Lindsey Buckingham breaks silence on Fleetwood Mac split: “They lost their perspective”
Legendary guitarist Lindsey Buckingham has finally broken his silence on being fired from the band with whom he performed for over four decades, Fleetwood Mac.
As Rolling Stone reports, Buckingham made the comments while attending a fundraiser supporting Democratic congressional candidate Mike Levin in California on Friday night.
"It's been an interesting time on a lot of levels," Buckingham reportedly said. "For me, personally, probably some of you know that for the last three months I have sadly taken leave of my band of 43 years, Fleetwood Mac. This was not something that was really my doing or my choice."
"I think what you would say is that there were factions within the band that had lost their perspective," Buckingham continued. "The point is that they'd lost their perspective. What that did was to harm – and this is the only thing I'm really sad about, the rest of it becomes an opportunity – it harmed the 43-year legacy that we had worked so hard to build, and that legacy was really about rising above difficulties in order to fulfill one's higher truth and one's higher destiny."
Buckingham was fired recently after a disagreement over the band's upcoming North American tour. The decision to separate with Buckingham reportedly came from founding member and drummer Mick Fleetwood.
"We arrived at the impasse of hitting a brick wall," Fleetwood said at the time. "This was not a happy situation for us in terms of the logistics of a functioning band. To that purpose, we made a decision that we could not go on with him. Majority rules in term of what we need to do as a band and go forward."
Buckingham's brief comments are the first he's made about the rift since, and he has been diplomatic about it. As Rolling Stone reports, he even sidestepped an audience member at the fundraiser who yelled, "F*ck Stevie Nicks". The band has also confirmed that replacing Buckingham will be Mike Campbell, the longtime lead guitarist for Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, and Crowded House frontman Neil Finn.