Mick Fleetwood says Stevie Nicks is standing in way of Fleetwood Mac reunion: 'It comes down to her'

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Despite earlier suggestions to the contrary, Fleetwood Mac will not be touring in 2012 — the reason being, long-time drummer Mick Fleetwood says, singer Stevie Nick’s “obsession” with her solo career.

“I’ve always been supportive of my bandmates doing solo albums, so long as we kept our band together,” Fleetwood says. “I played drums on most of Stevie’s album (2011’s In Your Dreams), the one she is still out there supporting and the one that is the reason that, for now, she refuses to do a Fleetwood Mac tour. It comes down to her.”

Lindsey Buckingham has also issued a solo record since Fleetwood Mac initially got together in 2010 to practice in advance of a likely tour. Since, however, Fleetwood says he has been unable to stir up any interest in a reunion.

“I understand what she likes about her situation,” Fleetwood tells Playboy magazine. “Touring in support of her album, she is able to be her, without any degree of compromise. She doesn’t have to worry about the other three of us asking her to do anything. She has become obsessed with her album in a very nice but inconvenient way.”

Nicks has solo shows scheduled in New England this summer, then will will hit the concert trail with Rod Stewart from July 20 through Aug. 9, as she did last summer. Buckingham is performing in San Diego on May 3; in Los Angeles on May 4; at San Juan Capistrano on May 5; and at Thousand Oaks, California, on May 6, amongst other stops.

Here are our recent thoughts on Stevie Nicks and Fleetwood Mac. Click through the titles for complete reviews …

STEVIE NICKS – IN YOUR DREAMS (2011): Stevie Nicks is, I’ve always thought, one of those ingredients that only tastes completely right in concert with other things. Those things being the rest of Fleetwood Mac in general — and, more specifically, Lindsey Buckingham. Sure, she’s had her own hits, away from the band. But they never could mimic the recipe of finish-their-sentence symbiosis, not to mention revenge-screw sexual tension, found in her best work with Buckingham. Same here, despite a gristly new attitude in the songwriting and the presence of the really very talented Dave Stewart of the Eurythmics.

GIMME FIVE: RECOMMENDED FLEETWOOD MAC, BUT NOT FROM ‘RUMOURS’: News that Fleetwood Mac could reunite this year — after Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham complete their current solo commitments, that is — had me scurrying back to the old records for a refresher. But not to Rumours. All hail Fleetwood Mac’s 1977 paean to Love, American-style — or California-style, anyway. More than three decades later, one estimate put total sales at 30 million copies. So, enough of all that. Rumours — actually, the 13th recording issued by Fleetwood Mac, which had notable earlier success as a blues-based English band fronted by Peter Green in the 1960s — has had its day.

LINDSEY BUCKINGHAM – SEEDS WE SOW (2011): You keep waiting for Lindsey Buckingham, the old rebel, to soften into middle-aged acceptance, to conform. This isn’t that record. Credit Buckingham for never trading true emotion for sentiment. Seeds We Sow is as hard eyed as it is musically ambitious — beginning with its abruptly confessional album-opening title track. “In Our Own Time” follows, as Buckingham reminisces about a lost love amidst an almost mathematical cascade. “This time I think she’s gone for good,” Buckingham says, then adds: “But I never really know.” Then all of the implications, all of those hurt feelings, all of the still-burning confusion, are echoed in his frenetic, contradictory chording. It’s a triumphal marrying of words and music, and not the last one.

FLEETWOOD MAC – SAY YOU WILL (2003) They were the Chanteuse, the Wild Hair (in more ways than one) and the Songstress. And now Fleetwood Mac has had a hit album in every decade since the 1970s. The reason seems to be in their very makeup: This is the rare group that has enough hardness (in the spindly tunes of Lindsey Buckingham) to attract the average rock music fan; enough magical mystery (in the gauzy stuff from Stevie Nicks) to attract the fanciful; and a dollop of old-fashioned power-pop (the now-missing Christine McVie) to lure in the rest. In many ways, they were the perfect concoction for FM radio. Throw in the juicy melodrama of their lives, though, and it’s all the more surprising that any of it turned into great music.

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