Much has been made of the romantic entanglements that drove Fleetwood Mac to the brink of breaking up in the '70s, but -- as Mick Fleetwood reminded us during a recent interview -- over time, all that water under the bridge has only deepened the band members' fondness for one another.

"The misconception is that we don’t like each other. We do," Fleetwood pointed out to CBS (via Classic Rock Magazine). "We actually love each other. It’s just the co-existing from time to time has been incredibly hard."

And although a number of band members have come and gone over the years, Fleetwood is justifiably proud of the way the core group has stayed more or less intact since its commercial heyday. "Stevie [Nicks] pretty much remained, even though we had a love affair. We managed to get through it -- and that’s not often spoken about," he mused. "Obviously it’s more pointed for Stevie and Lindsey [Buckingham]; these are two people who fell in love with one another when they were 16 years old."

That history adds another level of feeling to Fleetwood Mac's musical ventures. As he put it, "We’re not just a bunch of businessmen that decide to do this. When we do this, we have to be emotionally equipped to do it." But he hastened to echo Buckingham's recent comments regarding new music in the pipeline, saying, "It’s safe to say that there are more than these four songs that you’re going to hear. It’s just a question of how and when."

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