Lindsey discusses his firing (Rolling Stone)
 

This October 10 Rolling Stone article featuring Lindsey has already been posted by BigAl84 in the "LB speaks at meet and greet" thread in the Rumours forum and by kak125 in the "New Lindsey article in Rolling Stone" thread in the LB forum.

But I thought it warranted its own thread in this forum, because it's buried in the middle of the thread in the Rumours forum, and because the thread in the LB forum can focus on the new solo album etc.

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Lindsey Buckingham: Life After Fleetwood Mac

Lindsey Buckingham and his wife, Kristen, were at home in Los Angeles on January 28th, watching the Grammy Awards ceremony on television, when the phone rang. Fleetwood Mac’s manager Irving Azoff was calling with a message for Buckingham from Stevie Nicks. The gist of it, Buckingham says, quoting Azoff: “Stevie never wants to be on a stage with you again.”

Two nights earlier, the most popular and enduring lineup of Fleetwood Mac — Nicks, Buckingham, singer-keyboard player Christine McVie, bassist John McVie and drummer Mick Fleetwood — performed in New York at a MusiCares benefit show honoring the group. “We rehearsed for two days, and everything was great,” Buckingham claims. “We were getting along great.”

But on the phone, Azoff had a list of things that, as Buckingham puts it, “Stevie took issue with” that evening, including the guitarist’s outburst just before the band’s set over the intro music — the studio recording of Nicks’ “Rhiannon” — and the way he “smirked” during Nicks’ thank-you speech. Buckingham concedes the first point. “It wasn’t about it being ‘Rhiannon,’ ” he says. “It just undermined the impact of our entrance. That’s me being very specific about the right and wrong way to do something.”

As for smirking, “The irony is that we have this standing joke that Stevie, when she talks, goes on a long time,” Buckingham says. “I may or may not have smirked. But I look over and Christine and Mick are doing the waltz behind her as a joke.”

At the end of that call, Buckingham assumed Nicks was quitting Fleetwood Mac. He wrote an e-mail to Fleetwood assuring the drummer that the group could continue. There was no reply. A couple of days later, Buckingham says, “I called Irving and said, ‘This feels funny. Is Stevie leaving the band, or am I getting kicked out?’ ” Azoff told the guitarist he was “getting ousted” and that Nicks gave the rest of the band “an ultimatum: Either you go or she’s gonna go.”

Asked if those were Azoff’s exact words, Buckingham responds, “Pretty much. I don’t remember his exact words, but that was the message.” In April, Fleetwood Mac announced a major North American tour with two new guitarists: Neil Finn, formerly of Crowded House, and Mike Campbell, from Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.

Azoff and the other members of Fleetwood Mac declined to comment for this story on Buckingham’s account of his dismissal. But in April, Fleetwood — who co-founded the group in 1967 with original guitarist Peter Green — told Rolling Stone that the band hit an “impasse” with Buckingham. “This was not a happy situation for us in terms of the logistics of a functioning band.” The drummer did not elaborate but said, “We made a decision that we could not go on with him.”


Buckingham’s romantic and musical partner when the two joined the Mac in 1975 — cited a disagreement over tour plans, saying Buckingham wanted too much time off for solo work. But, she added, “Our relationship has always been volatile. We were never married, but we might as well have been. Some couples get divorced after 40 years. They break their kids’ hearts and destroy everyone around them because it’s just hard.”

Buckingham confirms that, at a band meeting in late 2017 — shortly after a series of shows with McVie to promote their project, Lindsey Buckingham/Christine McVie — he asked for “three or four months extra” to do solo dates. There was “stonewalling,” he claims. “I left the meeting because there was nothing else to talk about.”

But he insists that Fleetwood Mac always “came first. And I don’t think there was ever anything that was just cause to be fired. We have all done things that were not constructive. All of us have worn on each other’s psyches at times. That’s the history of the group.”

It is a warm late-summer morning, and Buckingham, who turned 69 on October 3rd, is sitting on the patio behind his house in a hilly neighborhood in West Los Angeles, giving his version — on the record for the first time — of his exit from Fleetwood Mac. Later in the day, he will rehearse with his own band for a fall tour to promote Solo Anthology: The Best of Lindsey Buckingham, a compilation drawn from records he has made outside the Mac since the early Eighties. The guitarist had completed a new solo album, tentatively called Blue Light, when he was cut loose. It will come out next year.


“Am I heartbroken about not doing another tour with Fleetwood Mac? No,” Buckingham says, “because I can see that there are many other areas to look into.” But, he goes on, “The one thing that does bother me and breaks my heart is we spent 43 years always finding a way to rise above our personal differences and our difficulties to pursue and articulate a higher truth. That is our legacy. That is what the songs are about. This is not the way you end something like this.”

Buckingham says he tried to contact Nicks, without success. On February 28th, a month after first writing to Fleetwood, Buckingham sent the drummer another e-mail expressing those sentiments and his frustration with the band’s “radio silence.” There was no response. Since their last show together, at MusiCares, Buckingham has not spoken to any of his former bandmates.

On September 5th, Fleetwood Mac’s new lineup made its television debut on Ellen. Buckingham did not watch it. His wife did. “I was just sad,” Kristen says. “I was thinking, ‘How did they get here?’ ” Kristen and Lindsey met in 1996, not long before the guitarist — who quit Fleetwood Mac in 1987 — rejoined, leading to the 1997 live reunion album, The Dance. “Even though we didn’t see them very often,” Kristen says of the other members, “it was still a family of sorts.” The Buckinghams’ three children “called them aunts and uncles.”

It is still a small world. But it has become awkward. The husband of Lindsey’s niece is a drum technician on Fleetwood Mac’s road crew. Buckingham’s advice to him: “Mick is still a great guy. Don’t be anything other than a centered, grounded person for him. Do your job well.” Also, John McVie and the Buckinghams are neighbors. The bassist’s home is “literally 300 yards from here,” the guitarist says, pointing through his house to the other side of the street.

Kristen recently ran into John’s wife, Julie, at a local nail salon. “My heart sank a bit,” Kristen says. “She said hello. I asked about her daughter — it was neutral ground.” But when Julie mentioned the tour, “She must have seen my face: ‘Oh, how is Lindsey doing?’ I didn’t want to sugarcoat it. I just said, ‘You know, not great.’ ”


“I had a visceral reaction to it for a long time,” Buckingham says, “completely hurt. I’d be fine for a while, and then it would come back.” He was also “disappointed” in what he calls “the disproportion in what happened and anything you can put on me in terms of behavior and the scale of what went on.”

Buckingham is not the first member of Fleetwood Mac to be fired. Guitarist Danny Kirwan was canned by Fleetwood in 1972 for alcoholism and violent behavior. (Kirwan died in June.) In 1973, singer Bob Weston got his pink slip after he had an affair with Fleetwood’s then-wife. Buckingham, in turn, has a long-standing reputation as a hard case, uncompromising and quick to ignite. He took over Fleetwood Mac’s musical direction after the megaplatinum sales of the group’s 1977 album, Rumours, pushing for the New Wave risk of 1979’s Tusk. After that record’s muted success, the guitarist made his first solo album, 1981’s Law and Order, because, he says, “I was pissed off” at what he saw as the band’s creative retreat. “Was I biting the hand that fed me? Oh, yeah.”

Kristen acknowledges that Lindsey was “definitely edgier when I met him,” adding that marriage and fatherhood “softened” that. Still, she admits, “He’s always been a prickly guy. That’s the truth.”

Practicing for his solo tour at a studio in Burbank, Buckingham is relaxed and chatty as he runs down the opening numbers in a 23-song set list with two members of his band, keyboard player Brett Tuggle and bassist Federico Pol. (Drummer Jimmy Paxson will arrive in a few days.) Buckingham is also focused on the details in the music, singing with his eyes shut tight in concentration and looking intently at his guitar as he picks the Bach-like introduction of “Don’t Look Down,” from 1992’s Out of the Cradle.

Buckingham is literally a solo artist in that he records mostly at home, singing and playing virtually all of the parts, and he is an obvious perfectionist in rehearsal as he stops songs to resolve the timing of a part or the volume in his monitors. It is easy to see how, in a historically dysfunctional setting like Fleetwood Mac, that kind of intensity could spill over into dissension and stalemate.


Ironically, when Buckingham starts his solo tour in early October, in Portland, Oregon, it is within days of the new Fleetwood Mac’s opening night, in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The latter are playing arenas into next spring. Buckingham is appearing in theaters such as New York’s Town Hall. “That’s the story of my solo work: You lose nine-tenths of the listeners,” Buckingham concedes. The set list he rehearses in Burbank includes songs that he could be playing with Fleetwood Mac right now: “Big Love,” “Tusk,” “Go Your Own Way.” But the encores are from solo albums. One, from 2008’s Gift of Screws, is called “Treason.”

“It is not my place or intent to open that door,” Buckingham says of his former band. “I’ve done my best to reach out to them.” He has not “technically closed the book on anything. Nor would I. But I am not planning that anything will change from what it is now.”

Buckingham knows there will be moments on his solo tour, backstage, when well-meaning fans will hand him a copy of Rumours to sign. And “that’s OK,” he says. “Somebody handing me Rumours has no effect on anything more than it ever would have. It is just an affirmation that we’ve done our job right.”

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/m...firing-733460/

Just transposing some of the comments on this from the "LB speaks at meet and greet" thread.

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Homer McVie
Pretty much what we've speculated all along. Thanks for posting that!

Neal
And there we have it.
At least 50% of the truth, from one of the horses mouths.

jbrownsjr
Hmmmm and yet the folks with close friends or employees of the band don't know what they are talking about. They just want to blame that poor excu$e for a human being.
Thank you LB!!! For not trying to PR around it. Blunt. And, oh what do you know??? They were already rehearsing for the tour. So, this whole lie that FM spread was just that. A lie.

wilsonmac
Buckingham’s advice to the husband of his niece who is on the Mac tour as a drum tech:
“Mick is still a great guy. Don’t be anything other than a centered, grounded person for him. Do your job well.”
Top class Mr. Buckingham. Proud to be a fan of yours

dreamsunwind
Wow. Reading that hurt my heart a little :(
Just to hear it directly that she did do that. And over absolutely nothing worth it either. So sad.

Neal
It's actually pretty sad/pitiable that Stevie has obviously been carrying around so much animosity and anger for all of these years. :(
But I still can't get over the way it was handled. My sympathy is minimal... :(

Storms123
I love Stevie, but She droned on like a loon at Musicare.. Mick and Christine, who were OPENLY mocking her are still there. And just actually proves the "head space" comments that many here have alluded too.
Lindsey's daughter posted a video of Stevie on her IG from that night and called her "My Queen".
He's encouraging Steve Rincon (drum tech married to Cory Buckingham) how to engage and say "Mick's a good guy" Cooler heads prevail, and in this case, Lindsey proves to be the grown up. I mean---they email each other, over something as important as this.
Spoiled brats...all of them.

jbrownsjr
It goes back to BuckVie. I feel it in my bones. $he's a jealous angry fool. If I'm not doing the album, you're not doing the tour. Don't pi$$ off $tevie. Not even Lindsey can get away with it.

It's even worse than what I speculated, because I at least thought there was a real fight.... not "he smirked at me."

I am beyond disgusted with Stevie.

I am never seeing Fleetwood Mac again.

aaaannndddd....... waiting for the inevitable "but how do we know that's what happened? He could be making it all up. Of course he's going to say it's Stevie" blah bah blah blah blah.

The "he smirked at me!" is so pathetic it's hilarious. It's like when you're five f'ing years old and you whine to your mommy "he's looking at me!" WTF.

So, the ultimatum was real, the lies about rehearsals were real, the being surprised was real, and him having a rant at Musicares was real.

Stevie "I'm not the boss in the band"...... total lie.

Exactly. Stevie Nicks must be a very unhappy person. Grow up

Can all the Stevie apologists now just give it a break for a while and see the wood for the trees?

As wilsonmac says, never been prouder to be a predominately Lindsey fan.

I’m no Stevie apologist and I hate what has gone down. I’m also unclear why there is an immediate assumption that what Lindsey said is the whole story.

I'm most disappointed with Christine. I'd have though she'd have at least had some contact with him. Doesn't sound like it.
What a complete load sh!t

It's hard for me to wrap my head around ANYONE being that petty, much less a 70 year old woman.

I appreciate Lindsey's honesty here and the fact that he managed to remain classy about the rest of them in spite of what's happened. And I appreciate that he seems to be the only one with a genuine concern about the legacy of the band and the fans.

Ridiculous. When people start claiming mental illness without knowing the whole story (and clearly knowing little about mental health), this has gone off the rails.

I can't wait for that.....he referenced Azoff's words, while not quoting directly, soooooooo, if the band were to try to refute his (LB) comments, but he references what Azoff told him....$lippery $lope for the band. And Azoff is 100% aware Lindsey gave this interview....I am 100% sure of it.

He said "mental health issues", not "mental illness"
 

I think his very point is that it is Stevie who, sadly, has gone off the rails.
Furthermore she is surrounded only by enablers now.

Right?!

This makes her comment during the CBS interview all the more bizarre. I wanted to think her dramatic pause was borne of guilt - deflecting partial blame so she doesn't look like the bad guy - but the person I've seen onstage this past week appears to be having the time of her life... :shrug:

I am curious about the exact nature of the "outburst" over the music intro. Sadly there were no details about that.

well, her PR team is not shy about protecting their girl no matter the cost. So my bet is we haven't heard the last of this; Stevie's team is working out their response...... but given how long and coldly she waited to take her shot to oust him, her inevitable hit back at him may not come right away, but when she figures he's most vulnerable. Guarantee it. Maybe at her RRHOF induction speech. She'll put enough distance between his comments and hers to have plausible deniability that the two are related. (And her apologists will blindly believe her). But She will not let this stand as the last word.

ESPECIALLY when the reasons for his firing are beyond childish and petty. When Mick eventually relayed the reasons and story to Chris about what went down...surely you would laugh out loud and go don't be so Bl&%dy ridiculous...lock them in a room and get them to sort this out...this is no reason to destroy the band.

You would DO SOMETHING TO STOP IT. He was your good friend.

Exactly...Sugar Mouse can you now stand up and admit that LB did not insist on a Nov 2019 tour delay?

I think there is more to the story than what Lindsey is saying. Always two sides to everything, it takes two to break a relationship. I'm not defending anyone here. But lots of details seem to be missing.
I can only think things between Stevie and Lindsey have never been that good. They both know how to push buttons. Lindsey comes across as an overbearing perfectionist that has to be right. Stevie who lives in a bubble is at times oversensitive and reactive.
They seem to feed off of each other at times. I bet Lindsey can be at least emotionally abusive, knows what will stir her up.
So after many years of this, I think Stevie had enough, whatever happened at music cares may have been the tipping point of years and years of tension.
Maybe in her old age, she simply didn't want to deal with all the negative emotions and fighting anymore. I can understand how she may have come to this conclusion.

But they weren’t good friends. They were collaborators and had a great musical chemistry, but they weren’t especially close whenever they weren’t working. Christine has said this numerous times. She talked with Mick frequently throughout her retirement, with the occasional communications with John and Stevie, but never with Lindsey.

Still....not the way you handle that situation as an adult. A 70 year old adult.

Speaking for myself, if I had known anyone for 4 decades and worked alongside them so much, I'd automatically consider that person a good friend, regardless of how often we may hang out and chat on our own. That's a long, long time to know and work with someone.

As I stated earlier, this is the first Fleetwood Mac tour in 40 years (including TIME) that I HAVE NOT purchased tickets to. I have almost broken down 2 times and made the purchase. After reading this, I am really glad that I did not. I won't be contributing anymore funds to this dysfunction. NONE of these people are innocent....NONE.

The firing of Lindsey Buckingham is an outrage. However, this is not the only issue here. Before this writing, I had noticed Mick and Christine doing The Waltz during Stevie's speech--I knew exactly what they were referring to because she does ramble. I certainly have NOT been a Stevie defender, but mocking her behind her back onstage while she's giving a speech is toxic. What Mick and Chris were doing was worse that Lindsey's supposed "smirk".

Whatever the case, I won't contribute money to this toxicity in the form of ticket sales.

Still....not the way you handle that situation as an adult. A 70 year old adult.

True, but when a person has had lots of trauma or abuse in their lives they kinda are stunted emotionally. So she doesn't seem to have the skills to work through issues that may come her way. So she just reacts.

She herself has said this is true of BOTH of them. She pushes his buttons and vice versa. So the blade could cut both ways on that one.

I bet most members of the band are tired of the ongoing emotional nonsense.

Your assumption is that it was perfectly reasonable for her to demand that the band choose between her or him. Would you feel the same if he was the one who had made the demand, and it resulted in her being booted? Coz she's done just as much. She just masks it better, and has always been far, far, far better at playing the press. Go back and read articles over the years where she was unhappy with something on an album and in order to get her way she would give the band an ultimatum "How's it going to look when I go to Rolling Stone and bad mouth this record?" Even Mick describes her doing this in his first book.

I was always a Stevie fan, and I think she's a turd for doing this. I'd feel the same if he pitched a fit and whined that Stevie talks too long onstage, I don't want to be onstage with her again. Come on.

And the rest of those money grubbers going along with it.

I mean, "Stevie never wants to be on a stage with you again." WTF? Not even "Stevie doesn't want to be in the band together anymore".

Whatever happened to all of HER constant comments in interviews about "One of us will be 80 sitting on a bed alone when the other one dies".

What changed? He got married and had kids, that's a big thing. Once they were never, ever going to rekindle anything, she was done.

Exactly. Naturally, the LB fan club here skips over that and focuses only on the smirk. It was obviously not just the smirk that lead us to this point. Note that the article says “including.” Not everything has been revealed about his behavior:

As Buckingham told Rolling Stone, a few days after the show he received a phone call from manager Irving Azoff, who proceeded to list various issues Nicks had with his behavior that night, including his complaints about their intro music being Nicks’ “Rhiannon” and that he may have “smirked” while she was giving her acceptance speech.

Maybe they weren't good friends, but I've no reason to believe they disliked each other. When you spend a year making a record with somebody and then do a tour with them there has to be some sort of relationship on some level. Unless they had a falling out on that tour (which I don't believe for one minute), her not being in contact after what went down is just bloody weird.
...Isn't that weird?

No. There is no reason to. He’s been an asshole for 40 years and she’s sick of it. She likes the remaining four members (now 6) so why should SHE quit?

This.

He finally grew up and got a LIFE. She never did. She's still a child. She HATES that he got a real life, and she didn't.

Lots of abuse in their lives....I dont buy that, the only abuse shes had is self inflicted...drug abuse

Your assumption is that it was perfectly reasonable for her to demand that the band choose between her or him

I never made that assumption at all!!!
I was just stating how I can see how Stevie must have felt or come to the decision that she made.

This was an incredibly sad read. I tend to be more of a Stevie fan, but I felt heartbroken for Lindsey after reading his account of what happened. I wish him nothing but the best. His legacy as both a member of Fleetwood Mac and a solo artist is secure no matter what path he follows into the future.

This is in no way a defense of Stevie or her actions, but I think Tom Petty's death really affected her. I think that, as she has noted, she has reached a point, at least in her professional life, where she no longer wants to do things that make her personally unhappy or stressed or uncomfortable. Unfortunately, her first victim was Lindsey. I just wish she would own the role she played in his ousting and not continue to lie and push a narrative that puts the blame on Lindsey ("he wanted us to wait a year to tour!").

If true, her reasons for "never wanting to be on another stage with Lindsey again" were petty and childish, and the band's behavior since his firing is abhorrent. Come on, people! Email the guy back or give him a call and talk it out. Given what he did for all of you, he deserves a conversation, even if it's a final one.

Oh man....be prepared. You've really stepped into it now LOL. Hold strong.

Seriously? He had some kind of an outburst and condescends to her and yet he is mature and she isn’t because isn’t because she was sick of his behavior? Both are immature. He was fired, he has not taken the high road.

Well Stevie isn't a child. She's 70 years old and she's not some poor victim. I'll never understand where the desire to make Stevie into some poor little victim who's been used and mistreated all her life comes from. She's been a powerful, successful woman who dished it out just as good as she got it it. And either way, a lot of people have been through a lot of hard times in their lives and somehow manage to not live in a deluded bubble where they are the center of the universe and every little person who crosses them is an enemy. But Stevie DOES live in that world and she has for decades. And she also knows her own power and she used it out of immaturity and pettiness.

HAHAHA...Im thick skinned ...and plus its absolutely true what I said right?! SN was not abused...sure people may have verbally said bad things to her from time to time but she was always equally as strong to hold her own in an argument.

I don’t think she is a poor victim. She has had it up to here with his antics...and now he is gone. :xoxo:

How do you know this? Were you there?

And no way she would be the success she is without him. Rhiannon, as written, would never have been a hit single. Thank him for that. Same with Landslide.
Same with all her stuff on Tusk.

Per Jimmy Iovine, when she went to do Bella Donna, she had no sense of what was a good song, what was a good arrangement, because she always let Lindsey decide for her. If he did the heavy lifting, she could partay.

We don't know if she likes the other 4 members, but clearly she can control them by threatening to leave.

Yeah she used her power out of immaturity and pettiness. Just like she admitted to having done to other people. She herself has talked openly about the ugly decisions she made back in the height of her career and as her drug problems worsened. She admitted to firing people, failing to show up and pissing a lot of people off and blamed it all on the cocaine. And many other people from her bandmates, to her former producers, to even some of her own friends have owned up to how hard Stevie could be to deal with. She's acted like quite an asshole throughout her life, as has Lindsey, and yet in the end it wasn't Lindsey who behaved like a vengeful child to get her pushed out of a band that she's been part of for decades.