Sex, Drugs, and Rumors: Fleetwood Mac & The Untold History of Rumors

Sex, Drugs, and Rumors: Fleetwood Mac & The Untold History of Rumors

By: Evan Boisoneau

Fleetwood Mac was plagued by relationship fallouts, affairs, drug abuse, and fights during the Rumors album. During the one year of production it took to complete the album, and the following six months of touring, the band was holding on by a thread. Tensions were so high between the band members that they would have to stop during recording sessions due to screaming matches and quarrels.

The drama started soon after the creation of the band. Fleetwood Mac was formed in the late 60’s by guitarist Peter Green and was soon joined by Mick Fleetwood and John McVie. By the 70s, the group was joined by McVie’s wife and talented keyboardist Christine McVie along with another guitarist, Bob Weston. The drama began in 1973, when while on tour, Weston had an affair with Mick Fleetwood’s wife, Jenny Boyd. After Fleetwood discovered this, he divorced Boyd and kicked Weston out of the band. Weston’s departure set the stage for the entrance of Stevie Nicks and Lindsay Buckingham to enter the picture in 1975. Already a couple, these two were a package deal. With the addition of their front women, Fleetwood Mac hit their stride. They released their self-titled album that earned them fame as 70s rock icons with hit tracks such as ‘Rhiannon’ and ‘Over My Head’. However the band’s past dramas had already bred a tense environment in the studio. Mick Fleetwood never recovered from the betrayal of Bob Weston and remained bitter until the group’s disbandment. It seemed the band would be forever cursed with intense emotional torture.

The relationships between the band members began deteriorating during the recording process of Rumors, and band members reportedly didn’t think they were going to be able to complete the project. However as Stevie Nicks once said, “Devastation leads to writing good things”. Echoing this sentiment, the group wrote about themselves and their corrosive troubles.

The saga continues as Christine and John McVie were experiencing trouble in their relationship and settled on a divorce to be completed after the end of the six month tour for the album. They reportedly didn’t talk to each other much outside of band matters, and chose a more private approach in addressing their marital issues. However, Christine found a new love with the band’s lighting director, and relying upon her feelings of newfound love penned the song ‘You Make Loving Fun’, a very upbeat and romantic ode to a second chance at love. But to avoid any conflict with John, she claimed that the song was written about her dog. The song is the eighth track on the album.

Stevie Nicks and Lindsay Buckingham were going through similar issues at the same exact time, engaged in a different process. Buckingham and Nicks had an on-again off-again relationship that lasted 8 years prior, and they were both reaching their breaking point. Their arguments and screaming matches carried over into the studio. Rumors is full of songs specifically devoted to their feelings about each other. Buckingham wrote ‘Go Your Own Way’ as a response to his breakup with Nicks. His anger with Nicks fueled the lyricism for that song, forcing Nicks to sing pointed insults, effectively attacking herself in the studio and everytime they performed live with lyrics like “Packin’ up shackin’ up’s is all you want to do.” In contrast, Stevie’s own version of a breakup anthem was ‘Dreams’, Fleetwood Mac’s most streamed song on Spotify. ‘Dreams’ was essentially conveying the same thing Buckingham’s song was: an invitation to end the toxic relationship that has made them both suffer. Stevies lyricism in ‘Dreams’ was more polite as she acknowledges that Buckingham was not solely responsible for the failure of their love.

 The second most famous song on the album, ‘The Chain’, has a particularly interesting story. It is the only song on Rumors that was credited to all five band members. ‘The Chain’ was created out of bits and riffs contributed by all the band members, while the lyrics were written by Stevie Nicks. ‘The Chain’ tells the story of the deteriorating relationship of the whole band, rather than individual band members. The song describes an invisible chain, holding a group of people together, and when time has run its course and it is time to sever the chain for the well-being of all involved, the painful memories and strong emotions keep it together. It is a twisted fate, and one that describes Fleetwood Mac’s legacy perfectly. Despite their desperate quarrels and torrid internal dynamics they are  still heralded as a world famous band and chose to persevere  in order to make beautiful music. In a way, they all showed each other their deepest and darkest sides, and that emotional vulnerability kept them together for the duration of their musical careers. Their troubles were accelerated by their continuous use of cocaine during the recording process. It is rumored that the band consumed several miles worth of cocaine, and even considered giving their dealer a credit on the album.

Unfortunately, the band decided to scrap these plans as the dealer got murdered before the album’s release. Their drug and alcohol addictions help explain the high levels of emotions and violence from the band members. Their heightened state could provide an explanation for the intense lyricism and sheer musical talent of the album itself. By the time Rumors was completed, every track on the album included jabs at other members of the band in some way.

Word of the band members drama was not concealed very well, and people began wondering. Rumors emerged, speculating on the nature of Fleetwood Mac’s relationships with each other. The band leaned into this intrigue, first titling the album Rumors and then appearing on the cover of the Rolling Stones in this very scandalous and infamous photoshoot:

The photo depicts all five band members laying in bed together. At the time of the shoot, Christine and John McVie were in the midst of their divorce. Lindsay Buckingham had just split up with Stevie Nicks, and she and Mick Fleetwood were cuddled together. Christine and Lindsay were cuddled up on the right side, as Christine did not want to be with John in light of the recent divorce proceedings. Instead, John was on the right side alone, reading a Playboy. In the middle, Stevie Nicks and Mick Fleetwood were holding one another. This photoshoot happened just a year before they began their affair. Nicks later states that this photoshoot “planted the seed for Mick and me, which happened a year later.  The affair began in earnest during a late summer break in the band’s seemingly endless tour that year”. 

Naturally, this Rolling Stones edition drew much attention to the band and the album. The band had imbued the album with intimate details from their  personal lives, and this photoshoot began to expose this to the public eye. However, against all odds, Rumors was Fleetwood Mac’s best. Released in 1977, Rumors sold 40 million copies worldwide, making it the 6th best selling album of the 70s and the 12th best selling album of all time.

I encourage my readers to listen to Rumors with this context in mind, and even watch videos of their live performances.I would recommend closing this article and opening up youtube to search Fleetwood Mac’s 1982 performance of ‘The Chain’. Nicks and Buckingham have something akin to a  meltdown on stage– shaking with rage, their vocals breaking with anguish. It is almost tragic how such a painful experience led to such a beautiful album and a cornerstone of American rock & roll. Fleetwood Mac teaches us a lesson: the status of stardom brings fame, riches, and spectacle. But the truth is only a facade, and in the case of Fleetwood Mac, their fame was defined by their toxic interrelationships. You are condemned to heartbreak and addiction– pains that will never go away. And in that industry, the more pain you go through the brighter a star you will be. That is, until it breaks you.