Mick Fleetwood says he can’t remember two years of his life after becoming a global star

(Image credit: Rob Verhorst/Redferns)

In Mick Fleetwood’s own words, the history of Fleetwood Mac is “an extreme story.”

“If you put it down on paper, you’d say: ‘This isn’t true, there’s just no way,” the 73-year-old drummer tells Classic Rock‘s Henry Yates in the current issue of the magazine.

Famously, the British-American rock band lived life to the full in the wake of the phenomenal global success of 1977’s Rumours album, which has now sold over 40 million copies worldwide. And their drummer admits that he has precious little recollection of the narcotic haze which engulfed certain members of the band in the immediate aftermath of the Mac becoming a genuine superstar band.

“We were well equipped with the marching powder,” he confesses. “That’s a well-worn fairy tale that gets more like a war story, that gets more and more aggrandised. I’m not minimalising that we were partaking in that lifestyle. But, again, these weren’t a bunch of people crawling along the floor with green froth coming out of their mouths. We were working, y’know? But that went on for a long, long time… It got out of hand way after the making of Rumours. I remember not working for two years. I can’t even remember what I did. I was the party animal in the band for sure. I would venture to say that Stevie [Nicks] was a close second.”

Elsewhere in a wide-ranging and revealing interview, Fleetwood speaks touchingly about his late friend and bandmate Peter Green, who passed in July 2020, aged 73.

“Fleetwood Mac’s story is all about survival,” the drummer says. “Peter Green was not equipped to survive.”

For the full interview with Mick Fleetwood, pick up the current issue of Classic Rock magazine, which is on sale now.

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