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Buckingham is back to his best

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"And yes, a lot of new kinds of music had flooded in during that time and I was quite intrigued by a lot of it and loved a lot of it and it reinforced a lot of my belief system anyway.

"For me, it still defines the way I think, which is to try and follow your own instincts and not the expectations of external forces that may be wanting you to do certain things for the wrong reasons.

"In terms of the band, it did have a negative impact in a way. There was kind of an arc in the whole process where they were a little bit alienated from what was going on because at first I was working at home and bringing stuff in, and I think they were a little bit threatened by the lack of status quo at that point. As the album unfolded and people became aware of what it was I think everyone got pulled into what it was and got enchanted by the fact that it was different and experimental.

"Of course, when it didn't sell 16 million albums there was a backlash from within the band. Basically, it became, 'Well, we're gonna put it back on track and work in the manner in which we made Rumours.' If you want to call that an in adverse effect on the band I guess you could."

How do you feel now about the belated regard to Tusk? Now people are calling it a masterpiece...

"All of those events never affected my feelings on the album and what it was. It only affected my feelings for the politics and it gave me a little sense of disappointment in the sense that I guess I was feeling at the time. It drove in the point that not everyone in the band were doing things for the same reason. But that's fair enough too because Fleetwood Mac as a fivesome was a very unlikely group of people to be together in the first place."

On a couple of the new songs on the new record, you're joined by Mick Fleetwood and John McVie. How aware are you that whenever they play with you, it immediately sounds like Fleetwood Mac?

"I'm a little too close to it to be completely aware. It's really hard to hear because on some level I am close to it and maybe take it for granted a little bit. But I have so much regard for Mick, especially as a drummer. He's completely unique. Nobody else in the world sounds like him."

Of all of your solos, I'm So Afraid is a show-stopper. What goes through your head every night you play it? And how much room for improvisation do you give yourself?

"I'm no Jimi Hendrix. I don't have the level of proficiency to just let myself go off into something completely different every night. Nor do I think I would want to. I am someone who values musical themes. Someone who feels there should be a consistency from night to night with something. I'm not one of those people that can slam out a completely different solo every night because I don't have the skill to do that."

Buckingham and Nicks

Let's go back to you and Stevie. What do you think would've happened if the two of you never joined Fleetwood Mac?

"That's a good question! [laughs] I don't know what we'd be doing now. But there was a period of time where we both wondered what would have happened if we had passed on the offer from Mike Fleetwood, because after Stevie and I had done that one album together we started to play some shows in the South - and things started to happen for us there!

"It was weird: we lived in LA and we were starving, but in the South we were headlining for three and four thousand people a night, which is more then I can play to now! [laughs] To be honest, I don't really don't have any answers to that question. Who knows where we'd be?"

Fleetwood Mac became famous for the soap opera - the fights, the squabbles, the walkouts. Do you think you have all mellowed with age and the things that used to bother you don't seem so important now?

"I think one of the reasons why everyone is looking forward to next year is that we're at a point where we're feeling the same thing, which is to go out and acknowledge that there is a great deal of caring and love between us and acknowledge that we've accomplished something significant; and to acknowledge that everything we do needs to be come from the perspective of us sharing something and enjoying that thing and keeping that particular individual agenda down to a minimum.

"Just to relax into it and have a good time. What I think is going to happen out of that is that feeling is going to translate on stage. So yeah, I think we have gotten there. We've mellowed, but we'll still rock!"

Lindsey Buckingham: Did You Miss Me

Listen to an exclusive stream of Lindsey Buckingham's new single, Did You Miss Me.
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