Lindsey Buckingham

• 1. Introduction

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  Lindsey Buckingham learned to play on a toy Mickey Mouse guitar, strumming along to his older brother Jeff's pile of 45s. He never took a lesson, and he still does not read music. Decades later, Rolling Stone ranked him 100th on its 2011 list of the greatest guitarists of all time.

  Buckingham is an American musician, singer and record producer. He spent much of his working life inside Fleetwood Mac, one of the most famous and most quarrelsome bands in rock. He left it, came back to it, and was eventually pushed out of it.

  Three questions run through his story. How does a self-taught kid from the San Francisco Bay Area end up steering a band's biggest records? Why would he walk away when the band was at its most successful? And what happened in 2018 to end his place in it for good?

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• 2. Bay Area Beginnings

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  Lindsey Adams Buckingham was born in Palo Alto, California, on the 3rd of October 1949, to Morris H. Buckingham and Rutheda, née Elliott. His father had been a football star at San Jose State College. By 1963 he was president of Alexander-Ballert Company of San Francisco, a coffee roaster. Alta Organic Coffee is still one of its brands.

  Lindsey had two older brothers, Jeffrey and Gregory. The family lived in Atherton, and at Menlo-Atherton High School the three boys were pushed toward competitive swimming. Lindsey dropped out of sports to chase music. Gregory kept going and won a silver medal at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City. Lindsey later attended San José State University without graduating, as his brother Greg and his father had before him.

  Seeing the boy's talent, his parents bought him a Harmony guitar for $35. By age 13 he was drawn to folk music, working out the guitar and banjo parts on records by John Herald, Ian & Sylvia, and the Kingston Trio. Later, part of a $12,000 inheritance from an aunt paid for a 4-track Ampex recorder.

  From 1966 to 1971 he played bass and sang in a high school band that began as the Fritz Rabyne Memorial Band. It regrouped in 1967 and shortened its name to Fritz. He invited Stevie Nicks, who attended the same school a year ahead of him, to join as a backing vocalist. Their romance began only after both had left the band, five years later. A bout of mononucleosis then delayed their move to Los Angeles in 1971.

  In 1972 the pair recorded seven demos on a half-inch 4-track Ampex kept at his father's coffee-roasting plant in Daly City, then drove south to Los Angeles to look for a record deal. Polydor Records signed them in 1973. Keith Olsen produced their album Buckingham Nicks, with Richard Dashut as second engineer, and it came out that September. Poor sales got the duo dropped soon afterward. To pay the bills, Buckingham toured with Don Everly's backing band, singing Phil Everly's harmony parts.

  The album failed to appear on any national chart in 1973. After a reissue in September 2025, it charted in several countries.

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• 3. Fleetwood Mac Years

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  Mick Fleetwood was prowling around Sound City recording studio in California when he heard "Frozen Love" from the Buckingham Nicks album. He asked who the guitarist was. By coincidence, Buckingham and Nicks were in the same building recording demos, and the two men were introduced.

  Bob Welch left Fleetwood Mac in December 1974, and Fleetwood phoned Buckingham right away with the vacant guitar slot. Buckingham answered that he and Nicks were a team and that he did not want to work without her. Fleetwood agreed to take both, with no audition.

  Before joining, the pair played a short tour for their old album. The band behind them had two drummers playing at once, Bob Aguirre and Gary Hodges, plus bassist Tom Moncrieff. Moncrieff later played bass on Nicks' 1981 debut solo album, Bella Donna. In Alabama, the one area where the album had sold respectably, they told the crowds they had joined Fleetwood Mac.

  The band's self-titled album arrived in 1975 and reached number one in the United States. Buckingham contributed "Monday Morning" and "I'm So Afraid", both written with a follow-up Buckingham Nicks album in mind. He also sang lead on "Blue Letter" and on Nicks' song "Crystal".

  Rumours followed in 1977 and became one of the best-selling studio albums of all time, with sales above 40 million copies worldwide. Buckingham's "Go Your Own Way" was the lead single and reached number ten on the Billboard Hot 100. He also wrote "Second Hand News" and "Never Going Back Again". He shared lead vocals on "The Chain", which the whole band wrote, and on Christine McVie's "Don't Stop".

  The record was made while his romance with Nicks collapsed. By 1977 it had broken down, and both wrote about it. Nicks' "Silver Springs" and "Dreams" and Buckingham's "Go Your Own Way" and "Second Hand News" all chronicle the split.

  After that triumph, Buckingham refused to repeat himself. He talked Fleetwood into letting him be more experimental and work on tracks at home before bringing them to the studio. The result was the double album Tusk in 1979, which he largely directed. His title track peaked at number 8 in the United States and number 6 on the UK singles chart. Its recording included the 112-member USC Trojan Marching Band, captured at Dodger Stadium.

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• 4. Solo Detours

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  While Tusk was taking shape, Buckingham produced albums for Walter Egan and John Stewart in the late 1970s and started on his own record. It arrived in 1981 as Law and Order, his first solo studio album. He played nearly every instrument himself, with guest spots from Mick Fleetwood and Christine McVie. The sound kept the quirky, lo-fi, new wave leanings of Tusk.

  The single "Trouble", inspired by Fleetwood Mac producer Richard Dashut, reached number 9 on the Billboard Hot 100. In Australia it sat at number one for three weeks.

  The band itself took a year off after its world tour ended in 1980. Mirage, released in 1982, was a more pop-friendly record and put Fleetwood Mac back on top of the US album chart. By then several members, Nicks most of all, were thriving on their own, so the next Fleetwood Mac album did not appear for five years.

  In 1983 Buckingham wrote and performed "Holiday Road" and "Dancin' Across the USA" for the film National Lampoon's Vacation. "Holiday Road" reached number 82 on the Hot 100.

  A seven-year relationship with Carol Ann Harris ended in 1984, and that year he released his second solo album, Go Insane. Its title track reached number 23. In 2008 he said the song was about his aftermath with Nicks, yet Harris wrote in her memoir Storms that it was about her own breakup with him. The closing track, "D.W. Suite", honored Beach Boys drummer Dennis Wilson, a close friend of the band who had been involved with Christine McVie.

  Session work piled up. In 1984 Buckingham played guitar and sang harmony on "You Can't Make Love" for Don Henley's album Building the Perfect Beast. He joined the 1985 charity single "We Are the World" for USA for Africa. In 1986 he co-wrote "Since You've Gone" for Belinda Carlisle's debut solo album, Belinda.

  For Back to the Future in 1985 he contributed "Time Bomb Town", playing every instrument except the drums. Those were handled by Michael Huey.

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• 5. Exit and Return

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  Songs Buckingham had meant for a third solo album ended up on Fleetwood Mac's Tango in the Night in 1987. They included "Big Love", "Tango in the Night", "Family Man", "You and I" and "Caroline". "Big Love" came out first and reached the top ten in both the US and the UK. The album became the band's biggest since Rumours, a decade earlier.

  He left anyway. He did not want to tour, and the strain inside the group was wearing on him. In his words: "I needed to get some separation from Stevie especially because I don't think I'd ever quite gotten closure on our relationship." Fleetwood Mac carried on with two guitarists to replace him, Rick Vito and Billy Burnette.

  Buckingham then spent most of five years in the studio on his third solo album, Out of the Cradle, released in 1992. Many songs dealt with Nicks and with his decision to quit. "There were things lingering for years having to do with relationships and the band, hurtful things, that were impossible to deal with until I left," he said. "It's a catharsis, absolutely."

  "Wrong" gently rebuked Mick Fleetwood's tell-all biography, published in 1990. The album drew some favorable reviews but fell short of the sales the band had known. Still, in 1992-93 he toured as a solo artist for the first time, leading four guitarists, a bassist, a keyboardist and three percussionists.

  On the 20th of January 1993, newly elected President Bill Clinton asked Fleetwood Mac to play his campaign song, Christine McVie's "Don't Stop", at his inauguration. Buckingham agreed. The band was still at odds, though, and it was meant as a one-off. He sang on one track of their 1995 album Time.

  In the mid-1990s he was putting together a fourth solo album and asked Fleetwood for help with a song. The collaboration ran far longer than planned, and the two brought in Nicks and John and Christine McVie. In 1997 all five Rumours-era members toured together for the first time since 1982, on The Dance. The tour was a big success and mended much of the damage. In 1998 the band entered the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but Christine McVie left that year, fearing flights and wanting to be with her family in the UK.

  That fourth solo album, Gift of Screws, was recorded between 1995 and 2001 and handed to Warner Bros. and Reprise. Label executives talked him into shelving it and moving several tracks to Fleetwood Mac. The result was Say You Will in 2003, the first studio album with both Buckingham and Nicks in 15 years. "Peacekeeper" was its first single, and the world tour lasted almost a year and a half. Seven Gift of Screws songs appeared on it in essentially the form he had recorded them.

  Copies of the shelved album, taken from the original CD-R given to the labels, spread among fans through torrent sites and other file-sharing networks.

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• 6. Small Stages, Last Act

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  On the 3rd of October 2006, his 57th birthday, Buckingham released the acoustic album Under the Skin. He played nearly everything himself. The exceptions were two tracks with Fleetwood Mac's rhythm section, John McVie and Mick Fleetwood. It also held a cover of the Rolling Stones' "I Am Waiting". Three days later he began a tour that ran to the end of June 2007. A show at the Bass Performance Hall in Fort Worth, Texas, became a live album and DVD.

  Gift of Screws finally came out in 2008. It held three tracks from the originally planned record and seven new recordings. A short tour that September and October opened in Saratoga, California, and closed in New York City.

  Fleetwood Mac toured again in 2009 under the name Unleashed, with Christine McVie not taking part. Buckingham then announced on his website, on the 3rd of November 2010, that a new studio album was underway. Seeds We Sow was released on the 6th of September 2011. The tour began four days later in Reno, Nevada, and ended in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on the 14th of November. A planned first solo tour of the United Kingdom and Ireland was cancelled after his guitarist suffered a back injury.

  In May 2012 he began a tour with no backing band at all, starting in Solana Beach, California. That November he issued One Man Show, a solo live album recorded in one night in Des Moines, Iowa. It came out on his own label, Buckingham Records LLC.

  The Fleetwood Mac "Live World" tour began in Columbus, Ohio, on the 4th of April 2013. On the 30th of April the band released a four-track EP, its first new studio material since Say You Will. It included one new song from the Buckingham Nicks sessions, "Without You". That year Buckingham also earned credit on three songs of the Nine Inch Nails album Hesitation Marks.

  On the 11th of January 2014, Mick Fleetwood announced that Christine McVie was rejoining the band. The On with the Show tour, 33 cities across North America, opened in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on the 30th of September 2014. UK arena dates for May and June 2015 sold out in minutes.

  In January 2015, Buckingham hinted that a new album and tour might be Fleetwood Mac's final chapter. He called it "a beautiful way to wrap up this last act". Fleetwood countered that the album could take years, since the band was waiting on contributions from Nicks, who was ambivalent about committing to a new record.

  By August 2016, Fleetwood said that virtually none of the band's recorded music featured Nicks. Buckingham and Christine McVie had supplied many songs. "There really are dozens of songs. And they're really good," Fleetwood said. The project turned into the duo album Lindsey Buckingham Christine McVie, with Fleetwood and John McVie on board. It was first planned as a Fleetwood Mac record. Nicks sat it out, preferring a solo tour with the Pretenders. It came out on the 9th of June 2017, and a 38-date tour ran from the 21st of June to the 16th of November.

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• 7. Ousted

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  In January 2018, Fleetwood Mac performed at the MusiCares Person of the Year event. Soon afterward, Buckingham was dismissed. The reason given was a disagreement over the tour, in particular whether it would include newer or lesser-known songs, as he wanted.

  On CBS This Morning on the 25th of April 2018, Fleetwood said the band had reached a "huge impasse" and "hit a brick wall" over a tour planned for a year. Asked whether Buckingham had been fired, he replied: "Well, we don't use that word because I think it's ugly."

  Buckingham told a different story. Manager Irving Azoff phoned with a message from Nicks: "Stevie never wants to be on a stage with you again." Azoff said Nicks had objected to Buckingham's outburst over the intro music, the studio recording of her song "Rhiannon", and to a smirk during her thank-you speech. Buckingham conceded that "It just undermined the impact of our entrance."

  Days later he phoned Azoff and asked: "Is Stevie leaving the band, or am I getting kicked out?" Azoff said he was "getting ousted", after Nicks gave the others an ultimatum. Former Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers guitarist Mike Campbell and Neil Finn of Split Enz and Crowded House were named as his replacements.

  In October 2018 Buckingham sued the band for breach of fiduciary duty, breach of oral contract and intentional interference with prospective economic advantage, among other charges. The suit was settled that December. He has since said he would be open to rejoining, though he does not see it happening.

  On the 5th of October 2018, the anthology Solo Anthology: The Best of Lindsey Buckingham came out, covering his work since 1981. A North American solo tour began two days later. In February 2019 he had emergency open heart surgery. His wife, Kristen Messner, said the operation caused vocal cord damage of unclear permanence, but he recovered.

  Messner is a photographer and interior designer. Their first child was born on the 8th of July 1998, and they married in 2000. They later had two daughters. They filed for divorce in 2021 and then decided to repair their marriage.

  In 2020 he played guitar on "Caution", the first single from the Killers' album Imploding the Mirage. A 2021 version of Brandy Clark's "The Past Is the Past" added his guitar and vocals. His seventh solo studio album, Lindsey Buckingham, was announced on the 8th of June 2021, led by the single "I Don't Mind", and released on the 17th of September. He also guested on Halsey's album If I Can't Have Love, I Want Power.

  On the 27th of August 2022 in Los Angeles, he joined the Killers on stage for his "Caution" solo and a cover of "Go Your Own Way". Johnny Marr of The Smiths then joined them all for "Mr. Brightside" to close the show. In 2025 he appeared as guitarist and co-writer on "Secrets", from the deluxe edition of the album Something Beautiful.

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• 8. Fingers, Not Picks

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  Where most rock guitarists carry a pick, Buckingham almost exclusively plays with his fingers, strumming with the middle and ring fingers. He traces the habit to boyhood. The first guitarist he tried to copy, around age 6 or 7, was Scotty Moore, who used a pick but also fingers. Chet Atkins and other session players did the same. Folk music, popular when early rock and roll faded, cemented the approach. "It was really less of a choice than what I fell into," he said. He still uses a pick occasionally, mainly in the studio when he wants a certain tone.

  His instruments changed over time. A Fender Telecaster was his main guitar before the band, and a Gibson Les Paul Custom came first after he joined. His first Fleetwood Mac studio album also used Fender Stratocasters fitted with an Alembic Blaster. In 1978 he worked with Rick Turner, later founder of The Renaissance Guitar Company, to build the Model One guitar, which he has played ever since.

  On acoustic guitar he mostly uses a Taylor 814ce or a Rick Turner Renaissance RS6. For live versions of "Big Love" he picks up a custom-made Gibson Chet Atkins guitar. An Ovation Balladeer served him from the early 1970s to the late 1980s. In the 1980s he leaned heavily on the Fairlight CMI sampling synthesizer.

  Brian Wilson and Phil Spector rank among his influences. He has produced extensively, for Fleetwood Mac and for his own records. "I think of myself as a stylist, and the process of writing a song is part and parcel with putting it together in the studio," he said.

  His philosophy is spelled out in a Guitar World Acoustic Magazine interview. "I've always believed that you play to highlight the song, not to highlight the player," he said. He set Eddie Van Halen, a virtuoso whose playing gets lost in his band's music, against Chet Atkins, whose parts became part of the song's fabric.

  The world of comedy noticed him too. On NBC's Saturday Night Live, Bill Hader played Buckingham in a recurring sketch called "What Up with That?". Hader's character is a talk show guest who never gets interviewed because time always runs out. Buckingham says he does not understand the parody but takes it as a compliment. On the 14th of May 2011 he appeared as himself in the sketch, offering to explain why there were two Lindsey Buckinghams. He also plays himself, singing, in episode 3 of the Showtime series Roadies.

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