(Credits: Far Out / Raph Pour-Hashemi)
Sat 31 January 2026 17:30, UK
It’s practically a miracle that Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks stayed in Fleetwood Mac for as long as they did.
Even if they have let bygones be bygones in the past, the idea of working with your old flame and watching them tear you apart would have been enough for anyone to leave the group with one middle finger in the air. But while Nicks did have her chance to become a solo superstar once the dust had settled, Buckingham had other plans for where he wanted his musical career to go.
He certainly had a decent solo career, but when looking at his contributions to the band, the guitarist was a much different animal than any other bandleader that came before him. Peter Green and Bob Welch had helped steer the band through the late 1960s and early 1970s, but Buckingham was their resident Brian Wilson. He could make orchestral-sounding arrangements with only one guitar, and even his solo hits like ‘Holiday Road’ were perfect snapshots of what sunshine pop could sound like.
But that didn’t always translate well when operating in a band context. Buckingham wasn’t afraid to step on more than a few toes to get what he wanted, and given the passive-aggressive ‘thank you’ that the band gave him when Tusk was released, it wasn’t like that resentment wasn’t out in the open. So it was only natural that a solo career be the next logical step after the band decided to take a break.
After all, Bella Donna had been a knockout success for Nicks, so why couldn’t Buckingham do the same thing? His music might not have had the same kind of mystique as Nicks did in her prime, but he still managed to make the best out of every single idea that he worked with. Then again, Buckingham wasn’t going to have the massive help that Nicks did whenever she worked on her records.
He could have Mick Fleetwood and Christine McVie guest on a couple of his records here and there, but the love affair Nicks had with Tom Petty’s music was a lot more connected than he ever thought. She and Petty weren’t romantically involved in any way, but there was a certain energy whenever they performed that made her want to leave Fleetwood Mac when times were getting a little bit tough.
Buckingham may have had his own hangups, but when asked about the bands that he would like to have joined, he felt that The Rolling Stones would have been interesting, saying, “The Stones…uh, sure! [laughs] What a great situation. They have a raw, primitive approach to music, and I relate to that – I’m kind of a refined primitive myself, having never been taught music. As for me joining The Rolling Stones…it’s a nice thing to think about.”
That might sound strange coming from one of the biggest Beach Boys fans in the world, but it’s not like Buckingham could have added much to Brian Wilson’s masterpieces. He would have wanted the chance to work off of other musicians, and since the greatest Stones songs end in a jam, it would have been interesting to swap on some of Keith Richards’s and Mick Taylor’s lead lines for the fingerstyle approach that Buckingham was used to doing across the Fleetwood Mac catalogue.
The collaboration might have only lasted for one song or a few guest appearances here and there, but it’s not like Buckingham would be a fish out of water, either. He had grown up listening to The Stones and even used ‘Street Fighting Man’ as a basis for getting the drum sound on Rumours, so who’s to say that he couldn’t bring some grit to the band alongside Keef’s open-tuning riffs?
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