That new disc - “Under the Skin,” his first solo effort in 10 years and only the fourth in a fitful non-Mac career - features Buckingham’s most intimate work, mostly acoustic songs recorded at home. While Fleetwood Mac’s silver linings often had a darker cloud where he was concerned, Buckingham’s music can take on a new edge and abandon in the flesh.
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On Tuesday at Manhattan’s Town Hall, Buckingham howled with the delight of a free man, seeming far younger than his 57 years as he unveiled songs from a new solo album and cherry-picked highlights from his back pages. But for all the rewards, the singer/guitarist could seem constricted by the Mac’s soap opera, his artistic ambitions bound in the bubble of money and relationships.
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NEW YORK - Fleetwood Mac made Lindsey Buckingham rich and famous, or perhaps it was he - as studio whiz and perfectionist driving force - who made a journeyman blues band a rich and famous pop group. Matt Pais is the metromix music and movies published Oct. In fact, I think I met him once years later and he wouldn’t even give it up then. He said, “You’re a loser, and you’ll always be a loser.” And I said, “OK. It was just the standard thing of losers never win, blah blah blah. So that’s what he said he thought I was just quitting. I said, “I just can’t do this anymore.” And he couldn’t grasp it. Like me and music, that was his world, water polo and swimming. He had coached my older brother who went on to be an Olympian. This was a guy who was actually a really great coach.
Two weeks in, I just realized that I was not that person anymore I was sort of growing my hair out and it just wasn’t for me anymore. Well, can you say something about your college water polo coach, who said you’d always be a loser after quitting the team? No, Bush, is … what can you say about Bush? Can’t say anything about Bush. A touch of fear and loathing, being there in that world. I mean, I was not completely interested in playing at Bill’s–although he was a great guy–only because it was so out of context with anything that we’d ever done.
Would you have played at President Bush’s? The group played at Bill Clinton’s inauguration. The lesson of all that is hold on and don’t let yourself sink to the bottom, and eventually things will get better. It wasn’t necessarily the best for one’s emotions–for one’s mental health, shall we say–but, you know, it was sort of a destiny that we had to fulfill. There are a lot of lessons … the whole idea of breaking up with someone and not really having the closure and having to make the choice to sort of take the high road or to at least damn the torpedoes however you want to look at it. What lessons did you learn in Fleetwood Mac as you and Stevie–and John and Christine McVie–endured breakups? We love the record, but one publication said your voice is “a raspy yelling sound … like a wet cat stuck under a couch.” Ouch.
We know he has a ton of fans, so while Buckingham hung out in Cleveland, we asked him to address some of his detractors.
Buckingham says he plans to do a more “electric” album next.) The Fleetwood Mac guitarist/singer/producer put aside new material every few years to reunite with his former band, and he even turned some of his solo work into songs for the group’s 2003 album, “Say You Will.”īut now, the moody, terrific “Under the Skin” is out–and the album so exemplifies Buckingham’s commitment to going his own way that he says reps at Warner Brothers “wanted it to be more normal.” (The songs on “Under the Skin” are mostly meditative singing and guitar finger-picking. That’s why “Under the Skin” is Lindsey Buckingham’s first new album in 14 years. It’s hard to find time to make an album when one of the biggest bands of the past few decades keeps calling you away. Fleetwood Mac’s Lindsey Buckingham talks about going his own way