Lindsey Buckingham Said Stevie Nicks Was Too ‘Intimidated’ to Work on New Fleetwood Mac Music
By 2012, Fleetwood Mac hadn’t released an album in years, something Lindsey Buckingham blamed on Stevie Nicks. The band was working without Christine McVie, but Buckingham felt it was time to put out a new record. Nicks resisted, though. According to Buckingham, she felt intimidated by the quality of the music. Her hesitation to write new songs ultimately caused the project to fall apart.
Lindsey Buckingham said Stevie Nicks resisted making a new Fleetwood Mac album
As Fleetwood Mac geared up to tour, Buckingham started itching to put out a new album. Their last album with new material was 2003’s Say You Will. He felt it had been too long and began working on new music.
“It would have been really appropriate at this point,” he told Rolling Stone. “Stevie wasn’t really into doing it. She wasn’t into it at all. But I went ahead and got John [McVie] and Mick [Fleetwood] over from Hawaii and we cut eight new songs of mine. All of them were done in the proper key for Stevie’s voice, if she were to sing the songs.”
Though Buckingham believed the songs were good, Nicks didn’t seem all that interested. He thought that the prospect of writing music to compete with his songs intimidated her.
“I think the reason probably was she didn’t feel like she had a bunch of material sitting around that she wanted to give up, or she didn’t have any material sitting around, period, any new stuff,” he said. “That I don’t know. I think she felt maybe a little bit intimidated by the fact that all this stuff just showed up. I mean it really was pretty spectacular, I thought.”
Ultimately, her reluctance ended up killing the album.
“It kind of languished there,” Buckingham said. “I think she was very defensive against the idea of making an album.”
Lindsey Buckingham complained that Stevie Nicks was more focused on a different record
Part of the reason Nicks hesitated to write new material was because she was more interested in a 40th-anniversary album for Buckingham Nicks. This was the band Nicks and Buckingham had been in together before Fleetwood Mac.
“I got her to sing on two of my songs. We had a great time, by the way; we had a really fun time hanging out,” he said. “It was just so much fun, which was just really reassuring and we hadn’t had that much fun together in a long time. But, in the meantime, she decided to take this track that was supposed to be for Fleetwood Mac, and put it on the Buckingham Nicks album. At that point I sort of glazed over. In my mind, she still needs to come with a few things for Fleetwood Mac.”
Buckingham Nicks found little success. Because of this, Buckingham wasn’t sure he saw a point in making an anniversary album.
“I mean, I don’t know how many people actually care that it’s the 40th anniversary,” he said. “If it were up to me, and it may be to some degree . . . this is just something that was an idea off the top of Stevie’s head, in the same way she brought in a song for Fleetwood Mac and turned it into a Buckingham Nicks song in a couple of days.”
Fleetwood Mac hasn’t released a new album in years
To this day, Fleetwood Mac’s final studio album is 2003’s Say You Will. They have released live and compilation albums since then but have yet to release a new studio album.
At this point, it also seems unlikely that they will. After Christine McVie’s death in 2022, Mick Fleetwood said he didn’t think it was likely that the band would work together again.
