INTERVIEW: Lisa Mitchell on 'Yesterday's Gone - The Fleetwood Mac Legacy’: "Singing Fleetwood Mac songs and getting dressed up in Stevie Nicks inspired gear is the most incredible holiday to go on!”

Interview: Jett Tattersall
Image: Jess Broheir
Styling: Jam Baylon

Lisa Mitchell became a runaway star in Australia when she was just 17, releasing her debut EP Said One To The Other in 2007. With a soundscape that embraced pure folk right through to refined electronica, she became one of the most critically acclaimed musician in Australia in the following years, scoring three top 10 albums and five ARIA Award nominations.

Last year she released her first album in six years, A Place to Fall Apart, a beguiling collection of songs about unravelling, unlearning everything we thought we knew and reshaping yourself to live a more honest, impactful life. Sonically it was a return to Mitchell’s pure folk roots, with touches of pop and indie thrown in.

In September and October, Mitchell is joining Charlie Collins, Karen Lee Andrews and Kav Temperley (Eskimo Joe) in the live show Yesterday's Gone - The Fleetwood Mac Legacy, a tribute to seminal band Fleetwood Mac. Over a 50 year career, Fleetwood Mac have remained one of the most influential and popular bands in music, with hits such as ‘Dreams’, ‘Seven Wonders’, ‘Little Lies’ and ‘Go Your Own Way’ finding love from multiple generations and never going out of fashion. The show will be performed in Sydney as part of A Night At The Barracks on 22 September, and in Melbourne on 20 October.

We recently caught up with Mitchell to chat all about her role in the shows.

Hi Lisa, so good to chat to you again. Look, everything is happening for you, last year you had a baby and you released your album A Place To Fall Apart. And now we've got the Yesterday's Gone - The Fleetwood Mac Legacy show. Tell me about that.
I'm very much looking forward to it. I got the request, and the thought of singing Fleetwood Mac songs and getting dressed up in some Stevie Nicks inspired gear just felt like the most incredible holiday to go on ever! I just jumped at it. I grew up singing ‘Landslide’, I found it through The Chicks version, I think I would have been 12 or 13 when it was released and it just swept me away. But as I got older, I came to really appreciate Fleetwood Mac and that The Chicks introduction was how I got to know them. Mum and Dad didn't really play them at home. Dad loved playing Dylan and Neil Young and Tracy Chapman, bit of Joni Mitchell more the songwriters, you know. So it was something I came to my own time.

That’s really nice to hear that it came from The Chicks because Fleetwood Mac are one of those bands where they're almost threatening in the sense that you have to do all the back catalogue and you have to be a superfan or you'll get challenged. So to actually go ‘I met them through The Chicks’ is like good, this is healthy!
Totally. I grew up more in the folk world, going to folk festivals and really being obsessed with the folk singers Kate & Ruth who were singing all of the old traditional, they call them colonial songs, which feels totally un-PC right now, but that's literally what they were, these old folk songs of the first settlers, and their journeys from the northern hemisphere. So I grew up hearing that folk so that's why The Chicks were more my tastes when I was a kid because they have that beautiful bluegrass, Appalachian country, Americana kind of vibe.

What I love about Fleetwood Mac is the way Stevie Nicks really harnessed and championed femininity in a very masculine space. The way you described that, the best thing for you right now is to get on some Stevie Nicks inspired clothing and just get out there and bang it is amazing!
Right?! Bring it on, I’m so excited! I've made a Pinterest board called Stevie Corp and I'm just pinning all these beautiful photos of her and Christine [McVie]. All the beautiful feathers and the tassels I'm still looking for a tasseled shawl, I feel like that's very Stevie. But you're right, she’s so feminine, it’s very inspiring. So it's been fun collecting a little Fleetwood Mac wardrobe for these shows.

Have you started to see a shift in the Australian music scene? Of course, it's still very male dominated, but with artists such as yourself really leaning into their womanhood and go, I can do this, and I can write songs, and I can be in a rock band, whereas before they weren't allowed to?
Yeah, for sure. I feel lucky in the sense that for me growing up, there was so many female front women. I think about Sinéad O'Connor rest her soul, Australia had Missy Higgins, she was huge when I was in that really formative 14, 15 year old phase. I can only speak from my experience of it. The natural sense of objectification of just being a woman on stage at all. I’ve definitely experienced people heckling and yelling out sexual verbal abuse, I suppose. And you know that this doesn't happen to the boys and even it it does sometimes, they don't necessarily have the same historic oppression as women have had. One of the most difficult areas is the social acceptance of alcoholism, because unfortunately, in the music industry, we're always in a bar, we're always in a pub, or playing in a venue that has alcohol. Musicians and performers definitely notice the influence of alcoholism in Australia and all over the world, Whereas if you're playing in places where there's no bar, there’s a lot less of that terrible behaviour.

That's a good point. The inhibitions lowered, everyone's the same person with or without a drink, but the filter goes away with a beer as opposed to a tea. But I guess the flipside is that you don't get the raucous applause in a tea house!
Totally, and it's lovely to have a glass of wine and enjoy the show. In terms of your question, that's what comes up for me, that sense of being a woman on stage having the objectification but then having it actually affirmed by abusive comments is what can be part of women not feeling safe to express themselves and to even pursue a path in music, which I think is so devastating. And just so shit that female musicians have had to push through, obviously it's been much worse before my time. It's quite a labour and probably a very overlooked labour that women just have to bear or tolerate while still actually giving, being so generous.

That’s so true. I could have all the talent and access in the world but I just don't feel safe so I'm not going to do it. And that's shit. On a joyous, note, you have an incredible venue to perform at in Manly at The Barracks. Can you tell me what your rehearsals have looked like for this show? Because I imagine it's just a big bucket of sequiny fun.
We’ve done a week of rehearsals, and before that we were all kind of just playing in our bedrooms. Kav is over in Perth, and Karen and Charlie are in Sydney, and I'm down in Melbourne. I'm really excited for the harmonies, I'm hoping that there'll be some four part harmony action. Kav is an old friend of mine, so it's beautiful to come together on the shows with him. I'm looking forward to hanging out with him.

Yesterday's Gone - The Fleetwood Mac Legacy dates
22 September - Night at The Barracks, North Head, Manly NSW. Tickets HERE
20 October - Northcote Theatre, Northcote VIC. Tickets HERE

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