Mick Fleetwood believes his band is a "glorious accident" that probably was meant to happen "because it's going on for so long."

Decades down the road, the multi-platinum, multi-Grammy winners just keep going.

The long running Anglo-American Rock'n'Roll Hall of Famers are back together and on the road again for the first time in five years, under way with their "Greatest Hits Unleashed" North America tour.|

"There's these very odd couplings of people, but when they join together there's a chemistry that's immediate. You turn around and go, 'That's what this is about,' " explains the amiable Briton, one of the founders of Fleetwood Mac.

Fleetwood says he feels confident that the band is going to surprise the audience in some ways.

"I think people are really going to have just a hell of a lot of fun. All the energy is about that for us: choosing all the lovely songs that we know for sure people really know. And we've had fun really resculpting certain segments of the show which will remain secret until you see us," he explains.

This is the first time that they don't have a new album per se to promote, a fact, say members, that allows them more freedom to just focus on delivering the well established goods in concert.

(There is, however, the iconographic "Rumours" CD -- certified diamond, signifying sales of over 10 million copies -- scheduled to be re-released as part of a special CD/DVD boxed set on Reprise Records in conjunction with the tour dates. The set is to include several songs from "Rumours" in their original demo form, along with unreleased tracks recorded during that time period and never-before-seen DVD footage of the band from the "Rumours" era.)

"I actually feel quite excited to be able to go out and just relax into playing a body of work you know," says guitarist Lindsey Buckingham.

He had asked that the band give him a space of about three years so that he could put out some solo work, which he did. "I wanted to explore the more esoteric side of what I do, the more adventurous side if you want to call it that, and do a couple of tours behind those albums and to get two albums out in a fairly rapid succession."

That was a great "little break," he acknowledges. "I got a lot out of my system and I learned a lot doing that. I think I can bring a lot of what I learned back into the band," he says. He will not stop making solo albums, he adds, but for now he was ready to jump back into the fold of "the larger machine" that is Fleetwood Mac.

Even when they take significant periods of time apart, they never think of themselves as a band that has broken up, Buckingham insists. "We always feel that there's a time to be together and a time to be apart," he says. "And because of that and because hopefully as individuals we continue to evolve and to gain insight and to gain appreciation, not only for the road we've been down but for each other (too), the (Fleetwood Mac) songs can take on a bit of a new life every time you revisit them."

Collectively, he reminds, they have a body of work that they have been fortunate enough to become part of the fabric of music culture. "And we all try to do our best to sort of hold certain lines and to move forward with our sense of ourselves, and our own sense of the band. And so you know that is part of what we do -- just go out and recreate those same songs," he explains.

The challenge of being on the road again is in trying to keep things fresh night after night, he acknowledges.

Buckingham: "But you know that's part of being a professional and it's also a part of being in a band where you've been together a long time and you can keep finding new things and new contexts for those songs to mean something to you personally and to share."

Fleetwood agrees.

"You know we don't do this very often. We do it when it feels right. We are at a place in our lives where all of us have, God knows, dedicated in the early days a huge amount of investment of time and distraction to personal needs, etc., for Fleetwood Mac," he says. "We are past that because the nature of time has taken people into solo careers and doing wonderful things that they need to do, (including) raising families that were not even thought of you know 25 years ago, etc. But when we do it, we try to do it right, even with some of the complications that come with it."

He assures they don't attempt it when it does not feel right. "And this feels really right to be doing this now," he adds. "We do this because it's the right time to do it and everyone feels free and open and upbeat about what we're doing. And that's how we hit that stage."

It really is a blessing in many ways, says vocalist Stevie Nicks. "We all feel really blessed to be in each other's company and we're getting along great and it's fun. Everybody seems to be genuinely having a good time," she says.

It is a role switch for members who have been doing solo work.

"I think I've noticed that more this time than I have ever noticed it before that; at 60 years old, being in a band you're not the boss," she says. "And I always wanted to be in a band from the very beginning. When I was 17 I wanted to be in a band." When you're in a band, you're a team; when you're in solo work, you're the boss, she says.

Nicks: "So I'm not the boss now and I've realized that. I've decided that I really actually do like being the boss, but I've been in Fleetwood Mac for so long that I understand how to not be the boss and to be a part of a team and to be a team player, because we've been doing this for so long."

In the beginning, she adds, she really had no interest in being a solo artist, because she loves being in a band.

"But then after you've been in your solo work and done, like I have, 11 solo albums, where I am absolutely the boss, you get used to being the boss," she says. "So now I'm back to not being the boss and it's OK and it's good for everybody I think to be knocked down a little bit like that. And so you have to go back to the gambling table and figure out a way for all four people to be happy."

She likens it to a relationship and says she does not worry about her solo career when she is in the band.

"When I'm in one relationship, I am not in another one. So I am in this relationship right now (with the band) until we say, 'We're now going to go back out and do other things.' I'm very happy to be part of Fleetwood Mac right now," she says.

Nicks is philosophical about the question of keeping things fresh.

"It stays fresh because we never stop playing. Basically what we are are entertainers," she suggests. "If this band never made it big, we would still be playing all the clubs because we are entertainers. So when we go on stage we're performers. We're performance artists, that's what we do. So it isn't a question of keeping it fresh because it's what we love."

Buckingham says it is always reassuring to him whenever he hears an artist who is doing something on his or her own terms. "Because I think that's the only way you survive over the long term," he says.

"There will always be groups like Radiohead that have managed to navigate that line between commerce and art on their own terms. I'm always looking for that."

Fleetwood cites U2 as another example. "I think they have an ethic about what they do and what they want to try and support in a fairly non-political way. And that's been a great vehicle for them," he says. "Seeing things like that fascinates me and certainly makes me feel good about the music business -- that people are still able to do that and keep some sense of their integrity."

That has been important to Fleetwood Mac, he suggests. "You see certain periods with artists that you see things to potentially steer away from," he explains. "And I think we've been able to do that, not always with the greatest of ease because sometimes there had been little bits and pieces coming in from the outside. Luckily, I think Fleetwood Mac as a band has had a fairly self-created destiny for the most part. And for that I'm really, really happy and I love to see that in other artists."

When he looks back, he says he realizes that his band's ability to survive change has been somewhat of a miracle. "It's a wonderfully interesting story," he believes. "It's still about individuals experiencing and giving their individual thing without being totally swallowed up by Fleetwood Mac," he explains. "It's always about pushing forward and changing and keeping it fresh."

Fleetwood: "Creatively, we were able to hold our audience. We play through our front line and we have been blessed that people coming in bring that talent into Fleetwood Mac. I think that's the story of Fleetwood Mac, if you look at it and put all the music that we've done for better or for worse. It's turned out to be a great blessing and a real unique story."

Buckingham likes the idea of perhaps being a band of destiny.

"You tend to just sort of see the irony in the songs and you tend to see maybe the heroism a little bit that we possessed really," he says. "We saw that we had this destiny and we saw that we had to rise above the personal difficulties. And we saw that the music could actually have redemptive power for us and could be a symbol of that for other people."