Classic Rock Website
MARTIN KIELTY
March 25 2013

Fleetwood Mac’s 1977 album Rumours recently enjoyed a new lease of life in a 35th anniversary box-set release. It’s not only a defining moment in classic rock – it’s the ultimate break-up album, written and recorded as relationships disintegrated between Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham, while the same happened between Christine and John McVie.

For singer Nicks and guitarist Buckingham the scars have never fully healed. Now, as they gear up for a new Fleetwood Mac tour, they’ve both faced up to their past and considered what might have been if they hadn’t gone their own ways.

Nicks tells Oprah Winfrey: ““We were just finishing up Rumours and I said, ‘We’re done. I think that this is over, and we both know now that no matter what it takes, we’re going to keep Fleetwood Mac together.

“‘Our breaking up is not going to break up this band. I’m not going to quit and neither are you — and we were done.’”

Buckingham tells Mens’ Journal: “All I recall is that Stevie ran after me crying and yelling and kind of beating on my back. I don’t remember any physical confrontation – not to say there wasn’t.”

He continues: “There’s a subtext of love between us. It would be hard to deny that much of what we’ve accomplished had something to do with trying to prove something to each other.

“Maybe that’s fucked up – but this is someone I’ve known since I was 16, and I think on some weird level we’re still trying to work some things out. There will never be romance there, but there are other kinds of love to be had.”

He says he’s long since got used to working with Nicks despite their history, but reflects: “or me, getting married and having children was a positive outcome. I wonder sometimes how Stevie feels about the choices she made, because she doesn’t really have a relationship – she has her career.”

The singer says: “Lindsey always blamed Fleetwood Mac for the loss of me. Had we not joined Fleetwood Mac, we would have continued on with our music. But we probably would have gotten married, and we probably would have had a child.

“It would have been a different life. We were still young enough then that destiny could have taken us another way — but destiny took us straight into Fleetwood Mac.”

The band tour the UK towards the end of the year:

Sep 20: Dublin O2
Sep 24: London O2 Arena
Sep 29: Birmingham LG Arena
Oct 1: Manchester Arena
Oct 3: Glasgow Hydro