Fleetwood Mac drummer- and one half of the group’s namesake – Mick Fleetwood has opened up about the firing of longtime guitarist Lindsey Buckingham.
Back in April, it was announced that after a total of 35 years in the group, Fleetwood Mac guitarist Lindsey Buckingham had been fired from the band, with Mike Campbell of Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers and Crowded House’s Neil Finn joining the lineup in his absence.
“We are thrilled to welcome the musical talents of the calibre of Mike Campbell and Neil Finn into the Mac family,” the band said at the time. “With Mike and Neil, we’ll be performing all the hits that the fans love, plus we’ll be surprising our audiences with some tracks from our historic catalogue of songs. Fleetwood Mac has always been a creative evolution. We look forward to honoring that spirit on this upcoming tour.”
Soon after this news broke, Buckingham spoke about the split for the first time, confirming that he had almost no say in the matter.
“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,” Buckingham explained.
“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. Well, it doesn’t really matter. The point is that they’d lost their perspective,” he continued. “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.”
Now, drummer and founding member Mick Fleetwood has spoken to Billboard about a number of topics, while also opening up about Buckingham’s firing from the band.
“Obviously this is a huge change with the advent of Lindsey Buckingham not being a part of Fleetwood Mac,” Mick Fleetwood began. “We all wish him well and all the rest of it.”
“In truthful language, we just weren’t happy. And I’ll leave it at that in terms of the dynamic.”
Fleetwood also discussed the addition of Mike Campbell and Neil Finn to the band, noting that the group’s history has set a precedent for this level of membership changes.
“We’re with Mike Campbell from Tom Petty and Neil Finn from Crowded House – both really credible gentleman and really talented,” he explained.
“We are a week into rehearsals and it’s going really well and we’re looking forward, in true Fleetwood Mac style. If you know anything about the history of this band, it’s sort of peppered with this type of dramatic stuff. It’s a strange band really.”
“It’s ironic that we have a 50-year package coming out with all the old blues stuff with Peter Green, all the incarnations of Fleetwood Mac, which was not of course planned.”
“But that’s what we’re feeling, especially myself and John, having been in Fleetwood Mac for 55 years. So it’s exciting, totally challenging in the whole creative part of it, and we’re really loving it. We’re just looking at a whole 18 months on-and-off of trekking around the world like we normally do and having it be fun.”
While there’s no word yet as to whether or not this new incarnation of Fleetwood Mac will make their way over to Aussie shores for a few shows, we can only hope that Neil Finn might be able to steer them home towards Australia and New Zealand for a quick stopover at some point.
Check out Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Go Your Own Way’:
