Lindsey Buckingham | Classic Rock

Interview: Bill DeMain
Classic Rock Magazine, Dec 2021, Issue 296

Ousted from Fleetwood Mac, the guitarist/vocalist bounced back with one of our albums of 2021. While happy to continue as a solo artist, he’s still hopeful that he can make one more record with the Mac.

We had this legacy that was all about rising above our difficulties,” Lindsey Buckingham tells Classic Rock. “That was always the subtext of Fleetwood Mac – that we stayed together through thick and thin.” Buckingham is reflecting on his lingering disappointment over being forced out of the band in 2018. It couldn’t have been fun seeing the Mac then tour without him, even if it did take two guitarists to fill his absence. “I didn’t see the show, but looking at the set list I thought: ‘Hmm, it’s like a covers band.” Add to that his triple bypass heart surgery, a vocal cord scare and covid, and it’s been a tumultuous few years for the singular 72-year-old-musician and producer. All of which helps make his brilliant new self-titled solo album such a triumph. Deeply personal songs, artful vocal arrangements and fiery guitar work – it has all his trademark touches, and also, as he describes below, a weird prescience about it.

This record totally upends the cliché of a seventy-something artist and diminishing returns and having your best work behind you.

Thank you, that’s very kind. I think a lot of it is about the choices you make along the way, and somehow not losing your perspective, you know? I’ve seen a lot of people do that. I’ve seen people in Fleetwood Mac do that, allowing themselves to be defined by external forces and expectations rather than their inner beliefs and the soul of where all this stuff should come from. Staying creative takes work and not getting distracted by the task of that, for sure.

Continue reading Lindsey Buckingham | Classic Rock

Lindsey Buckingham blames “disoriented” Stevie Nicks for the lack of new Fleetwood Mac music | Classic Rock

Lindsey Buckingham says the fact that Fleetwood Mac haven’t released a new album since 2003 “wasn’t for lack of trying”

(Image credit: Rob Ball/WireImage)

Lindsey Buckingham blames Stevie Nicks for the lack of new music from Fleetwood Mac, telling Classic Rock magazine that the fact that the legendary rock band haven’t released a studio album since 2003‘s Say You Will “wasn’t for lack of trying.”

Buckingham, who released a self-titled solo album earlier this year, was fired from Fleetwood Mac in 2018, and claimed earlier this year that Nicks was the catalyst for that decision: speaking with the LA Times, the guitarist said that Nicks issued a ‘him or me’ ultimatum to the band, in a bid to assert more control over the group, an accusation Nicks has denied.

Now, in a new interview running in the new issue of Classic Rock magazine, on sale on December 7, Buckingham suggests that his former partner’s reticence to get involved in the writing and recording of new Fleetwood Mac material is the reason there’s been no new album from the band in 18 years.

Buckingham claims that work had actually begun on a new Fleetwood Mac album back in 2012.

“I had a bunch of songs, and Mick [Fleetwood] and John [McVie] and I went in with the producer Mitchell Froom and cut a bunch of stuff,” he tells Classic Rock. “This was before Christine [McVie] returned to the band in 2014. We very much wanted to draw Stevie in, and for some reason she refused to participate.” Continue reading Lindsey Buckingham blames “disoriented” Stevie Nicks for the lack of new Fleetwood Mac music | Classic Rock