Lindsey Buckingham is working once again with Fleetwood Mac’s Mick Fleetwood, seven years after the guitarist was fired by the drummer.
News of their rapprochement was made by Swedish songwriter and producer Carl Falk, who is working with Fleetwood on the drummer’s new solo album.
Falk — whose credits include work with Madonna, Ariana Grande, 5 Seconds of Summer, Nicki Minaj, Westlife and others — first posted photos of Buckingham and Fleetwood to Threads last month
"Slightly unreal moment to sit with Lindsey Buckingham and Mick Fleetwood to play Lindsey the album we have been working on," the producer wrote. "And to see his genuine happiness for Mick to finally do his own album and offering to play guitar and to sing on it. Can’t wait to finish this one."
Falk posted additional images this month, including photos of Fleetwood and War on Drugs singer/guitarist Adam Granduciel, and of himself playing acoustic guitar in the studio while Buckingham plays an electric.
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Buckingham was fired from Fleetwood Mac in March 2018. Although a disagreement about the band’s impending tour appeared to be the cause of the split, at the root of it was the guitarist’s attitude toward his former partner, Stevie Nicks.
The guitarist was promptly replaced by not one but two players: Crowded House’s Neil Finn and former Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers guitarist Mike Campbell, both of whom joined the group for the tour before going their respective ways.
Buckingham’s departure from Fleetwood Mac seemed irrevocable at the time, coming as it did after years of disagreements between him and the band. He and Nicks had a long history of problems dating back to the onetime couple's 1976 breakup one year into their tenure with the band.
Their split, the divorce of band members Christine and John McVie, and Fleetwood’s own marital issues played out against the creation of Rumours, their 1977 smash hit album. Many of the LP's songs addressed the members' relationship woes, obliquely in some case and more obviously in others.
Buckingham left the band abruptly in 1987 ahead of a 10-week tour, leading the group to hire Billy Burnett and Rick Vito to fill the void. He returned in 1995 and continued with the band until his 2018 dismissal.
At the root of the matter was the group’s appearance at a January 2018 gala where Fleetwood Mac received the MusiCares Person of the Year award and performed songs. Nicks was unhappy with Buckingham’s reaction to their walk-on music — her song “Rhiannon,” a hit from the group’s 1975 self-titled album — and his smirking as she gave her thank-you speech.
The matter came to a head when Buckingham subsequently refused to sign off on the group’s tour. At some point Nicks gave the others an ultimatum: Either Buckingham had to go, or she would.
"I dealt with Lindsey for as long as I could," Nicks told Rolling Stone last year. "You could not say that I did not give him more than 300 million chances.”
Despite the bad blood, Fleetwood — who along with John McVie formed the group in 1967 with guitarist Peter Green — has evidently been hoping for Buckingham’s return. In February of this year, he told US Weekly, "I always have a fantasy that [Stevie] and Lindsay would pal up a bit more and just say everything’s OK for them both.
“I miss playing as much as we used to," he added. "I’m hoping next year, one way or another, some band somewhere will say, come and play with drums or something. So I always love to do whatever I can do working on an album that next year we may tour with it. I don’t know, [but] not Fleetwood Mac."
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