Typically, there is a mutual respect within a genre. Pop stars pay their dues to pop stars. Country singers tip their hats to their peers. But, if any genre has thrown this decorum out the window at times, it’s rock. Not to say that all rockers are aggrieved. Many give credit where it’s due. But then some let their negative opinions flow like water. Though not as loose-lipped as some of his contemporaries, Lindsey Buckingham has aired out his qualms a time or two. Below, find three classic bands that Buckingham seemingly dislikes, and why.
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Van Halen
Buckingham isn’t the flashiest guitarist ever. He’s stellar and can play with the best of them, but he’s not talked about in the same way as someone like Eddie Van Halen, who favored complex riffs and ear-ringing solos. This is a distinction Buckingham is okay with. At least, his past comments about Van Halen point in that direction.
“I’ve always believed that you play to highlight the song, not to highlight the player,” Buckingham once said. “The song is all that matters. There are two ways you can choose to go. You can try to be someone like Eddie Van Halen, who is a great guitarist, a virtuoso. Yet he doesn’t make good records because what he plays is totally lost in the context of this band’s music.”
Eagles
Fleetwood Mac and the Eagles exist in the same plane. Though they differ in key ways, they share a reliance on breezy melodies and tight harmonies. Despite being cut from the same cloth, Buckingham felt the West Coast rockers had “sold out.”
“Lindsey scoffed at bands that sold out,” Fleetwood Mac engineer Ken Callait once said. “In fact, he thought the Eagles sold out during the next few years when they nearly duplicated the sounds of Hotel California on the next two albums. That’s why Fleetwood Mac departed so much from Rumours.”
Fleetwood Mac
It’s no secret that Fleetwood Mac had their issues with one another. In fact, their widespread beef is part of what has kept them in the cultural conversation for decades. Because of their infighting, we have to include Buckingham’s name-making band on this list.
“I don’t know what they’re doing,” Buckingham said of Fleetwood Mac shortly after he was let go from the band in 2018. “It’s a cover band kind of deal, and Stevie [Nicks] may be enjoying that, and that’s fine. If she is happy doing that, there is no one outcome that I think is going to be okay.”
Like any longstanding relationship, the Fleetwood Mac members have gone through highs and lows together. Saying that Buckingham “dislikes” his at-times bandmates is perhaps strong wording, but there’s no denying that tensions have been high enough at different points throughout their career to earn them a spot on this list.
(Photo by Fin Costello/Redferns/Getty Images)
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