Speaker 1: Pushkin. Lindsey Buckingham's signature fingerstyle guitar is perhaps as recognizable
Speaker 1: as a countless classic songs he wrote while he was
Speaker 1: in Fleetwood Mac Done Go Back Again. Buckingham is a
Speaker 1: self taught guitar virtuoso and songwriter who famously joined Fleetwood
Speaker 1: Mac in the mid seventies with his then girlfriend Stevie Nicks.
Speaker 1: The band had been a round since sixty seven, with
Speaker 1: various singers, guitarists, and songwriters. The only constant was the
Speaker 1: rhythm section drummer Mick Fleetwood and bassist John mcviee, but
Speaker 1: the band didn't blow up until Buckingham and Nicks joined,
Speaker 1: writing mega hits for their insanely successful tenth and eleventh albums,
Speaker 1: including the twenty times Platinum Rumors. A lot of the
Speaker 1: songs were about Buckingham's romantic fallout with Nicks in nearly
Speaker 1: half a century later, tensions between the two are still
Speaker 1: very much alive. In twenty eighteen, Stephen Nicks supposedly had
Speaker 1: Buckingham fired from Fleetwood Mac after he asked for some
Speaker 1: time away from the band to work on his solo album.
Speaker 1: On today's episode, bruce Head, them talks to Lindsey Buckingham
Speaker 1: about that solo album. Buckingham also tells Bruce that he
Speaker 1: and Nix never really got closure from the breakup and
Speaker 1: how that affected their professional relationship and the decades. Since
Speaker 1: this is broken record. Liner notes for the digital age.
Speaker 1: I'm justin Richmondsham. Here's Bruce Head with Lindsey Buckenhan. So
Speaker 1: tell me about this album. Well, you know, I have
Speaker 1: had this ready to go for three years, at least
Speaker 1: I had actually finished it, you know, right after Christine
Speaker 1: mcviigh and I did that duet album a few years back,
Speaker 1: and we had Christine and I had done a tour,
Speaker 1: and it was my intention to you know, put this
Speaker 1: current album out back to back with that and do
Speaker 1: at least an American tour behind it before embarking on
Speaker 1: another Fleetwood Mac tour, which was already in the works.
Speaker 1: And I went and asked the band if I could
Speaker 1: have an extra three months before we started rehearsing for
Speaker 1: the Fleewod Mac tour, and there was some resistance to
Speaker 1: that from at least one member, so it got put
Speaker 1: off at that point, and then you know a series
Speaker 1: of other things occurred in the interim that kept it
Speaker 1: on the shelf. You know, one was having a bypass
Speaker 1: surgery a couple of years ago, and then of course
Speaker 1: the pandemic, so you know, which put everybody on hold.
Speaker 1: So you know, it's it's been a long time coming,
Speaker 1: but as I say, it has been ready to go
Speaker 1: for a number of years, and it's nice to finally
Speaker 1: get it out. You know. Listening to it, there's a
Speaker 1: lot of different kind of songs. There's a lot of sounds,
Speaker 1: three or four of the songs. If you told people
Speaker 1: these were like extra tracks from a kind of classic
Speaker 1: Fleetwood Mac album, they'd go, oh, yeah, that makes total sense. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, it was funny because I was, and when
Speaker 1: I began working on it, I you know, I've always
Speaker 1: defined my solo work as being a bit more off
Speaker 1: to the left, or a lot more off to the left,
Speaker 1: and more esoteric. Obviously, in doing that you lose a
Speaker 1: large chunk of potential listeners who don't really get what
Speaker 1: you're doing because it doesn't resonate with their preconceptions of
Speaker 1: you in Fleetwood Mac. But when I got, you know,
Speaker 1: into working on this album, I really was thinking about
Speaker 1: making just a straight ahead pop album, you know, with
Speaker 1: a few you know, odd touches as well. But so
Speaker 1: you're you are correct that many of these songs do
Speaker 1: sound very much in the spirit of the style that
Speaker 1: I applied to Fleetwood Mac as well. Now there's others
Speaker 1: like Scream, which is the first song, which you know
Speaker 1: instantly when you hear the opening of Scream, you're like, Oh,
Speaker 1: that's Lindsay Buckinghan play the guitar. You could just you
Speaker 1: could blindfold people. Man, it's just just like you. It
Speaker 1: just sounds like you. You know. That could be from
Speaker 1: Seeds We've Sewn or other other albums you've made, and
Speaker 1: a couple others. I just want to ask you about
Speaker 1: blue Light, which I thought was just an outstanding track
Speaker 1: and probably one of those that sounds closer to Fleetwood
Speaker 1: Mac than You're Solower. Yeah, you know, it's got sort
Speaker 1: of a shuffle, kind of bluesy base combined with something
Speaker 1: you might have found in Holiday Road or I'm not
Speaker 1: really sure exactly how to characterize that. But again, the
Speaker 1: content of the lyrics is just about a long term
Speaker 1: relationship and celebrating the fact that you go through all
Speaker 1: sorts of things and that all sorts of challenges can
Speaker 1: and do present themselves, especially the longer year together, and
Speaker 1: that you know, if the love and the clarity is there,
Speaker 1: that you will always rise above that and you will
Speaker 1: never succumb to in this case, the blue light. Okay, Now,
Speaker 1: your personal life is I know you filed for divorce,
Speaker 1: is it? Well, you know, we have, but there's there's
Speaker 1: really it's a work in progress. We're not really sure
Speaker 1: what we're doing. I mean, it was that was done
Speaker 1: at a moment in time. But I think there's a
Speaker 1: lot of interest with both of us to try to
Speaker 1: figure this out. And I had no idea how many
Speaker 1: people actually file and never follow through, you know, I
Speaker 1: guess said another. I didn't either until I was made
Speaker 1: aware of that. I may file later today. I didn't
Speaker 1: know that. Hey, you know, if you've got nothing else
Speaker 1: to do now, you grew up in northern California, I did,
Speaker 1: yes around Palowalt Atherton actually, And was there a lot
Speaker 1: of music in your house growing up? Well, you know,
Speaker 1: I probably, in fact, I can say with certainty that
Speaker 1: I would not be here now doing what I'm doing
Speaker 1: had it not been for my older brother. You know,
Speaker 1: I was an avid listener of the music that was
Speaker 1: in our household when I was very young, three four five,
Speaker 1: if it wasn't children's records, you know, it was what
Speaker 1: your parents bought for themselves. So I was an avid
Speaker 1: listener of you know, South Pacific Soundtrack and some of
Speaker 1: my dad's Dixieland Jazz seventy eights or Nutcracker Sweet or
Speaker 1: whatever they happen to have. You know, it's funny you
Speaker 1: mentioned that, because because we had a Nutcracker Sweet, we
Speaker 1: had Peter and the Wolf on the other side of it,
Speaker 1: and those records were just magic when you were a kid. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, Nutcracker Sweet, all of those songs are actually
Speaker 1: I see them as great pop constructions, you know, they're
Speaker 1: they're they're really very accessible, even though technically it's classical music,
Speaker 1: you know. I mean they're very thematic and very sort
Speaker 1: of kind of structured as pop songs, you know, And
Speaker 1: I always loved that about that anyway, So I was
Speaker 1: already attuned to, you know, sort of a fine attentive
Speaker 1: level of listening even when I was very very young.
Speaker 1: But then when I was about six, my older brother
Speaker 1: came home one day and said, well, there's this new singer.
Speaker 1: His name is Elvis Presley, And of course I couldn't
Speaker 1: even imagine what this guy was going to look like.
Speaker 1: I was picturing like al fred Astaire or something in
Speaker 1: a top hat and tales. I didn't know. So he
Speaker 1: started bringing home Elvis and he's but he was an
Speaker 1: avid collector of all the early great rock and roll,
Speaker 1: whether it was Chuck Barry or Johnny Cash or Jerry
Speaker 1: Lee Lewis or Fats Domino, I mean everything. So without
Speaker 1: my brother being such an avid listener, I never would
Speaker 1: have taken to the rock and roll. And it was
Speaker 1: such a revelation, and it's not an uncommon story with
Speaker 1: people our age, where I, you know, suddenly there was
Speaker 1: this music that was for us, it was not for
Speaker 1: our parents, and it was something brand new. And of
Speaker 1: course that's when I started to teach myself to play
Speaker 1: guitar ukulele first and then eventually six string guitar, and
Speaker 1: just by buying a chord book and learning to play
Speaker 1: all of those rock and roll songs and so that
Speaker 1: I could sing and play them. It was an exciting time,
Speaker 1: you know. And what happened with the music in our
Speaker 1: house was that that lasted nineteen sixty sixty one and
Speaker 1: it started to fall off in terms of the impact
Speaker 1: and the newness, and at that point folk music took
Speaker 1: over for me, and I started listening to a lot
Speaker 1: of mainstream folk Peter Paul and Mary Kingston trio, and
Speaker 1: learned how to fingerpick, learned how to travis pick, and that,
Speaker 1: you know, became that really informed the style of my
Speaker 1: guitar playing at that point. So when you left high
Speaker 1: school and you did start pursuing, I know, you went
Speaker 1: to college for a couple of years. Yeah, and you
Speaker 1: did throw yourself into the music business, what did your
Speaker 1: family think. Did they think, hey, he'll give it a
Speaker 1: couple of years, will support on. Well, it was kind
Speaker 1: of incremental because, as you know, I only got into
Speaker 1: a band because I had been asked to play guitar
Speaker 1: at an assembly my senior year and we did that,
Speaker 1: and then we all graduated, and then all of the
Speaker 1: people in that band ended up at Samiteo Junior College
Speaker 1: the next year, and we decided to get the band
Speaker 1: back together and to try to see if we could,
Speaker 1: you know, actually get some work because one of the
Speaker 1: keyboardists was actually a very skillful writer at age eighteen,
Speaker 1: you know, and at that point we were looking for
Speaker 1: a different girl singer because the one we'd had had
Speaker 1: moved away, and so that's when Stevie came into the picture.
Speaker 1: You had known her in high schools that right. She
Speaker 1: transferred in as a senior to Menlo Atherton High when
Speaker 1: I was a junior, and so we knew each other.
Speaker 1: We'd made each other a few times at social events,
Speaker 1: and we both were aware that the other sang and
Speaker 1: played guitar, and there might have been sort of a
Speaker 1: very subtle mutual attract, but you know, nothing that was
Speaker 1: played out in any way. And then she went off
Speaker 1: to college the following year and I stayed and finished
Speaker 1: high school for one more year, so I didn't see
Speaker 1: her for a year, you know, but we knew she
Speaker 1: was a singer, and we knew she was at San
Speaker 1: Mateo where we were all at college, and so we
Speaker 1: asked her to join the band and she said yes.
Speaker 1: And at that point we also connected with a manager
Speaker 1: who was a hustler kind of guy who was at
Speaker 1: going to Stanford, a guy named David Forrest, who actually
Speaker 1: was a very good manager for us at that point
Speaker 1: and started getting us gigs at high schools and clubs
Speaker 1: and things or you know, local stuff, and so you know,
Speaker 1: The way my parents took all of this in was,
Speaker 1: as I said, to be supportive of it. We needed
Speaker 1: a place to rehearse, and they were willing to soundproof
Speaker 1: the garage and let us rehearse there five days a week,
Speaker 1: to my dad's probably my poor dad coming home from
Speaker 1: work and having to listen to this stuff every night.
Speaker 1: But again, I was just doing it because it was
Speaker 1: two things. One, it was just an extension of my
Speaker 1: love of music. And I think the second thing was
Speaker 1: that after high school in nineteen sixty seven, when I graduated,
Speaker 1: that was, you know, I started to d program a bit.
Speaker 1: I started to grow my hair out, and you know,
Speaker 1: the whole Summer of Love up in San Francisco was happening,
Speaker 1: and obviously the Beatles had had a huge influence on
Speaker 1: the world. But anyway, I'd grown my hair out, and
Speaker 1: so I was starting to think of myself as someone
Speaker 1: who wasn't going to be probably what my parents expected
Speaker 1: me to be. Although I wasn't actively thinking about a
Speaker 1: music career per se. I was just happy to be
Speaker 1: in a band and enjoyed the gigs we were doing,
Speaker 1: and enjoyed the evolvement of that band. And that lasted
Speaker 1: you know, about four years and we ended up trying
Speaker 1: to get a record deal and failed. But at that
Speaker 1: point there was interest in Stevie and myself. Had you
Speaker 1: written stuff by this point? No, this is what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: I still had not written songs, and I'd been playing
Speaker 1: bass for four years. So when suddenly there was all
Speaker 1: this interest in Stevie and me, That's when Stevie and
Speaker 1: I got together and became a couple. And that's when
Speaker 1: I said to myself, I guess I've got to start
Speaker 1: writing songs and figure out how to do that. I'm
Speaker 1: fascinated when you sat down to write a song, did
Speaker 1: you like to listen to a couple other singers or
Speaker 1: how did you even begin to do it? Well? I
Speaker 1: think there was you know, again, I think Kat Stevens
Speaker 1: was a big influence at that time. I think some
Speaker 1: of the guitar work was influenced by Jimmy Page and
Speaker 1: the fact that he was really doing a good job
Speaker 1: of using acoustics and electric sometimes in the same song.
Speaker 1: A song like Frozen Love, which is this big epic ending,
Speaker 1: you know, as sort of influenced by that. I don't know,
Speaker 1: I just kind of made it up as I went along.
Speaker 1: I had I had managed to get an old Ampex
Speaker 1: four track tape machine, and so in the kind of
Speaker 1: the mode of les Paul playing everything yourself, I started
Speaker 1: putting stuff down and combining tracks and you know, which
Speaker 1: I still do today, right, But that was also a
Speaker 1: help in terms of, you know, figuring out how to write.
Speaker 1: And Stevie and I basically came up with an album's
Speaker 1: worth of material and worked on it probably for ten
Speaker 1: months or a year, and then figured it was maybe
Speaker 1: time to shop it in Los Angeles. And we had
Speaker 1: one attempt at doing that, which was kind of led
Speaker 1: to more or less tepid responses, I would say. And
Speaker 1: at that point, you know, I still wasn't so driven
Speaker 1: that I that I would have done what Stevie suggested
Speaker 1: we do. Stevie said, lindsay, if we're going to make
Speaker 1: a go of this, we've got to move to LA
Speaker 1: We've got to be where the action is, you know.
Speaker 1: And that's not something I would have done on my own,
Speaker 1: probably because I lived in one place my whole life
Speaker 1: and I loved Atherton and Palawalto in the Bay Area
Speaker 1: in general. She, on the other hand, came from a
Speaker 1: family that got uprooted and moved almost yearly because her
Speaker 1: dad was quite ambitious and kept either changing jobs or
Speaker 1: kept getting promoted, which required a move from city to city.
Speaker 1: So she, you know, it was a much easier proposition
Speaker 1: for her to think about picking up roots and moving
Speaker 1: to LA. So, because it was the two of us,
Speaker 1: and because I sensed that she was correct in her
Speaker 1: intuition there, we did decide to move to LA and luckily,
Speaker 1: luckily enough, Keith Olsen, who was one of the people
Speaker 1: we'd met not too long before, invited us to stay
Speaker 1: at his house for a few months until we until
Speaker 1: we could find a place and was also instrumental in
Speaker 1: helping us get a deal, and obviously was a brilliant
Speaker 1: engineer and co produced the Buckingham Knicks album as well.
Speaker 1: So we picked up our roots and moved to LA
Speaker 1: And again, I probably wouldn't have done that without Stevie.
Speaker 1: But then, because you know, you're known as a studio guy,
Speaker 1: you're known as a producer and a great arranger. Did
Speaker 1: you learn that through the process of that first record?
Speaker 1: When did that interest start? Well, you know, I think
Speaker 1: I just had it in me and I that's all
Speaker 1: I can say. I mean, if I were to go
Speaker 1: back and listen to the Bucky Ham Knicks album, I
Speaker 1: think a lot of that holds up quite well, you know,
Speaker 1: in terms of the musical vision I had for that.
Speaker 1: And I was only twenty two, but you know, I
Speaker 1: think it so much of it comes from having and
Speaker 1: oriented to music for the better part of my life,
Speaker 1: and having started so young, and maybe even the fact
Speaker 1: that I, you know, was so self sufficient as a
Speaker 1: guitarist and had taught myself to play, and I figured,
Speaker 1: if I can do that, I can teach myself to record,
Speaker 1: I can teach myself to produce. And it all kind
Speaker 1: of came together in one kind of fell swoop. We'll
Speaker 1: be right back with Lindsey Buckingham. After a quick break,
Speaker 1: We're back with more from Lindsey Buckingham and Bruce had them.
Speaker 1: You've said years ago that just because you guys were
Speaker 1: so busy and there was so much around the band,
Speaker 1: that you could never really process your split with Stevie
Speaker 1: next right, And I don't know if that you've been
Speaker 1: even married for a long time, you've got adult kids.
Speaker 1: But it's interesting to me that all these years later,
Speaker 1: part of the Fleetwood Mac Show, when you're there is
Speaker 1: people kind of watching that time in your relationship. She's
Speaker 1: singing Landside and they're looking at you, or you're singing
Speaker 1: the Chain. Are they looking at each other? I can't
Speaker 1: think of anything else in popular music like it. Maybe
Speaker 1: Simon and Garfunkle if they ever sing again together. But
Speaker 1: it's but it's this strange thing. Did you ever feel
Speaker 1: when you when you were with them, and God knows
Speaker 1: you might be again in the future. You're good being?
Speaker 1: Are you reliving those feelings? Because that's what people that's
Speaker 1: what they're looking for. Well, you know, I think you
Speaker 1: have to start with the fact that Rumors as an
Speaker 1: album was so appealing, not just because of the music,
Speaker 1: but because of the subtexts and because of the fact
Speaker 1: that these songs the unique. As you said, it's a
Speaker 1: unique to have three writers, and it's unique to have
Speaker 1: three writers that were basically couples. You know, So Chris
Speaker 1: Teens writing songs to John, Stevie's writing songs to me,
Speaker 1: I'm writing songs to Stevie. I mean that the musical
Speaker 1: soap opera of that, the real life aspect of that
Speaker 1: being laid bare on vinyl at that time was irresistible.
Speaker 1: You know, Thank god the music was as good as
Speaker 1: it was because it you know, otherwise maybe the album
Speaker 1: would have eventually been seen as only that it created
Speaker 1: fabulous music, and people do love the music. I'm not
Speaker 1: downgrading that, but no part of it is this little
Speaker 1: drama they're seeing on stage. Yes, and people responded to that.
Speaker 1: I think they related to it in their own lives,
Speaker 1: and I think they respected the fact that somehow we
Speaker 1: were able to rise above all those difficulties in order
Speaker 1: to keep our eye on what appeared to be our
Speaker 1: destiny at that time, even though we didn't know what
Speaker 1: that destiny was, and to on with what we needed
Speaker 1: to do as a band and creatively for the big picture.
Speaker 1: But in doing that, you had to kind of compartmentalize
Speaker 1: all your feelings, and you know, a therapist would probably
Speaker 1: tell you it's not the most healthy way to go about,
Speaker 1: you know, getting closure, because I would have to see
Speaker 1: Stev every day and I would have to make the
Speaker 1: decision to do the right thing for her, even though
Speaker 1: I was in pain, and there was never any any
Speaker 1: physical distance to get closure. So, you know, I think
Speaker 1: there are echoes of that that are still tangible sometimes
Speaker 1: on that were still tangible on stage as recently as
Speaker 1: a few years ago with Stevie and myself, because those
Speaker 1: issues never really got resolved, you know, they kind of
Speaker 1: got pushed under the rug and yet completely exposed to
Speaker 1: the world at the same time. You're like a shell
Speaker 1: shocked soldier. They just keep spending them back to the front, right, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: does that angry surface, like do you ever want to say,
Speaker 1: you know, and now Stevie's or you know, she thinks, well,
Speaker 1: now you know, lindsay the jerk is going to sing
Speaker 1: a song about me? Or is it? Is it all professional? No?
Speaker 1: I think it's all sort of You can take many
Speaker 1: steps back and look at it philosophically, and obviously for me,
Speaker 1: you know, meeting my wife and having children relatively late.
Speaker 1: I mean I saw so many people that I know
Speaker 1: who were trying to be rock and rollers and live
Speaker 1: the lifestyle and also be parents and spouses and failed
Speaker 1: at those and I wasn't going to be one of those.
Speaker 1: So you know, I had that as well, you know,
Speaker 1: to fall back on and to redefine myself. And so no,
Speaker 1: I don't think there was ever a time when those
Speaker 1: feelings got at least not for me. I can't speak
Speaker 1: for Stevie. You know, she may still be working that
Speaker 1: stuff through. I sometimes I thought that her some of
Speaker 1: her reactions to things and her involvement in what happened
Speaker 1: a few years back with the band you know, was
Speaker 1: somewhat based in that. But I don't know. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: just interesting that he did a terrific album with Christine
Speaker 1: McVie and it had all that kind of magic. And
Speaker 1: I don't know how well it's sold, but I think
Speaker 1: and I'm sure the tour went well. But you know,
Speaker 1: if you announced tomorrow I'm going to do an album
Speaker 1: with Stevie Nicks, I'm not saying this is happening, but
Speaker 1: you know, you'd be on the front page of the
Speaker 1: New York Times. People. Yea, even though it's fifty years old.
Speaker 1: People are like they've just seized onto this an incredible way. Oh,
Speaker 1: it would be so circular in karmic it would be crazy.
Speaker 1: The story about how you to join Fleetwood, Mac is.
Speaker 1: It's famous that Fleetwood was in the next studio he
Speaker 1: heard your guitar playing. He was looking for a guitar player.
Speaker 1: But what interests me is when you joined you know,
Speaker 1: for example, there are whole books written about Lennon and
Speaker 1: McCartney and about the sort of psychology of their relationship,
Speaker 1: how they were friendly but competitive and they pushed each
Speaker 1: other to new heights. You joined a band that had
Speaker 1: three main songwriters, which is pretty unusual, and all three
Speaker 1: of you started to get better. If you look at,
Speaker 1: you know, the top twenty Fleetwood Mac singles, all you
Speaker 1: guys have written a bunch of them, you, Christine and
Speaker 1: Stevie Nicks. What was that dynamic like when you joined
Speaker 1: around songwriting? It was interesting because if you look at
Speaker 1: the whole thing of us moving to la and getting
Speaker 1: a deal and having that album come and go and
Speaker 1: connecting up with Fleetwood Mac, it all happened in a
Speaker 1: relatively short period of time, and clearly Stevie and I
Speaker 1: were prepared for the opportunity that was coming our way,
Speaker 1: although you know that opportunity had yet to really be defined.
Speaker 1: You know, one of the things that was in our
Speaker 1: favor going into Fleetwood Mac was that we had been
Speaker 1: demoing songs for a new album. So all of my
Speaker 1: songs that are on that first Fleetwood Mac album and
Speaker 1: all of Stevies Rhiannon everything, and there's one Crystal which
Speaker 1: was from the Buckingham Nick's album. But all of those
Speaker 1: were completely worked out and very much in the form
Speaker 1: that you hear them, you know, minus the rhythm section
Speaker 1: of John and Mick per se, and so there was
Speaker 1: no sense of having to interact, you know, to sort
Speaker 1: of make something happen, because we all were somewhat self sufficient.
Speaker 1: I will say that that in I remember very clearly
Speaker 1: the first day of rehearsal that we we had you
Speaker 1: know before, as preparation for going in the studio to
Speaker 1: make that first album that you know, Christine started showing
Speaker 1: me some of her songs and I immediately realized that
Speaker 1: one of my big contributions to Fleetwood Macott would be
Speaker 1: as a music leader, because she needed a little bit
Speaker 1: of insight and a little bit of guidance on some
Speaker 1: of her songs that I was able to give and
Speaker 1: to take them to, you know, fruition a song like
Speaker 1: over my Head where we completely remade the bridge from
Speaker 1: what she'd had it. So, you know, the writing remained succinct,
Speaker 1: where where each of us had our own process. There
Speaker 1: was never any sitting around and co writing, but there
Speaker 1: was a lot of interaction in terms of record making.
Speaker 1: For sure, okay, and you all wrote Alane and then
Speaker 1: did you each present your songs to the group sort
Speaker 1: of for your consideration, we'd like this for the next yes,
Speaker 1: And was it a good group to present to where
Speaker 1: people open things or were they who do you think
Speaker 1: you are? Or well, I think you know, Mick drove
Speaker 1: a lot of that making. Christine especially were very open
Speaker 1: to what we had. And you have to remember Mick
Speaker 1: heard my guitar solo and frozen or maybe the whole
Speaker 1: song which has a lot of great finger picking in
Speaker 1: it too, and asked me to join Fleetwood Mac based
Speaker 1: on that, you know, so he was he was an
Speaker 1: incredibly intuitive guy, and you have to realize that he
Speaker 1: and Christine and John had been keeping the band barely
Speaker 1: above water for a number of years. You know, they'd
Speaker 1: had this brilliant beginning with Peter Green and then Kiln
Speaker 1: House was great with Christine and Danny Kerwin. But you know,
Speaker 1: there were all these albums that they were in between
Speaker 1: which were kind of non sequiturs from album to album
Speaker 1: style wise, because different people kept floating in and out
Speaker 1: of the band. And the reason that that happened was
Speaker 1: because Mike was intent on making sure that the band
Speaker 1: stayed together and stayed alive at whatever the costs. And
Speaker 1: also Moe Austen, who was president of Warners at that time.
Speaker 1: I gave him a ton of credit for even keeping
Speaker 1: him on the label. It's not something you would find
Speaker 1: happened today. If your bottom line is not you know
Speaker 1: something you can make the boardroom happy about, you're going
Speaker 1: to be off the label. And in those days he
Speaker 1: had not only the intuition but the autonomy to make
Speaker 1: a choice about Fleetwood Mac and say I'm just going
Speaker 1: to leave him on the label because you know there's
Speaker 1: something good here and let's just see what happens. It's
Speaker 1: interesting that today there's no way that band would have
Speaker 1: reached that level where they would have brought you and
Speaker 1: Stevie Nixon and had the kind of success that's right.
Speaker 1: They would have been probably disbanded by then. So you know,
Speaker 1: those kind of happy accidents are much fewer today. So
Speaker 1: you know, I mean, I think Mick in particular was
Speaker 1: very had a great sense of overview about which material
Speaker 1: to choose and what would make a great overall album.
Speaker 1: And there was never any any sort of territoriality about that,
Speaker 1: any cynicism about that. I mean, the closest thing I
Speaker 1: can remember to anything like that was just a side
Speaker 1: comment from John to Mick one day where I think
Speaker 1: he was talking about the song blue Letter or something
Speaker 1: that was, you know, relatively California, if you want to
Speaker 1: call it that, and I think he said to Mick, well,
Speaker 1: it's a long way from the Blues, you know, And
Speaker 1: but you know he was. He was into it. Everyone
Speaker 1: was into it. We could tell immediately there was this
Speaker 1: great chemistry. You were also the arranger. What would you
Speaker 1: do with a song like you know, Dreams or something
Speaker 1: that Christine brought in? Were you the one who sat
Speaker 1: down and said, well, I think that the solo should
Speaker 1: go here, or why don't we try this sound totally
Speaker 1: on a song like Dreams? If you heard it the
Speaker 1: way Stevie brought it in, you know, because she wrote
Speaker 1: it on the piano and basically was playing it with
Speaker 1: like two fingers, you know, these two chords back and forth,
Speaker 1: the same two chords for the whole song, which is great,
Speaker 1: but it was so in need of delineation. It was
Speaker 1: so in need of one section being set apart from
Speaker 1: the other because there was the potential for a chorus
Speaker 1: and a passing section and a verse, but none of
Speaker 1: that was framed or was set up. So you know,
Speaker 1: all the orchestration that you hear on a song like
Speaker 1: Dreams was just something that came out of my head,
Speaker 1: you know, because I understood what the song could become,
Speaker 1: you know, if you took those sections and treated them
Speaker 1: with a sense of departure from one to the other.
Speaker 1: So therefore you've got, you know, a fairly empty verse
Speaker 1: with just sort of answering licks, and then you've got
Speaker 1: a passing section where it's building tension and I'm doing
Speaker 1: this up and down picking thing, and then it hits
Speaker 1: into the chorus, which is, you know, a chorus must
Speaker 1: have a sense of arrival. Then the harmonies come in
Speaker 1: and other instruments kick in, and it's just a thing.
Speaker 1: You know. What was it like for you, in particular
Speaker 1: to work with Mick Fleetwood, because he, like you, I
Speaker 1: don't think he ever had a lesson, no very intuitive player.
Speaker 1: I think I've heard you stay in the past that
Speaker 1: he never plays the same thing twice. That's right, Which
Speaker 1: is it must be a little maddening at points. How
Speaker 1: did you guys get along? Because you know, you mentioned
Speaker 1: Dreams when I think of that chorus. I think if
Speaker 1: he comes in a bit late on that big symbol crash,
Speaker 1: and it's just it's such a big moment in that song, right,
Speaker 1: but in it's very it's it's all feel. It's not
Speaker 1: I don't think anybody else would play it that way. No, No,
Speaker 1: I mean I completely related to where he was coming
Speaker 1: from and how it was all intuition and feel for him,
Speaker 1: and he and I were, you know, were and are
Speaker 1: you know, kind of soulmates because of that, you know,
Speaker 1: we both love the same things about music. If there's
Speaker 1: anything frustrating for Mick, it's that he's got so much
Speaker 1: inside that he feels and is not articulate enough musically
Speaker 1: to exp press, you know. I mean, he could be
Speaker 1: probably be a great writer. But you know, he's certainly
Speaker 1: the best drummer I've ever worked with. It's interesting he
Speaker 1: wouldn't he doesn't know how to write a song. Well,
Speaker 1: he'll come up with certain raw ideas and and and
Speaker 1: they all have a sense of soul to them, you know,
Speaker 1: but he's there's there's hardly ever anything like completion, you know,
Speaker 1: because it's just not part of his DNA in that sense.
Speaker 1: But He's a magical guy. He's always been someone who
Speaker 1: was amazing with the overview and yet was in some
Speaker 1: ways timid about what he could and couldn't do, which
Speaker 1: is part of what makes him great because what he
Speaker 1: does do it's just so natural and so it just flows.
Speaker 1: You know. Well, also, you there'd be a lot of
Speaker 1: leaders of bands, you know, particularly a band like Fleetwood
Speaker 1: Macot that had some success, it had been back on
Speaker 1: its heels at that point. Not a lot of people
Speaker 1: would say, well, let's get Lindsey Buckingham. And he says,
Speaker 1: we've got to bring his girlfriend along like that was
Speaker 1: a pretty radical change for the band. It was, and
Speaker 1: he could see that and probably a lot of band
Speaker 1: leaders wouldn't have. Well, yeah, and you have to give
Speaker 1: him credit for a when I said you got to
Speaker 1: take my girlfriend too, for him saying okay, And you
Speaker 1: got to give Christine credit for that, you know, for
Speaker 1: us to do I want another girl in the band.
Speaker 1: And yet, you know, I think there was this again,
Speaker 1: this sense that there was something unique about it that
Speaker 1: we couldn't quite define. Yet it was all done on intuition.
Speaker 1: I mean, our decision to join was was done on intuition.
Speaker 1: It wasn't a clear cut big break for us. You know,
Speaker 1: we weren't sure that it was the right move to
Speaker 1: make at first because we didn't know where Fleetwood Mac
Speaker 1: was going. But you know, it's it did become clear
Speaker 1: fairly soon that the chemistry was amazing and that the
Speaker 1: synergy was creating something greater than some of the parts.
Speaker 1: You know. I mean that that first album only took
Speaker 1: a you know, for four or five months to do,
Speaker 1: and what came out of that, you know, just just
Speaker 1: we hit the ground running. It was crazy. You know.
Speaker 1: Part of that synergy is your vocals with Christine's. Now,
Speaker 1: I know, everybody because of the romantic relationships, they talk
Speaker 1: about the band in terms of you and Stevie, But
Speaker 1: when did you realize how well your voice melded with Christine's.
Speaker 1: Because there's there's something and you guys did announ me
Speaker 1: a couple of years ago, and that magic is instantly back.
Speaker 1: If you sound fabulous together. I know it's weird. I
Speaker 1: think it's because because Stevie has a much more defined
Speaker 1: style with her vibrato and and it's a bit nasal,
Speaker 1: and when I would harmonize with her to some degree,
Speaker 1: it just created a different thing. Christine and I were
Speaker 1: almost we both had slightly more dead pan approaches to singing,
Speaker 1: and I think that when you put that together side
Speaker 1: by side, it just creates a kind of a symmetry
Speaker 1: which really shines and is so balanced, you know, I
Speaker 1: think that's what it is. So after rumors, you did Tusk,
Speaker 1: which was very much your project, and it's it's what
Speaker 1: people associate you, you know, the guy in the studio
Speaker 1: kind of you know, diagramming it all out, very very
Speaker 1: precise in a way that working with Fleetwood Mac always
Speaker 1: seemed a little bit chaotic. Yeah, when you talk about
Speaker 1: your own when you do your own albums, you do
Speaker 1: all the instruments, it seems like a very it seems
Speaker 1: like a different side of your personality, the very precise side.
Speaker 1: Is it kind of a relief after all the stem
Speaker 1: and dragging around Fleetwood Mac to say, Okay, I'm just
Speaker 1: going to sit in the studio and do it the
Speaker 1: way I want. Well, I always of the processes as
Speaker 1: being two different things. I always felt that working with
Speaker 1: Fleetwood Mac was probably more like making a movie, because
Speaker 1: you know, you come in, you've got songs, You've got
Speaker 1: certain preconceptions about things, but everything is kind of more
Speaker 1: political and more conscious in terms of the choices you're making.
Speaker 1: Is a lot more talking about what you're doing and
Speaker 1: working on my own is probably more analogous to painting
Speaker 1: because you are probably putting yourself in an environment where
Speaker 1: you potentially are going to be able to discover more things,
Speaker 1: because as a painter does with his canvas, you know,
Speaker 1: you're sort of one on one and at some point
Speaker 1: wherever you think you're going, you might get led in
Speaker 1: a different direction by what's going on on the canvas.
Speaker 1: And so those two things I think are both important
Speaker 1: for me, and you know, the Tusk album in particular.
Speaker 1: Obviously it's been said before, but I was really just
Speaker 1: motivated to make that change from Rumors because Rumors was
Speaker 1: so successful that at some point the success detached from
Speaker 1: the music and kind of became about the success. And
Speaker 1: I think we were poised to possibly start to paint
Speaker 1: ourselves into a corner because you know, the kind of
Speaker 1: the corporate formula is if something works, running into the
Speaker 1: ground until his dad and move on, and that's not
Speaker 1: really the formula to try to aspiring to try to
Speaker 1: be an artist. In the long term, you've got to
Speaker 1: continue to take risks and to follow your heart, yeah,
Speaker 1: and not do what the external world is expecting you
Speaker 1: to do. And so that was really the psychology behind
Speaker 1: the left turn that I orchestrated on Tusk. You know,
Speaker 1: it's quite an insight you had, because anybody else would say,
Speaker 1: what we're doing rumors too, right, And I'm sure Warner
Speaker 1: Music thought you were doing rumors too. Oh yeah, they
Speaker 1: I would love to have been a fly on the
Speaker 1: wall when they first put Tusk on in the border
Speaker 1: room and we're probably going, what the hell is this?
Speaker 1: But it's an interesting whether people and people argue about Tusk,
Speaker 1: and I know it's it's maybe your favorite album of
Speaker 1: your Fleetwood Mac Records, but it's a great insight that
Speaker 1: you thought, no, no, no, we gotta change. At the
Speaker 1: height of the insane success you guys were having. Were
Speaker 1: you listening to other music and saying, no, music is
Speaker 1: changing and we're gonna fall behind. We're gonna look like,
Speaker 1: you know, we're gonna look like Dean Martin or something
Speaker 1: if we keep doing this stuff. Well maybe in a
Speaker 1: small way, but really I think as successful as Rumors
Speaker 1: was that there were things that we didn't cover in
Speaker 1: terms of breadth or depth or just risk taking that
Speaker 1: I felt strong only about. And and you do have
Speaker 1: to layer on top of that the fact that right
Speaker 1: around the time, you know, the year or so before
Speaker 1: we started doing TUSK, that all of the new wave
Speaker 1: stuff had had come over from the UK and Europe
Speaker 1: and the you know, the new waves from America too,
Speaker 1: So there was it wasn't so much that that stuff
Speaker 1: influenced me per se. What it did do was it
Speaker 1: just reinforced what I was already kind of feeling, and
Speaker 1: it gave me more courage to act on it. I
Speaker 1: think were there particular acts or sounds that you found
Speaker 1: captivating or helped convince you this was the right way? Well,
Speaker 1: I mean, again, there's nothing that I could say was
Speaker 1: directly influential. But I mean I loved Elvis Costello, and
Speaker 1: I love the Clash, and I loved the Police, and
Speaker 1: I mean I loved Kukier things like Devo, you know.
Speaker 1: So I mean it was all stuff which was undermining
Speaker 1: the status quo in one way or another, and I
Speaker 1: just felt that there was we were at a point
Speaker 1: where we might again start painting ourselves into a corner.
Speaker 1: And you see a lot of artists who do that
Speaker 1: and they do follow through with solely the external expectations,
Speaker 1: and they start to forget who they are, They start
Speaker 1: to forget why they got into business in the first place.
Speaker 1: And it's if you don't, if you're not protective of
Speaker 1: your creative world, and you start to let it go,
Speaker 1: it's a lot harder to get it back. How's it
Speaker 1: been dealing with Warner over the years? Then? For that reason?
Speaker 1: You know, I know there was a time I can't
Speaker 1: remember what solo album it was, but the label wanted
Speaker 1: you to hold off and they wanted some of the
Speaker 1: songs for Fleetwood Mac. Have you found they've been as
Speaker 1: accommodating or do you always feel the pressure to, like,
Speaker 1: can't you guys just do rumors again and make us
Speaker 1: a billion dollars? Well, you know, sort of came the
Speaker 1: kind of retro reaction did not come from Warner. It
Speaker 1: came really from from Mick and the band. But yes,
Speaker 1: and I'll get to that in a second. But no, Warner,
Speaker 1: from my experience with Warners has always been good because
Speaker 1: the people that were there, whether it was Mohawson or
Speaker 1: Lenny Warrenker, I will say that I always felt like
Speaker 1: they didn't quite know what to do with my solo albums,
Speaker 1: and again I can't blame them for that because the
Speaker 1: albums are not Fleetwood Mac albums, and I think they
Speaker 1: were probably sometimes as baffled by some of the contents
Speaker 1: as the fans were. And that's a choice you make,
Speaker 1: you know, if you're if you're gonna pursue something that's
Speaker 1: going to help you grow artistically that maybe you can't
Speaker 1: do in Fleewood Mac, and you lose nine tenths of
Speaker 1: your audience doing it, then you've made a choice. But
Speaker 1: you know, the idea of going back to a rumor's
Speaker 1: too or something more conservative was actually orchestrated by Mick
Speaker 1: himself because what happened in the in the post Tusk
Speaker 1: environment was that the band had gotten very drawn into
Speaker 1: the album when we put it out and was very
Speaker 1: happy with it. But when it and it was a
Speaker 1: double album, right, but when it didn't sell another sixteen million,
Speaker 1: and I think you know, as a double album it
Speaker 1: probably initially sold something like four and so Mick came
Speaker 1: to me one day and he said, well, lindsay, we're
Speaker 1: not going to do that again. You know, because I
Speaker 1: was working out of my house, and I was bringing
Speaker 1: in tracks that I had started and having them add
Speaker 1: stuff to them and sort of combining the movie making
Speaker 1: in the painting. And there's there's some pretty uh, you know,
Speaker 1: experimental things on Tusk, especially of mine, and so Mick
Speaker 1: put the kaibosh on that. And it was really only
Speaker 1: then that I started making solo albums because I realized
Speaker 1: that if I were to continue to explore the left
Speaker 1: side of my palette and was being prevented from doing
Speaker 1: so in the context of Fleawood Mac, the only way
Speaker 1: I could do it was on solo albums. But you
Speaker 1: did hits on solo. I think your first album had Trouble,
Speaker 1: which was a big hit, Trouble, and then there is
Speaker 1: go Insane on the second one. But you know, they've
Speaker 1: been a little fewer and far between, and and obviously
Speaker 1: I'm my drawing power on live shows is completely different,
Speaker 1: you know, although I will much rather play a theater
Speaker 1: than an arena, just aesthetically, you know. So we have
Speaker 1: to take a quick break, but we'll be right back
Speaker 1: with more from Lindsey Buckingham. We're back with the rest
Speaker 1: of Bruce Hudlam's interview with Lindsay Buckingham. People know, you
Speaker 1: know about the all the drama around rumors and the
Speaker 1: couple's breaking up and everything. Those are very well known stories.
Speaker 1: I was amazed to read that. I think on the
Speaker 1: first time you left the band it was eighty seven,
Speaker 1: maybe was it after Tango? I think, yes, that's right
Speaker 1: that you know you said you left in part because
Speaker 1: the drug use was so heavy, and I think I
Speaker 1: think something that like Mick was living in a trailer
Speaker 1: on your lawn or something. What happened was we recorded
Speaker 1: the Tango in the Night album at my house. I
Speaker 1: had a studio in what had been my garage, and
Speaker 1: the alcohol and substance intake, which had been a part
Speaker 1: of the subculture for everyone, you know for years, it
Speaker 1: was starting to hit critical mass, you know. So during
Speaker 1: the making of Tango in the Night and trying to
Speaker 1: produce that album, it got to be quite difficult because
Speaker 1: people just weren't all there some of the time physically
Speaker 1: or mentally. And I think out of the X number
Speaker 1: of months, probably close to a year that it took
Speaker 1: us to make that album, we probably only saw Stevie
Speaker 1: for a few weeks and Mick was actually living in
Speaker 1: a trailer for quite a while in my front yard
Speaker 1: because he didn't want to drive home at night when
Speaker 1: the sessions were over. So yeah, I mean, and so
Speaker 1: when we finished with the album, and I was quite
Speaker 1: happy with the result. I felt we'd triumphed over adversity
Speaker 1: to a point. And I'm still really proud of that album.
Speaker 1: Had a bunch of hits, that album, Yeah, and it
Speaker 1: had elements of what I'd learned. You can make a
Speaker 1: connection between some of the tonality of like go Insane
Speaker 1: and Tango in the Night, And so I was happy
Speaker 1: with that. But I and then I started thinking about
Speaker 1: the road and how the road in terms of craziness
Speaker 1: is usually about times ten what the studio is, and
Speaker 1: I thought, I don't think I can do this, you know,
Speaker 1: I think I need to make a little survival move here,
Speaker 1: and so I opted out of the tour, much to
Speaker 1: everyone's disappointment, but you know, clearly it was a good
Speaker 1: thing for me at that time. You know, your other
Speaker 1: long relationship in the music business is with Irving asof
Speaker 1: who you know was your agent, but he's the one
Speaker 1: who phoned you a couple of years ago and said
Speaker 1: they don't want to tour with you anymore. I mean,
Speaker 1: was that weird to hear from from the guy who
Speaker 1: had been represented? Well, is he your agent or is
Speaker 1: he the band's agent? Or well he was. He was
Speaker 1: my manager for a number of years, and he was
Speaker 1: an agent in a sense that he was, you know,
Speaker 1: putting he was involved in putting together Fleetwood Mac tours
Speaker 1: and was taking a cut of those tours. So in
Speaker 1: a sense he was an agent for the band, but
Speaker 1: he was my manager. And I would have to say
Speaker 1: about Irving. I mean, I like Irving, but you know,
Speaker 1: he probably never would have gotten involved with me just
Speaker 1: for my solo endeavors. In fact that of all the
Speaker 1: time that we worked together, I think he came to
Speaker 1: one solo show of mine, really, And yeah, and you know,
Speaker 1: obviously Fleetwood Mac was where the money was, and he's,
Speaker 1: shall we say, been known to follow the money. And
Speaker 1: so if you backtrack to this whole the atmosphere that
Speaker 1: was created right before that, which was actually brought on
Speaker 1: by what I was talking about before about my asking
Speaker 1: for those three months to tour before the Fleetwood Mac
Speaker 1: tour started, that was the beginning of the tension that
Speaker 1: led to what certain members or a member or I
Speaker 1: should say eventually orchestrated, and Irving I don't know what
Speaker 1: to say about that. I mean, I think he was
Speaker 1: as invested in the Fleetwood Mac tour at that point
Speaker 1: as he was in protecting me. And so when someone
Speaker 1: in the band calls him and tells him, I don't
Speaker 1: I don't want to be on stage with Lindsay anymore,
Speaker 1: I find or I found in that circumstance he wasn't
Speaker 1: really standing up for me. He was, you know, passing
Speaker 1: on information, but he was arguably throwing me under the
Speaker 1: bus a little bit, you know. So that that that
Speaker 1: was how our relationship ended. Because after that, even though
Speaker 1: I expressed some interest in continuing to work with him,
Speaker 1: it didn't happen. And so you know, that was that
Speaker 1: was it with Irving. There's one song on the new
Speaker 1: album that is about Fleetwood Mac on the Wrong Side.
Speaker 1: Can you tell me a bit about writing that? Well,
Speaker 1: I think I was just in a situation where I
Speaker 1: had already begun to feel that that some of the
Speaker 1: the ethic that you could say was sort of shared
Speaker 1: by everyone was sort of moving too far away from
Speaker 1: my idealism, which I was still maintaining. And you know,
Speaker 1: the older you get and the more it just becomes
Speaker 1: a gig or a job, and the more that you
Speaker 1: have played that same group of songs over and over again,
Speaker 1: so you know, you see people start to kind of
Speaker 1: give up the possibility of growth on a creative level.
Speaker 1: And you know, different people wanting different things also plays
Speaker 1: into that. I mean, you get the inter band politics,
Speaker 1: which can often thwart a greater potential that we might
Speaker 1: have had as a band, maybe to go in and
Speaker 1: make another album or to do many other things. And
Speaker 1: I think all of that was starting to make me
Speaker 1: feel like I'd been in this game now for so
Speaker 1: many years and I wouldn't have traded it for the world,
Speaker 1: but that it was this high pressure kind of situation
Speaker 1: that I was starting to feel I was getting a
Speaker 1: little tired of and was losing touch with a little bit.
Speaker 1: And it sometimes made me feel that I was a
Speaker 1: bit on the wrong side by being a part of it.
Speaker 1: So you're going out on tour with this album. What's
Speaker 1: that going to feel like to go out and play
Speaker 1: in front of people after all this time. I'm not
Speaker 1: sure what it's going to feel like. You know, we've
Speaker 1: only been in rehearsal for about three weeks, and probably
Speaker 1: this week we will start running the set, the whole
Speaker 1: set that we've got once or twice a day. And
Speaker 1: you know, I mean, it's been a long time. I'm
Speaker 1: not sure if the bypass I had a couple of
Speaker 1: years ago was going to have any effect on my stamina.
Speaker 1: You know, there are some finer points that are still
Speaker 1: yet to be revealed about it, but beyond that, and
Speaker 1: of course, you know, it was very surreal sitting around
Speaker 1: for a year plus during the pandemic, as it was
Speaker 1: for everyone. So you know, it's just it just feels
Speaker 1: like it's been so long since this album was actually done,
Speaker 1: and so much has happened that's been, shall we say, challenging.
Speaker 1: So I mean, I feel like I'm a different person
Speaker 1: than I was when I first wanted to tour this
Speaker 1: album three plus years ago. So it is going to
Speaker 1: be interesting to see how it all plays out. Okay, well,
Speaker 1: people should go see it because it's a great album.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Thank you so much for doing this. It's
Speaker 1: just been terrific to talk to you. My pleasure. Thanks
Speaker 1: for having me. Thanks to Lindsay Buckingham for taking us
Speaker 1: through his musical history. You can check out his new
Speaker 1: self titled album plus all of our favorite Lindsey Buckingham
Speaker 1: and Fleetwood Max songs at broken Record podcast dot com.
Speaker 1: Be sure to subscribed to herube channel at YouTube dot
Speaker 1: com slash broken Record Podcast, where we can find all
Speaker 1: of our new repuscois. You can follow us on Twitter
Speaker 1: at broken Record. Broken Record is produced with help from
Speaker 1: Lea Rose, Jason Cambrel, Martin Gonzalez, Eric Sandler from Jennifer Sanchez,
Speaker 1: with engineering help from Nick Chafey. Our executive producer is Melabat.
Speaker 1: Broken Record is a production of Pushkin Industries. If you
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Speaker 1: by Kenny Beats. I'm Justin Richard