Mick Fleetwood plays for the future in Maui

The island of Maui is just a speck in the vast Pacific Ocean, but it’s not hard to see why millions visit every year and why there are some who never want to leave. Fleetwood Mac founder Mick Fleetwood fell in love with Maui decades ago and put down deep roots. “Long story, long love affair,” he said.

“But this is really your heart and your home?” I asked.

“Uh-huh. People often think, ‘Oh yes, how often.’ is are you on Maui?'” Fleetwood said. “This is my home. Nowhere else.”

As a young man, he had dreamed of a place, a club, where he could gather his friends, and 12 years ago he made it happen in the west Maui town of Lahaina: Fleetwood’s on Front Street. The menu was eclectic—they served everything from Biddies Chicken (just like Fleetwood’s mother, Biddie, made it) to cookie dough desserts that his kids dreamed up. It was also a place where Mick and friends could play. “We created, I created, a group of people under one roof,” he said. “Instead of a traveling circus, it was a permanent circus at Fleetwood’s on Front Street.”

And then, in August 2023, the music stopped.

A wind-driven fire tore through West Mauikilled more than a hundred people and consumed more than 2,000 buildings. Fleetwood was in Los Angeles when the fire started and he rushed back to a scene of utter destruction.

And his beloved restaurant? A charred sign was about all that was left.

I said, “I understand that you don’t want to be ‘me, me, me,’ especially in light of the lives that were lost, the homes that were lost; you don’t want to make too big a deal out of a restaurant.”

“No.”

“But at the same time, this was your family. It was your home. It must have been a huge loss.”

“It was a huge loss,” Fleetwood said. “And as a reminder of that, that wave is coming back. Today, knowing that we’re doing this, I’m going like, Okay, this is going to be… one day.“

We took a walk with Fleetwood down the street where his place once stood: the last time he was here, the place was still smoldering. “Literally, parts of it were still warm,” he said.

More than a year later, Lahaina Harbor is still very much a disaster zone.

The decision on what to do with the land is still up in the air; the priority is housing for the displaced residents. But Fleetwood says he is determined to rebuild, just maybe not in the same place.

When asked what he pictures in a new place, he said: “For me, it has to include being able to handle playing music. There has to be music. We had it every day. It’s a selfish request!”

But before anything is rebuilt, there is still a massive cleanup to be completed here.

“We’ll see,” he said. “You have a blank (canvas) to paint on and there is a lot to paint.

“You have to be careful, even in this conversation, about saying, ‘How sad that was,’ when really it’s about, ‘Yeah, but now we need this.'” At the end of the day, you go, like, that happened. And what is really important is to absorb how all these things happened and can they be bypassed to be safer in the future and be more aware? Of course, that’s part of it. But the real, real essence is the future.”

Fleetwood’s ukelele is one of the few things that survived the fire, and he hopes his dream survives as well.

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For details on helping those affected by the August 2023 fires and for the latest on recovery and reconstruction efforts, including housing, environmental protection and cultural restoration, visit the official county website Maui recovers.

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Story produced by John D’Amelio. Editor: Steven Tyler.

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