Fleetwood Mac Reportedly Fired Lindsey Buckingham

Fresh off reports that Lindsay Buckingham had quit Fleetwood Mac, it is now reported that he was actually fired.

Rolling Stone reports Buckingham was let go from the band after a disagreement over their upcoming tour.

While they have yet to specifically acknowledge Buckingham’s departure, Fleetwood Mac did release a statement announcing the two men who would be replacing him, Mike Campbell of Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers and Neil Finn of Crowded House.

“We are thrilled to welcome the musical talents of the caliber of Mike Campbell and Neil Finn into the Mac family. With Mike and Neil, we’ll be performing all the hits that the fans love, plus we’ll be surprising our audiences with some tracks from our historic catalogue of songs,” the band’s joint statement read. “Fleetwood Mac has always been a creative evolution. We look forward to honoring that spirit on this upcoming tour.”

Additionally, co-founder Mick Fleetwood added his own personal statement, saying, “Fleetwood Mac has always been about an amazing collection of songs that are performed with a unique blend of talents … We jammed with Mike and Neil and the chemistry really worked and let the band realize that this is the right combination to go forward with in Fleetwood Mac style. We know we have something new, yet it’s got the unmistakable Mac sound.”

This is actually not the first time Buckingham has split with the group, as he departed once before back 1987, eventually rejoining in the late 1990s.

His first split with the band came prior to a 10-week tour they were about to embark on. Buckingham reportedly called them all together to talk about how he felt that his creativity was being stifled and, he claims, his point of view was not well-received.

In his autobiography, Buckingham claims that after sharing his thoughts and feelings with the group he and Fleetwood Mac singer Stevie Nicks got into a physical altercation.

He officially left the band the following day and that is when Burnette was first brought on board.

Buckingham eventually returned to the band around 1996, following a roughly two-year break they had been on, and has remained in Fleetwood Mac ever since.

Interestingly, Buckingham is not a founding member of the band, as Fleetwood Mac was formed in 1967 and Buckingham officially joined in 1974.

His second departure comes as somewhat of a surprise, and an ironic one at that, as the 68-year-old just spoke in 2017 with The Guardian about how he was the one to convince Fleetwood Mac singer Christine McVie to return to the group.

“I had to have a conversation with Christine and say: ‘Well, we’d love you to come back, but you can’t leave again.’ She told me she’d been reconnecting with her creative muse and had some rough ideas she sent to me – I, of course, took great liberties with them in my studio,” he said.

That conversation apparently led to McVie returning to the band, as well as to the pair recording an album of original music together, titled Lindsey Buckingham/Christine McVie.

“She was interested in these songs I’d been working on, and Mick and John thought it would be good to bring her over early and cut tracks on some of these things. It was unbelievable,” he added. “We only expected to do it for a couple of weeks but we stayed for a month. Nobody was saying it was a duet album – we didn’t care what it was!”