Photo: Julieta Cervantes
Stereophonic may be borrowing from its real life inspo a little too heavily. Ken Caillat, the sound engineer on Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours, has filed a lawsuit alleging playwright David Adjmi didn’t really go his own way.
You make lifting plot details fun
September 23, 2024: We all knew that Stereophonic was basically Writing and Recording Rumours: The Play, right? Well, maybe it was more like Making Rumours: The Play. Ken Caillat, the sound engineer turned producer of Fleetwood Mac’s seminal album, who later wrote the memoir Making Rumours, recently attended Stereophonic with The New Yorker and found the story shockingly similar to the events in his book. While the similarities between Fleetwood Mac’s history and Stereophonic seem implicit (the story revolves around two musical couples and one extra guy in a band recording an album in the ’70s as their personal relationships fall apart), the details seemingly cribbed from Making Rumours are even more specific than the situational kinship would imply. The character that hews closest to Caillat’s life is Grover, the sound engineer turned producer on the fictional band’s record. “I feel like kind of a numbnuts,” Caillat said after seeing the show. “But, yeah, now I feel ripped off!”
There are multiple moments throughout the play that seemed a little too close for comfort to Caillat. One centers around the Stereo-Buckingham choking Grover and calling him an idiot. In Making Rumours, Caillat describes how Buckingham choked him during the recording of Fleetwood Mac’s “You Make Loving Fun” while telling him “You’re an idiot.” In another moment recounted in the memoir, Stereo–Christine McVie snips at Grover that he should give the musicians “a little fucking help.” There are also references to Tony Orlando seen out drinking in both the memoir and in the show. Caillat describes a real crush on a girl who worked in the front office in his book, and Grover’s into her, too. They both even say “Wheels up” to start recording.
When asked about the similarities between the book and the play, Stereophonic playwright David Adjmi told The New Yorker that “I drew from multiple sources—including autobiographical details from my own life—to create a deeply personal work of fiction. Any similarities to Ken Caillat’s excellent book are unintentional.” But maybe the show really is just second-hand news …
You would never break the (copyright) claim
October 2, 2024: Truly, the drama around Rumours will never stop. Sound engineer Ken Caillat and his co-author Steven Stiefel have sued the makers of Stereophonic on a copyright claim. According to court documents obtained by The Wrap, the play “copies the heart and soul” and “uncannily duplicates” key events in Making Rumours. “Mr. Adjmi implicitly acknowledges having read ‘Making Rumours’, calling it an ‘excellent book,’ but incredulously proclaims that “[a]ny similarities to Ken Caillat’s excellent book are unintentional,” it reads. Caillat is seeking damages, a piece of the profits, and possibly even an injunction to stop the show.
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