'Rumours' singer and guitarist Lindsey Buckingham is having fun, again

[MacMan]

By David Burger
The Salt Lake Tribune
Salt Lake Tribune


Lindsey Buckingham is having fun.

That's a new thing, as the singer, guitarist and songwriter most famous for his time in Fleetwood Mac has had tough times in the past. Most famous, he gained notoriety for breaking up with fellow band member Stevie Nicks during the recording of "Rumours," the 1977 Fleetwood Mac album that sent the band into the stratosphere and became one of the best-selling albums of all time.

But Buckingham, Nicks and the other members have reunited periodically to record new Fleetwood Mac material. In the time between reunions, Buckingham has released two solo albums: 2006's "Under the Skin," a quiet, intimate album, and now "Gift of Screws," a rocking album showing Buckingham's bluesier side. He's touring to support the new album and will perform at The Depot Sept. 22.

In a recent conference call, the 58-year-old singer talked about his new solo work, how his personal life feeds his music, and the future of Fleetwood Mac.

On how his new album differs from his last, acoustic-based album:

When I got to the beginning of working on "Gift of Screws," I wasn't necessarily intending to make it so much more rock. But it seemed to want to go in a certain direction on its own, and one thing you learn is that you sort of follow the work and let it lead you. As soon as I got some of my mates from the road and we started cutting, everything just wanted to rock.

On where some material for the new album came from:

There had been a whole solo work back in 2003 that had been intended for a solo work and got folded into a Fleetwood Mac album, which is not the first time that's happened. [There is] a little pattern there. . . . The stragglers from that - the ones that didn't seem to fit into that - were waiting to find some sort of a home, and they did find a home on "Gift of Screws."

On his personal life:

I was very lucky to meet a woman [photographer Kristen Messner] and to fall in love and have three children. The subtext of all the work that has gone on in the last three years has, in a way, been much easier because it's been a period where the personal side of my life has been greatly enriched. We used to use that old adage [that] children are death to the artist. But I have found that to be just the opposite. It feels to me like I'm kind of in the most creative period of my life right now.

On his early relationship with other members of Fleetwood Mac:

For a lot of years after I left in '87 and all the way back to what was going on during "Rumours" and the fact that you had two couples who were breaking up and yet had to see each other every day - and personally, watching Stevie move away from me and yet having to make the choice to do the right thing for her as a producer and never having the space to get any closure - it was like someone picking at a wound all the time. After a while, it got to be pretty hard. I think the way some of us dealt with it was to kind of close off whole areas of your emotional landscape, to seal them off, to kind of to live in various states of denial, to live in the rooms you could live in and never go in the other rooms.

On how his relationship is now with other members of Fleetwood Mac:

It's like you can go home and see your mom and dad and you can feel completely comfortable and in a context that you can't find anywhere else because they know you so well and they've been through so many things with you. It doesn't mean that you don't have issues, too, that may pop up.

On the future of Fleetwood Mac:

Fleetwood Mac is actually going to go and start rehearsing probably in January when I'm done with all of this, [and] go on the road and do some dates. We're contemplating this whole thing of making an album and having a whole other phase. . . . The agenda, I think, is for us to avoid things that maybe we've sort of blown out of proportion in the past and . . . to remind ourselves that we do know each other really well., and we actually love each other and are great friends, although it's always been a fairly convoluted situation. . . . We are certainly a group of people whose sensibilities range greatly and in a way don't even belong in the same band together. It's the synergy of that which makes it what it is, and just really the mantra to try to enjoy each other as people and to honor each other's feelings a little more than we have in the past.