Lindsey Buckingham breaks silence on his Fleetwood Mac firing

Fans of Fleetwood Mac have been eagerly anticipating a new concert tour since last summer, when the band played at the Classic East music festival. So, when the band formally announced a series of 2018 dates, music lovers couldn’t wait to see the band’s classic lineup of Mick Fleetwood, Stevie Nicks, Lindsey Buckingham, John McVie and Christine McVie.

But, the joy didn’t last long for Fleetwood Mac or for the band’s fans. In early April, Fleetwood Mac announced that it had severed ties with guitarist Lindsey Buckingham over “musical differences regarding the tour.”

The remaining members of Fleetwood Mac assured fans the tour would continue with former Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers guitarist Mike Campbell and Crowded House frontman Neil Finn.

Since the announcement, Buckingham, who had been with the band since 1974, made no official statement about the rift. However, the former Fleetwood Mac singer, songwriter and guitarist finally spoke about the turn of events during a solo performance at a campaign fundraiser for Mike Levin, a California Democrat seeking election to Congress.

And, from his statement, Buckingham made it clear that leaving his bandmates of 43 years was not up to him.

“This was not something that was really my doing or my choice,” Buckingham said between songs. “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 fulfill one’s higher truth and one’s higher destiny.”

You can view his full statement in this YouTube video:

In a recent Rolling Stone article, members of Fleetwood Mac shared their take on what happened.

“Words like ‘fired’ are ugly references as far as I’m concerned,” Mick Fleetwood told Rolling Stone. “Not to hedge around, but we arrived at the impasse of hitting a brick wall. This was not a happy situation for us in terms of the logistics of a functioning band. To that purpose, we made a decision that we could not go on with him. Majority rules in term of what we need to do as a band and go forward.”