(Credit: NBC / YouTube)
Thu 22 January 2026 16:30, UK
Being in a band like Fleetwood Mac wasn’t exactly a walk in the park for Stevie Nicks.
There are plenty of times where things could go awry in any group if they’ve been together for too long, but since 80% of them had been breaking up in the midst of their greatest records, it wasn’t going to be smiles and good times every single time they got up onstage. That kind of tension is something that sticks with you forever, but Nicks could also put her hand up and say that she was far from the best person to be around when she wasn’t getting her way whenever she walked into the studio.
Granted, it was always going to be a little bit difficult trying to work with Lindsey Buckingham, even if they weren’t dating. The guitarist was clearly a genius whenever he worked on some of the band’s tunes, but there was also a vicious side to him that no one got to see. He knew what he wanted and knew how to get it, and he wasn’t about to let a bunch of people stand in his way or suggest that a song should go in a different direction, even if it meant stomping on a few people’s feelings.
That kind of behaviour wasn’t exactly the healthiest place to be in, so it was completely understandable that Nicks ultimately made her own record. She didn’t have to deal with him breathing down her neck at every opportunity, and since she had the help of everyone from Jimmy Iovine to Tom Petty to Waddy Watchel, she had a firm basis to translate all of her ideas onto the tape.
But going solo while still being in a band is always a bit of a double-edged sword. Anyone would want their songs out as quickly as possible, but I imagine the other members of Genesis would have felt a bit jaded when they missed out on recording a song like ‘In the Air Tonight’ when Phil Collins did his own thing. To be fair, Nicks did try to balance things, but Tango in the Night was when she became much too big-headed for her own good.
It’s not like she didn’t have a good reason to be, either. She was coming off of a massive tour for her solo record, and while that did leave her with little time in the studio, her decision to use that time to complain was never going to be a good look. The rest of the band really let her have it when she claimed she was being written out of the record, and in hindsight, Nicks did seem to understand how they felt.
No one could blame her for wanting to hang out with Bob Dylan and Petty on tour, but she was also the first to say that she was the problem in the studio, saying, “I wasn’t there for a lot of that, ’cause I was on the road [she went on tour with Tom Petty and Bob Dylan]. It was me that was causing all the friction, ’cause Lindsey was the head guy and I was making him erratic. When I was not there it was good. They all got along fine.”
Granted, it’s not like the band members were always that understanding of her solo career anyway. Nicks remembered that Buckingham basically ignored the fact that she made a record when she came in with the first pressings of Bella Donna, and given the fact that the guitarist refused to tour the record once it came out didn’t exactly help matters, especially when he and Nicks started physically fighting each other.
So while Nicks could have definitely done things a lot differently, so Tango in the Night turned out perfectly, the tension there had been boiling over for years. All it took was one person to set everything off, and by the time that everything was out in the open, it was clear that the good-time spirit of the band was all over.
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