The 12 years I was in Fleetwood Mac before were not particularly happy years. I was not in a very good place, psychologically, when I left. I didn’t have a lot of confidence in what I was doing. – Lindsey Buckingham
But by taking the time away, getting myself off the treadmill, and just slowing down and learning, I felt I had so much more to give back. And maybe that was something that needed to happen for all of us. – Lindsey Buckingham
Ironically, that was quite a bit of the appeal of Rumours. It’s equally interesting on a musical level and as a soap opera. – Lindsey Buckingham
I’m also married for the first time, and I have two kids. So there’s some kind of good karma right now. – Lindsey Buckingham
That’s one strength that Stevie has. She’s really not a strong instrumentalist in any way. Her instrument is her voice and her words. And it keeps her focused on the very center of that. – Lindsey Buckingham
When I work alone, it can be like dabbling with a canvas. Maybe you paint over bits, and it starts to form its own life and lead you off in a direction. It becomes an intuitive, subconscious process. – Lindsey Buckingham
They tried to get me to use a pick when I first joined the band. They had certain things they thought were appropriate. I tried to adapt as much as I could. – Lindsey Buckingham
Years on, Christine and John still have a deep love for each other, as do Stevie and I – we’ve been working together since I was 17. – Lindsey Buckingham
Another thing that was unique about working on this stuff was that I was engineering it. I used many of the things I had learned while I was away from the band. It sort of vindicated my decision to leave in ’87. – Lindsey Buckingham
The writing is all done, so it’s all about verbalizing everything from point A to point B, and certainly there’s a bit of politics involved, so it’s a different thing. – Lindsey Buckingham
That’s the only way to do it. Just like an actor. You can get a great performance if you do a bunch of takes and edit it. You find the moments and string them together. – Lindsey Buckingham
Even though I had pushed through the Tango album, it was just not a very good environment to be in on a daily basis. In many ways, this is the best time of my life. – Lindsey Buckingham
This time, there were no drugs involved. The hours were completely normal daytime hours. I think we were able to appreciate the interplay, where before we had taken it for granted. – Lindsey Buckingham
I had to seal off my feelings about Stevie while seeing her every day and having to help her, too. But you get on with it. What was happening to the band was much bigger than any of that. – Lindsey Buckingham
After a couple of failed attempts, I came up with a weird tuning where I was dropping the G string down a step so that it became a seventh, and it got me to a place where I could play all these figures fairly easily. It was not an easy thing to work out. – Lindsey Buckingham
Some days I would be there at ten in the morning and wouldn’t leave till ten at night, and the others would waltz in for a couple of hours and then leave, because I was doing that painting thing. And they were happy to see that being done. – Lindsey Buckingham
It’s really touching that we can come back after so long and care about making an album that says as much as this one does. And after all this time, we really do care about each other. – Lindsey Buckingham
When Stevie and I joined the band, we were in the midst of breaking up, as were John and Christine. By the time Rumours was being recorded, things got worse in terms of psychology and drug use. It was a large exercise in denial – in order for me to get work done. – Lindsey Buckingham
