Dia Dipasupil/Getty ImagesFleetwood Mac will launch its first tour since splitting with singer/guitarist Lindsey Buckingham on October 3 in Tulsa, Oklahoma. In a new Billboard interview, drummer Mick Fleetwood opens up about Buckingham’s departure, and how he and his bandmates are feeling about the forthcoming trek.
“We’re very excited,” Mick says about the tour. “Obviously this is a huge change with the advent of Lindsey Buckingham not being a part of Fleetwood Mac. We all wish him well and all the rest of it. In truthful language, we just weren’t happy. And I’ll leave it at that in terms of the dynamic.”
As previously reported, Buckingham has been replaced by Crowded House frontman Neil Finn and Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers guitarist Mike Campbell, whom Fleetwood describes as “both really credible gentleman and really talented.” He says the band is “a week into rehearsals and it’s going really well.”
Mick also reveals that Lindsey is planning a solo tour “more or less [at] the same time” as Fleetwood Mac’s trek, adding with a laugh, “not in the same places, I hope.”
Fleetwood Mac is no stranger to this type of upheaval, having undergone many lineup changes over the course of its 50-year career.
“If you know anything about the history of this band, it’s sort of peppered with this type of dramatic stuff,” Fleetwood tells Billboard. “It’s a strange band, really.”
Mick reports that Fleetwood Mac soon will be releasing “a 50-year package” covering “all the incarnations” of the band, stretching back to its early blues material when the group was led by singer/guitarist Peter Green.
Fleetwood adds about the tour, “We’re just looking at a whole 18 months on-and-off of trekking around the world like we normally do and having it be fun.”
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