Lindsey Buckingham believes internal “politics” are to blame for Fleetwood Mac’s limited output over the past three decades.
The group’s most successful line-up – Lindsey, Stevie Nicks, Christine McVie, John McVie and Mick Fleetwood – released five albums from 1975 – 1987, before undergoing a series of line-up changes.
Released in 1990, ‘Behind the Mask’ featured Billy Burnette and Rick Vito in place of Lindsey, while 2003’s ‘Say You Will’ marked the absence of Christine and is their last album to date.
Speaking to Clash, Lindsey explained: “Fleetwood Mac is this big machine, and my solo endeavours are this smaller machine.
“Within Fleetwood Mac, politics have essentially dictated that we haven’t made any new music in a while.
“But as a solo artist, I don’t have to push back against that.
“I’ve always done what I’ve wanted to do, basically, and I think the realisation I had to come to was being willing to lose some of the huge audience Fleetwood Mac have in order to pursue that.
“It’s just a trade-off you have to be willing to make in order to do things on your own terms.”
Meanwhile, the hitmaker – who released his self-titled seventh solo album in September – admitted the band “didn’t – on paper – belong in the same group together”.
“Early on, soon after joining Fleetwood Mac, I realised that we were the kind of group who didn’t – on paper – belong in the same group together.
“But yet that was the very thing that made us so effective,” he insisted.
“There was a synergy there, where the whole became more than the sum of its parts. What happens is that you begin to understand that, and accept it as a gift.”
