Michael John Kells "Mick" Fleetwood is a British musician and actor, best known for his role as the drummer and co-founder of the rock band Fleetwood Mac. Fleetwood, whose surname was merged with that of John McVie to form the name of the band, was inducted into the Rock and...
John Joseph Kells Fleetwood, Bridget Maureen Fleetwood
Siblings
Susan Fleetwood, Sally Fleetwood
Nicknames
Fleetwood, Mick , Michael John Kells Fleetwood , Fleetwood Mac , Mick Fleetwood's Zoo , Michael John Kells "Mick" Fleetwood
Music Groups
Fleetwood Mac, John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers, Spinal Tap
Movies
The Running Man, Fleetwood Mac: Tango in the Night, Zero Tolerance, Fleetwood Mac: The Early Years, Snide and Prejudice, Burning Down the House, John Mayall & The Bluesbreakers and Friends: 70th Birthday Concert, 30th Anniversary of Rock 'n' Roll All-Star Jam: Bo Diddley, The Mick Fleetwood Story: T...
Star Sign
Cancer
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Trademark
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Energetic live performances
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His Towering Height
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Long Hair
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Thick Beard
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Quote
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[on what characteristic of musicians often makes them prone to wild living] A lot of creative people are vulnerable: they're just so focused on what they're doing. So it's quite viable to dumb out those feelings with substance or a just flat-out lifestyle
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[observation, 2014, on the reconstitution of 'Fleetwood Mac'] There was no 'Oh, we better blow the trumpet and rally the reunion of the band'. It was sort of magical the way it happened.. It's sort of a very cool fable - half nightmare, half fairy-tale story
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I have found out that I love to be really, really, really hot. It tells my little brain that I'm really doing it, like a rat experiment. So [when I perform] I have heaters all around me. My worst nightmare would be that the auditorium air conditioners are going.
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[on what reminiscences he chose to emphasize in his memoir 'Play On'] Learning how to handle the huge theatre of my career and how almost everything I dreamed of literally came true, from me being this funny little creature who just wanted to play drums and play music.
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I always joke - because I used to manage the band - that this is the worst-run franchise in rock'n'roll. If you look at what happened to us on paper, you'd say, 'It's simply not possible that these clowns can survive this'.
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John McVie who plays bass with Fleetwood Mac is not only my best friend, he's also my musical best friend because he's formulated a style that accommodates this ever-changing partner in the rhythm section.
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I'll never play exactly the same pattern on the bass drum on a song that I've been playing for 40 years. It's become the sound of our rhythm section.
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[observation, 2013, on the recording 'Rumors'] It's this mutant thing. It shaped me as a person because we went through a damage, making that album. There's still a fascination about it: it's who we are and what we are, the reason why we made all that music. It forces you to think about yourself, how you've developed or undeveloped, screwed up or not, what you learned from that, and whether you have truly moved on from the hurt, fear and loathing.
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Fact
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Involved in a televised spoof audition for the position of drummer in the band Spinal Tap first seen in the film This Is Spinal Tap (1984) in which he played with a paper bag over his head.
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Always wears a pair of wooden balls suspended from his belt when drumming.
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Stevie Nicks considers Mick her best friend.
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Lives in Los Angeles, California. He has lived in the United States since the 1970's and became a citizen in 2006.
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Dropped out of school at age 15 and moved to London to become a Drummer.
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Stevie Nicks is godmother of his twin daughters.
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Played drums on Warren Zevon's Top 40 hit "Werewolves of London".
Fleetwood Mac won the 1998 Brit Award for Outstanding Contribution.
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Had been gigging with bands in England as early as age 18, but was able to play age restricted clubs because he looked older.
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Took some heat from the other members of Fleetwood Mac, after his autobiography came out, for the out-of-school stories he'd told about the band. He apologized to them, explaining that he'd done the book "for the money", to recover from his 1980s bankruptcy.
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His solo album "The Visitor" was inspired by a trip to Africa, where he'd heard and played with several native musicians, and preceded Paul Simon's similarly-themed "Graceland" and "The Rhythm Of The Saints" albums by almost a decade.
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Always wears a pair of wooden balls suspended from his belt when drumming! They're toilet chain-balls, snatched from a club where Fleetwood Mac played in their early days, and he kept them as a good-luck piece. (Fleetwood's "star turn" in their early stage act was when he came out from behind the drums and "played his balls", dancing and clacking them together.)
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Involved in a televised spoof audition for the position of drummer in the band 'Spinal Tap' in which he played with a paper bag over his head! (their drummers kept dying under strange circumstances!)
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Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1998 (as a member of Fleetwood Mac).
$8.5 Million
