Lindsey Buckingham Said Fleetwood Mac Would’ve Been a Mess if He and Stevie Nicks Hadn’t Split

When Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks joined Fleetwood Mac, they became one of two couples in the band. By the time they were working on their second album with the band, both couples had broken up. Their emotional turmoil provided rich fodder for the band’s magnum opus, Rumours. It also stretched them all to their limits. Despite this, Buckingham said things would have been worse if the couple stayed together.

Lindsey Buckingham said it was for the best that he and Stevie Nicks broke up

In the lead up to the release of Rumours, John and Christine McVie divorced and Nicks and Buckingham broke up after years together. The breakup rattled the band, but Buckingham thought it would have been worse if both couples stayed together.

“If Stevie and I, and John and Chris had remained as couples, the stability of the band would not have been very good,” he said, per the book Fleetwood Mac on Fleetwood Mac. “It was like that was a necessary thing to go through to eliminate all those weird vibes. And, we respect each other a lot more now.”

Nicks said the music brought them together, but she wasn’t sure that the breakups eliminated all the “weird vibes.” 

“That two hours on stage is beautiful and always was even in the midst of the worst times,” she said. “And, really, each one of us was way too proud and way too stubborn to just walk away from it. We like touring. We like making money. And we like being a band. But, it’s like a marriage — you’re married to five people — and sometimes you’ve just got to have some space.”

He initially felt lost without her

Though Buckingham said he thought the breakup with Nicks was for the best, he admitted he felt terrified in the immediate aftermath of their split.

“It was a little lonely there for a while,” he told Rolling Stone in 1977. “The thought of being on my own really terrified me. But then I realized being alone is really a cleansing thing…as I began to feel myself becoming more myself again. I’m surprised we lasted as long as we did.”

He said he eventually grew to feel as though the breakup helped him grow up.

“I feel really lucky that I’ve had the opportunity to go through some of the heartaches and s*** we’ve been through the past year. It’s had a profound effect on me,” Buckingham said. “I feel a lot older, I feel like I’ve learned a whole lot by taking on a large responsibility slightly unaided.”

Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks still fought viciously after their split

While Buckingham believed his breakup helped bring stability to Fleetwood Mac, some people who worked with the band firmly disagreed with this. As they sat in the recording studio, they would scream at each other until it was time to sing their portions of songs.

“I remember when we were doing background vocals, Stevie and Lindsey were having an argument,” producer Ken Caillat told Music Radar. “Vicious name-calling – ‘you motherf*****’ this, ‘you f***ing bastard’ that. Back and forth it went. The tape would start rolling and they’d sing, ‘Yooooooou make loving fun,’ just beautiful, two little angels. The tape would stop and they’d be calling each other names again. They didn’t miss a beat.”

Their relationship has continued to be tumultuous over the years.