Lindsey Buckingham Talks Fleetwood Mac, New Solo Record
Lindsey Buckingham has spoken about his split from Fleetwood Mac in a frank interview on the new episode of the WTF With Marc Maron podcast. The guitarist and singer told Maron that he’d asked the band for “an extra three months” back in 2019 to release a solo album and take it on tour in the US before resuming his duties with Fleetwood Mac. “There was certainly one person who did not want to bestow that on me,” Buckingham said, before confirming that the individual in question was his bandmate and ex-partner, Stevie Nicks. “To be fair, everyone was anxious to get on the road but we’ve all made time for each other’s [side-projects]. I’ve been in the band for 43 years for God’s sake… Jesus! That sort of led to other things that kind of built up around that. And then it just got to the point where someone [Nicks] just didn’t want to work with me anymore. And other people [in the group] were perhaps not feeling empowered enough to stand up for me when possibly they should have or could have.”
Buckingham reflected on Fleetwood Mac’s turbulent past, going on to say: “I’m not saying that I can’t be hard to get along with sometimes, but if you put it in a larger context of all the things that Fleetwood Mac has been through and what we’ve risen above in order to keep our eye on the larger picture and in order to fulfil our destiny over and over again… What was most disappointing about it to me was not, ‘Oh, I’m not gonna get to do this tour’. What it was [is] again, we spent 43 years building this legacy which was about rising above things – it stood for more than the music. And by allowing this to happen through some levels of weakness – my own weakness included – I think we did some harm to that legacy. And that’s a shame.”
Buckingham confirmed that he has not been in contact with Nicks since his departure from the band, apart from when she sent him a letter following his heart attack in 2019. He said that he is still in touch with Mick Fleetwood, who he spoke to following the death of Fleetwood Mac founder member Peter Green last summer. “Me and him [Fleetwood] are soulmates and always will be,” he told Maron. “We love each other and reinforced each other’s sensibilities in the band.”
Buckingham is set to release his new self-titled solo album on September 17. He has previewed the album with the singles I Don’t Mind and On The Wrong Side.