Not every band is meant to be a walk in the park to play every time they take the stage. No rule in the contract says everyone has to be friends. And some artists are more than happy to give a tongue-lashing to their bandmates in the press if they deserve it. It would be easy to pick out the drama in Fleetwood Mac by picking two bandmates randomly. Mick Fleetwood thought that he had come to the end of the line when he last played with Lindsey Buckingham.
Compared to most guitarists, though, saying no to a guy like Buckingham is like losing a major organ. He may not have had the same bluesy flair as someone like Peter Green when ‘The Mac’ started. But he was just as likely to come up with something classic. He usually focused on melody rather than anything flashy.
One key factor in replacing a guy like Buckingham also comes down to his playing style. He primarily plays with his fingers. No one could keep up with his superhuman dexterity with just a pick. It usually led to two different guitarists replacing him whenever he left the fold.
There are only so many times one can put up with a musician’s bullshit, and they had had enough the first time after the recording of Tango in the Night. The songs may have been there, but Buckingham’s insistence on not touring unless his needs were met first was one step over the line for the rest of the band, leading to a massive fight between him and Stevie Nicks at Fleetwood’s house.
Nicks and Buckingham have had a tumultuous relationship is the same as saying that fire is typically hot. Both of them had been at each other’s throats for years And they usually let bygones be bygones whenever they played onstage. Buckingham’s needs tended to become far too petty for the rest of the band to carry on.
When firing him in 2018, Fleetwood said working with him was beyond repair, telling Mojo, “It was too challenging. The truth is, call it what you want, a ‘parting of company’ took place. And it had to take place, and it was supported by the remaining band members around something that for sure was a major problem to two people. It was Lindsey and Stevie”.
Which is strange considering where the band had been in the years since their last album. Sure, they had been on the road plenty of times. But Nicks’s habit of returning to her solo career had already led to Buckingham making a record with keyboardist Christine McVie. It featured Mick Fleetwood and John McVie playing on a handful of tracks.
It’s all about how well they work on the road. And if someone’s making demands that are way out of line, it’s sometimes better to cut them out before you start going crazy. The band may have continued with Neil Finn and Mike Campbell filling in for Buckingham until Christine McVie’s death. But it might have been better to save the headaches that having everything sound completely accurate.
