Fleetwood Mac Audio Engineer Sues Hit Broadway Play ‘Stereophonic’ for Allegedly Copying His Memoir

11th January 1978: American rock group Fleetwood Mac poses in front of a curtain after winning either Favorite Band, Duo or Group, Rock/Pop or Favorite Album, Rock/Pop at the American Music Awards. L-R: Drummer Mick Fleetwood, singer Stevie Nicks, singer Christine McVie, bassist John McVie and singer/guitarist Lindsey Buckingham. Christine McVie holds the group's award.
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Wherever Fleetwood Mac goes, drama seems to follow … even when the actual band isn’t involved. The blockbuster Broadway musical Stereophonic, which is inspired by the band’s tumultuous experience recording the album Rumours,  is being sued by a former sound engineer who worked on the album. Former-sound-engineer-turned-producer (and father of singer Colbie Caillat) Ken Caillat alleged the play drew from his 2012 memoir about Fleetwood Mac, Making Rumours, without his permission.

In a lawsuit filed yesterday, Caillat and his co-author allege that Stereophonic drew specific scenes and conversations from his memoir, including his own promotion from engineer to producer over the course of the album’s recording. The suit notes that “[t]he way the incident plays out and the dialogue that Mr. Caillat describes [in his memoir] are nearly identical to a similar scene in Stereophonic.”  Additionally, the suit claims that a scene in the play depicting a band member demanding that the engineer character erase a tape and then exploding in rage when his order is carried out was based on a real incident during the recording of Rumours, which was documented in Caillat’s book.

Singer Stevie Nicks (L) and musician Lindsey Buckingham of Fleetwood Mac perform at The Staples Center on July 3, 2013 in Los Angeles, California

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David Adjmi, the playwright behind Stereophonic, has previously claimed that any similarities between the play and Caillat’s book are accidental, telling Deadline earlier this year that the play is “playing with superficial detailsof the lives of members of Fleetwood Mac, but is not actually based on the lives of the band’s members. Stereophonic won five 2024 Tony Awards including Best Play and is one of several recent pieces of media to focus on fictionalized versions of Fleetwood Mac, most recently the Riley Keough-led TV series Daisy Jones & the Six.

No members of Fleetwood Mac have publicly commented on the suit.

 

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