The band Lindsey Buckingham said Fleetwood Mac were the opposite of
Fleetwood Mac boast one of the most singular legacies in rock music. Through their magical melodies and blues influences, they carved out a place for themselves as an essential soft rock outfit. But their reputation extends far beyond their sonic output. The drama, divorces, and drug abuse that characterised their personal lives has become just as famous and fabled as the music it spawned.
The height of this came in 1977 with the release of Rumours. The seminal soft rock record featured a gorgeous collection of soft drums and driving percussion, producing hits like ‘Dreams’ and ‘Don’t Stop’, songs that would find their way onto the radio and into greatest of all time lists for years to come. Although the record sounded gentle on the surface, its lyrics were laden with bitterness and betrayal.
Several of the band members were experiencing breakups at the time of writing—Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham couldn’t decide whether they wanted to be together or not, and John and Christine McVie were going through a divorce. The band was also engaging in excessive drug use amidst the drama, both of which contributed to the making of Rumours.
This background information remains tied to the record even now, over four decades later. Rumours is not just an album; it’s the documentation of a band falling apart behind the scenes yet determined to make music. Fans of the record have delved into the lore that inspired it, picking apart performances of ‘Silver Springs’ for hexes. Though the band’s interpersonal dramas would dissipate in the years that followed, Fleetwood Mac’s process was still characterised by arguments.
Swapping their personal issues for creative differences, Lindsey Buckingham led the band on Tusk, pulling in new post-punk stylings in an effort to switch up their sound. This left Nicks in the dust, sitting in the studio and watching her bandmates while she squandered her creative potential. From Rumours to Tusk, disagreements seemed to define Fleetwood Mac behind the scenes, a way of working that Buckingham suggested set them apart from other bands.
As he explained during a chat with Rolling Stone, “Things change, and that’s a part of Fleetwood Mac. We’re a moving target. We’re a group of people who, you could make the argument, don’t belong in the same band together. It’s the synergy of that that makes it work.” Buckingham knew that this wasn’t how other bands worked, and he saw Fleetwood Mac as contrasting with one band in particular.
He went on to describe Fleetwood Mac as the “anti-Eagles, in terms of never, ever being on the same page”. Like Fleetwood Mac, the Eagles also rose to acclaim in the 1970s with hits like ‘Hotel California’ and ‘One of These Nights’, but they didn’t experience the infighting and internal issues that Buckingham’s soft-rockers contended with behind the scenes. Rather, they were always in alignment creatively.
Buckingham didn’t seem to discredit the band for this slightly easier ride. In fact, the guitarist shared his admiration for their creative synergy, noting that they knew what they wanted, why they wanted it, and they “always seem to want it at the same time”. Fleetwood Mac, he suggested, were “just the opposite,” a “political minefield.”
Despite navigating this internal chaos behind the scenes, the soft-rockers still managed to concoct some of the greatest songs of all time amidst their relationship dramas and creative differences. It’s proof that bands can work best in completely different ways—some thrive in chaos, others prefer calm and consistency.
