Why Lindsey Buckingham got “aggressive” towards Fleetwood Mac’s producer during ‘Rumours’
For Fleetwood Mac, creating Rumours was like a work of fiction, or the friend group you once had that felt like dramatic developments were constantly in rotation. With various breakups, affairs, personal struggles, and clashing creative visions, every song was fueled by real tension and raw emotion. While every member had their reasons to feel frustrated, Lindsey Buckingham never truly mastered the art of keeping his anger at bay.
While creating the album, not one band member was left untouched by difficulties. Buckingham, along with Stevie Nicks, Christine McVie, John McVie, and Mick Fleetwood, each encountered challenges and dramas that shaped the sound of the album. Their excessive drug use and inability to communicate their concerns dignifiedly exacerbated this.
While Christine and John McVie were going through a heavy divorce, Fleetwood was also experiencing issues within his marriage after discovering his wife, Jenny Boyd, was having an affair with his best friend. And then, of course, the relationship between Nicks and Buckingham reached irreparability, resulting in various jealousy-filled arguments and disagreements.
All of these circumstances made it difficult for Buckingham to shelve his emotions, but most of the time, he utilised his anger to play even better. Most of the time, it worked; one of the reasons why Rumours is so heavy on the emotional charge is that Buckingham leaned into his frustrations and allowed this to come through in the rawness of his guitar work.
Other times, however, he went too far, as when recording his parts for ‘You Make Loving Fun’. According to producer Ken Caillat, Buckingham willingly and knowingly fostered his own “aggressive place” in an effort to improve his performance, but the mounting pressure to constantly one-up the previous delivery made his demeanour even more hostile.
“We started recording over our least favourite tracks,” Caillat recalled in his book, Making Rumours: The Inside Story of the Classic Fleetwood Mac Album. Continuing, he said things “got hot and heavy” as Buckingham delivered his guitar solo, constantly saying he could “do better” after each take. “He was asking me to record over what I thought was a really nice take,” Caillat said, so when he asked him if he was certain he wanted to do that, Buckingham shouted frustratingly.
Humouring Buckingham’s wishes, they recorded a new take, which required them to record over the previous one—one that the guitarist then decided he liked better. When Caillat said they’d recorded over the version he preferred, he acted out in a blind rage. “He put his guitar down and charged into the control room, approaching me from the front while I was in my control booth seat,” Caillat wrote.
According to his recollection of events, Buckingham then “placed both of his hands around my neck” while shouting, “You’re an idiot!” Screaming at the producer, he remembered “his hands tightening around my throat.” Shocked by the sudden turn of events, Caillat didn’t do anything to stop the musician or calm him down, but he did resign himself to the fact that he had crossed a line.
Despite Buckingham later apologising, Caillat never really believed his sentiment and felt that he only expressed remorse because others had been watching the whole situation unfold at the time. At this point, the recording sessions for Rumours marked an emotional all-time-high, but the experience in the studio shrouds the entire thing in a certain bittersweetness that becomes harder to ignore.
Each member might have made bad choices during these sessions, but it did enhance the music and pushed the band to places they never would have been able to reach if they hadn’t knowingly embraced the chaos. Without any indication of breaking up during such a turbulent time, it’s almost as if they knew the power of embracing the darkness, even if they were hurting in the process.
