25 Years Ago: Fleetwood Mac Release ‘Behind the Mask’ Without Lindsey Buckingham

[michelej1]

Originally Posted by Macfan4life

Even Stevie said recently that Lindsey was frustrated since she was drugged out during this time how she would show up late to recording, etc. .

Yes, that's my point. Stevie said that she was on drugs at the time. My comment was that you are wrong about Lindsey citing Mick or Stevie's substance abuse as the reason he left the band. He never did. Nor did he talk about their personal vices. When he talked about band craziness, it was always in the context of all 5 of them and the way they were interacting.

And since 1997 he has talked about his own demons as reasons why he needed to leave the band. He even said he left and went into therapy.

As for his bashing BTM, there are no interviews in which he did that, except the one where he boasted it took two guitarists to replace him.

But Christine is the one who said that Mick should have gone another route (instead of Dave Mason) instead of trying to fix a broken vase. Lindsey didn't talk about Behind the Mask being destined to failure. He did put down the nostalgia tour with Pat Benatar a few years later though. He said that was sad. He didn't say that about BTM. When he talked about appearing on stage with BTM he said it was easy for him because all he had to do was come out and play GYOW and that was sure to go over well, but he didn't say anything else about BTM, the album or the tour. In fact, he said he didn't watch their live show, even when he was backstage.

I don't disagree with you that Lindsey talks in code sometimes, but I don't think there are any interviews or quotes that suggest he was telling the press "Oh, Mick and Stevie's drug abuse force me out." That's why they said he left. He didn't say that's why. He cited mostly creative reasons for leaving and, in his Say Goodbye discussions, said that he couldn't get over Stevie while he was still in the band with her, again freely admitting he had his own demons to deal with.

Michele