Credit: Far Out / Buckingham Records
Thu 15 October 2026 21:15, UK
With Fleetwood Mac, trouble was always lurking around the corner, even if they were scoring number-ones and selling out arenas across the globe.
For Fleetwood Mac, the personal drama was often as compelling as the music itself, and the two became almost impossible to separate. While the band members frequently struggled to get along, their turbulent relationships somehow brought out the best in them creatively, making Fleetwood Mac all the more fascinating to fans.
Considering the number of biopics that have been made out of musical stories significantly less debauched and interesting than Fleetwood Mac, it’s wild that their story has never made it to the big screen. The drama, divorces, and drug abuse that characterised their personal lives have become just as famous and fabled as the music it spawned.
The height of this came in 1977 with the release of Rumours. The seminal record featured a gorgeous collection of soft drums and driving percussion, producing hits like ‘Dreams’ and ‘Don’t Stop’, songs that would ensure the album became a timeless classic. Although the record sounded gentle on the surface, its lyrics were laden with bitterness and betrayal, with fans digging into the extra layer of salacious detail woven into every song.
Famously, Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham couldn’t decide whether they wanted to be together or not, and John and Christine McVie were going through a divorce. The band was also engaging in excessive drug use amidst the drama, both of which contributed to the making of Rumours.
This background information remains tied to the record even now, over four decades later. Rumours is the documentation of a band falling apart behind the scenes, yet determined to make music. Fans of the record have delved into the lore that inspired it, picking apart performances of ‘Silver Springs’ for hexes. Though the band’s interpersonal dramas would dissipate in the years that followed, Fleetwood Mac’s process was still characterised by arguments.
Swapping their personal issues for creative differences, Lindsey Buckingham led the band on Tusk, pulling in new post-punk stylings in an effort to switch up their sound. This left Nicks in the dust, sitting in the studio and watching her bandmates while she squandered her creative potential. From Rumours to Tusk, disagreements seemed to define Fleetwood Mac behind the scenes, a way of working that Buckingham suggested set them apart from other bands.
Further reading: From The Vault
As he explained during a chat with Rolling Stone, “Things change, and that’s a part of Fleetwood Mac. We’re a moving target. We’re a group of people who, you could make the argument, don’t belong in the same band together. It’s the synergy of that that makes it work.”
He then highlighted the Eagles as an example of a band that operated how everyone believes a group should, which was the opposite of Fleetwood Mac. Don Henley and Glenn Frey had an almost telepathic relationship as songwriting partners, playing to each other’s strengths and covering each other’s weaknesses, which proved to be perfect.
Everyone in the Eagles knew their roles, and it went without saying that the goal of the band mattered more than individual acclaim. Whereas in Fleetwood Mac, animosity and arguments were the norm, but that didn’t stop them from hitting great heights.
In the same interview, he went on to describe Fleetwood Mac as the “anti-Eagles, in terms of never, ever being on the same page”.
Buckingham didn’t mean any ill towards the Eagles, who he greatly admired, and was just pointing out stone-hard facts about the different dynamics. He went on to discuss his admiration for their creative synergy, noting that they knew what they wanted, why they wanted it, and they “always seem to want it at the same time.” Whereas, Fleetwood Mac, he suggested, were “just the opposite,” and a “political minefield.”
In a further sign of his admiration, following the devastating death of Glenn Frey and the news that his son, Deacon Frey, would replace him in the Eagles, Buckingham paid an emotional tribute. He told Billboard in 2017, “It was just a sad thing, Glenn’s passing, so I don’t know what you do in that kind of situation. I don’t really have any preconceptions. They’re smart guys; I’m sure it all works on some level, and I’m looking forward to seeing how it works out. But, you know, it’s just such a loss in the sense of Don [Henley] and Glenn for all those years.”
It would be boring if every band operated in a uniform manner, and it would lead to monotonous art. Fleetwood Mac would never have created Rumours if they were going into the studio every day with a giant smile on their face, and they needed the chaos in order to thrive. Admittedly, they were an anomaly, but world-class art is rarely born from a place of comfort.
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