(Credits: Far Out / Mick Fleetwood)
Sat 7 February 2026 19:00, UK
If Mick Fleetwood has one piece of advice for the ageing musical talents of the world, it would be: “If you don’t use it, you’re gonna lose it!”
While that slogan could admittedly be used in any sort of health campaign for the senile, it’s one that stands up to have a lot of meaning in the sonic world, as the biggest stars of days gone by are suddenly fading fast. It looks as though Paul McCartney will be content with dying on stage, and Ozzy Osbourne very nearly did just that by going out with a true bang.
The point is that Fleetwood is on a mission of preaching how to use one’s talents before they are gone, never giving in to the comfortable lure of retirement and the chalice of a quiet life, when we all know it has been anything but, yet if there is any man who embodied that mantra more than him, it would be Charlie Watts.
Fleetwood is very much in favour of tipping the cap to the iconic Rolling Stone, who backed the band on every drum beat from 1963 all the way until his death in 2021, and that determination to never stop, even as age increased and health potentially failed, is something that has clearly rubbed off on the Fleetwood Mac drummer as he continues on his own journey.
He reflected on this while paying tribute to Watts in a recent social media video, where he said, “Charlie was my favourite, totally my favourite… I knew him a little bit, and I had so much respect for him as a drummer, I love you, Charlie,” before breaking into the iconic drumming pattern of ‘Jumpin’ Jack Flash’.
Fleetwood’s mantra may be simple, but it’s one that carries a lot of resonance when it comes to honouring the legends of old by making sure their legacies live on. Amid the thousands of stars that this could possibly apply to, he has always kept a particular soft spot in his heart for Watts, the man who not only kick-started The Stones but proved pivotal to Fleetwood Mac.
Having previously cited him numerous times as one of his favourite drummers, Fleetwood once said: “I learned to love a lot more about Charlie Watts and how instrumental he was as a power,” before adding, “He knew his stuff and had a huge influence on the early Stones, who they were, what they liked, and what they did, and not many people know about that.”
Indeed, by the sheer virtue of the fact that he became part of the band’s furniture from its very beginning, it’s clear that there would be no Stones in the form they are now had Watts not been instrumental in laying the path first. Mick Jagger’s ‘Wembley Whammer’ channelled every inch of his heart and soul into that kit, and made the world all the better for it.
Icons lavishing praise over other icons can feel a little self-serving and monosyllabic at times, but in the case of the relationship between Fleetwood and Watts, there is clearly a solid foundation of true reverential respect, where the former inherently knows that his own drumming style would have been nothing without the latter. There’s few things in the music world more valuable than that.
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