A big 2018 shocker was the announcement that Lindsey Buckingham, the talent behind Fleetwood Mac mega-hits ‘Go Your Own Way’ and ‘Big Love’, had departed the band after 43 years.
At the time, Fleetwood Mac’s press statements were hedgy and polite.
“Well, we don’t use that word because I think it’s ugly,” Mick Fleetwood told CBS News when asked about Buckingham’s ‘firing’.
“And it’s not a question that Lindsey has huge amounts of respect and kudos to what he’s done within the ranks of Fleetwood Mac and always will. But it’s like a marriage that came to an end and there are reasons why… But as a band we needed to move on.”
Now, Buckingham has spoken for the first time about the whole thing, and he’s… not being quite as diplomatic.
His statement was made at a fundraiser in support of Democratic congressional candidate Mike Levin, according to Medium.
For me, personally, probably some of you know that for the last three months I have sadly taken leave of my band of 43 years, Fleetwood Mac. This was not something that was really my doing or my choice. I think what you would say is that there were factions within the band that had lost their perspective. The point is that they’d lost their perspective. What that did was to harm – and this is the only thing I’m really sad about, the rest of it becomes an opportunity – it harmed the 43-year legacy that we had worked so hard to build, and that legacy was really about rising above difficulties in order to fulfil one’s higher truth and one’s higher destiny.
Buckingham then turned the situation into a political statement about doing things from the ground up, which is… weird but OK.
Stevie Nicks had some words to say back on April 25 to CBS This Morning, however, which gives a different perspective on the whole biz.
This team wanted to get out on the road, and one of the members didn’t want to go out on the road for a year. We just couldn’t agree. When you’re in a band, it’s a team. I have a solo career. I love my solo career, and I’m the boss. But I’m not the boss in this band.
Anyway it’s all a bit of a clusterfuck butttt it’s not like the iconic band hasn’t had epic drama and dummy spits in the past. Here’s hoping they come back together sometime in the future (again).
