Mick Fleetwood says there was a reason Peter Green recruited him for the band that would eventually become Fleetwood Mac that not even he was aware of until recently.
The drummer and author tells Salon he stumbled upon Green's true motivation during an interview for his latest book, Love That Burns: A Chronicle of Fleetwood Mac, Volume One: 1967-1974.
Fleetwood says he got together with Green for a few hours one day to talk about the very beginnings of the band.
Fleetwood says he posed the question to Green, assuming his answer would be rote; that he simply thought Fleetwood was a great drummer. While Green thought highly of Fleetwood's playing, he had a much more compassionate reason for choosing Fleetwood.
"He said, 'Well, you were so sad,'" Fleetwood recalls Green telling him. "'You were so sad, and you had broken up with Jenny and you were brokenhearted, and I thought you needed to do something. And that's what made my mind up...I thought you needed it. You needed to pull yourself together...' He did it as a friend..."
The drummer says although he doesn't see Green often, the two have remained friends over the years. Green left Fleetwood Mac for good in 1971 before the band's most commercially successful period.
Fleetwood tells Salon that with the new book he wants readers to "understand what motivated and started the band. It was this whole love of playing music, for no other reason. We didn't have any preconceived, 'We're going to be that type of band' [notions] — we were just playing blues, which had no success formula attached to it at that point in time, at all."
The book includes rare photos, history, anecdotes, insight and more revelations about the band's early years.
Get more information about the new book here.
Photo: Getty Images