Will, to be released on April 15.

A new Mac attack starts April 15 with Say You Will, the band's first studio album boasting a quorum of core members since 1987's Tango in the Night.

Singer/guitarist Lindsey Buckingham, who left after Tango and returned for Mac's lucrative 1997 reunion, produced the album, which also features singer Stevie Nicks, bassist John McVie and drummer Mick Fleetwood. Singer/keyboardist Christine McVie retired.

The album, recorded in Los Angeles over the past 18 months, contains new songs written by Buckingham and Nicks. It also has a studio version of Bleed to Love Her, which had been included on 1997's live reunion disc, The Dance.

Snippets of Say You Will can be heard in Fox promos for That '70s Show.

That decade found Fleetwood Mac in peak form. Rumours, the top-selling album of 1977 and third-best in 1978, spawned hits Go Your Own Way, Dreams, Don't Stop and You Make Loving Fun, and for a time it reigned as the biggest seller in history. It has sold18 million copies and ranks ninth among U.S. best sellers. The band sustained success in the '80s when Nicks' solo career also flowered, but splintered lineups in the '90s led to decreased sales and airplay.

Although fans rallied for the 1997 reunion tour and chart-topping album, pop's current climate tends to relegate veteran acts to the oldies circuit.

"It's difficult to think of Fleetwood Mac making a bad album, but I'm not sure how much difference that would make," says Anthony DeCurtis, Rolling Stone contributing editor. "The new music is entirely secondary. The best parallel would be Paul McCartney, who made a pretty good record (Driving Rain) in 2001. He had a huge successful tour, but the record didn't do much.

"That's the problem Fleetwood Mac faces. Obviously, they'll do big business on the road. The larger issue is: Will radio play this record? It's amazing to think that the band that helped invent FM radio may go begging to get airplay. Fleetwood Mac is imprisoned by its own gilded cage."

Considering the success of tours by the Rolling Stones (three original members) and The Who (two), Christine McVie's absence shouldn't impede ticket sales, he says. "The version of Fleetwood Mac that most people know is 80% intact," says DeCurtis, who predicts a box office gold mine. But in record stores, "these bands almost exist in a vacuum."

DeCurtis says he doubts that the Dixie Chicks' current hit cover of Nicks' Landslide will fuel Mac interest. But Billboard director of charts Geoff Mayfield says, "I put that in the 'it can't hurt' category."

Recent sales patterns reveal increased interest in vintage rockers, he says. He notes that roughly 30 acts that appeal largely to older audiences, including McCartney, Bruce Springsteen and James Taylor, last year enjoyed their best sales weeks in the 12 years SoundScan has been tabulating data.

"People with gray hair are buying records," he says. And unlike their younger counterparts, "they're not burning CDs or file-swapping as much."

Say You Will may not reach the sales of Rumours, but it could thrive even without much radio support.

"It's not fair to expect another Rumours," Mayfield says. "Considering the reunion album was their first No. 1 debut in a long while, the new record has a pretty good chance for a handsome start."

Fleetwood Mac Are Back

Updated 09:36 PST Thu, Feb 06 2003
Fleetwood Mac are back in a big way this year. The band has both a new album - Say You Will, to be released April 15 - and a big, 40-city arena tour on the docket.

So, what makes this such big news? Well, it's Fleetwood Mac's first studio album in 15 years, for a start. And, it's the band's first tour since 1997 when they single-handedly sold out arenas around the States.

No dates or venues have been announced yet, although the tour will hit major U.S. markets including Washington, D.C., Pittsburgh, Cleveland, New York, Atlanta, Ft. Lauderdale, Detroit, and others. The tour is expected to launch May 7 in Columbus, Ohio, with tickets going on sale in March. According to Mick Fleetwood's official Web site, a world tour is expected to follow.