The only way I've been able to keep my sanity is to pull back when I feel like it's time to pull back.
Confounding people's expectations was a way to maintain integrity.
I was playing a Fender Telecaster when I first joined.
When I was a kid, and Elvis Presley broke through to a middle class, white audience, it was a sociological phenomenon that lasted through the Beatles and even a bit through Fleetwood Mac.
The want to return to the fold doesn't mean you can repeat history.
Another thing that was unique about working on this stuff was that I was engineering it. I used many of the things I had learned while I was away from the band. It sort of vindicated my decision to leave in '87.
Years on, Christine and John still have a deep love for each other, as do Stevie and I - we've been working together since I was 17.
The most disappointing thing to me after 'Tusk' was the politics in the band. They said, 'We're not going to do that again.' I felt dead in the water from that. On 'Mirage,' I was treading water, saying, 'Okay, whatever,' and taking a passive role.
One thing I admire about the Eagles is they always seem to know what they want. They always seem to know why they want it. They always seem to want it at the same time.
They tried to get me to use a pick when I first joined the band. They had certain things they thought were appropriate. I tried to adapt as much as I could.
We're not one of those bands that throws the names of all their songs in a hat and pulls them out right before they go on stage.
You work in a band, and it tends to be more like moviemaking, I think. It tends to be more of a conscious, verbalized and, to some degree, political process.
I feel like fifteen years with Fleetwood Mac was like working on my thesis, doing research for some kind of paper.
There were a number of false starts where I was trying to make solo albums. They would get constantly folded into group efforts. In retrospect, I can say fair enough, that you call yourself a band member, and you've got to step up to the plate when the need arises.
Arcade Fire seems to be doing very well; certainly, Phoenix is doing very well.
There is a real joy to be able to get up and react to each other and appreciate the whole being greater than the sum of the parts, just the chemistry of the group.
There is nothing like this extended family that is Fleetwood Mac. And I think you have to say, for all the perceived and real dysfunction that there has been, underneath that, there is and always has been a great deal of love. And that keeps pulling us back together.
A lot of people who have gone to music school have gotten their individuality stomped out of them. It becomes harder to find those instincts.
What happens with artists, or people who start off doing things for the right reasons, is that you slowly start to paint yourself into a corner by doing what people outside of the creative world are asking you to do, and I think that's antithetical to being an artist.
I put out an album once every four or five years and it's kind of like starting over every time.
