Christine McVie on Fleetwood Mac’s Future: ‘Impossible to Say’
Christine McVie said it’s impossible to predict whether Fleetwood Mac will continue beyond their most recent tour.
While the singer and keyboardist has enjoyed playing with Neil Finn (Crowded House) and Mike Campbell (Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers), who joined for a 2018-19 trek after the dismissal of Lindsey Buckingham, she’s unclear where this latest lineup stands.
"Those guys were great,” McVie told Rolling Stone of the latest recruits. “We have a great time with them, but we’ve kind of broke up now, so I hardly ever see them." She added that she also doesn’t communicate "very much" with longtime bandmate Stevie Nicks, noting, “When we were on the last tour, we did a lot. We always sat next to each other on the plane and we got on really well. But since the band broke up, I’ve not been speaking to her at all."
Going further, McVie is uncertain whether the band still exists: “I don’t know. It’s impossible to say. We might get back together, but I just couldn’t say for sure.”
In March, drummer Mick Fleetwood told Rolling Stone that he could envision a reunion with Buckingham, who parted with the group under controversial terms. "I’d love to think that all of us could be healed," he said, "and also respect the people who are in the band, Neil Finn and Michael Campbell." But McVie is less confident, saying she’s "quite happy being at home" and pointing to a debilitating "chronic back problem" that would make it difficult for her to play keyboards in her preferred standing position.
“I couldn’t sit at the rig I play,” she said. “You have to stand up to play the piano and the Hammond Organ is beneath that, so it’s a bit difficult to think about sitting down and doing it. Anyway, I wouldn’t want to do that.”
But if Fleetwood Mac do manage to play again, she also hopes Buckingham can be involved. “I’d always want Lindsey back,” she said of her former bandmate, with whom she collaborated on a 2017 duet LP. “He’s the best. Neil and Mike were such a cheerful couple, but Lindsey was missed." Finn said in 2021 that he would "gladly step aside" to accommodate Buckingham's return. Meanwhile, Buckingham has expressed interest in eventually coming back: “Who knows, maybe we’ll manage to see clear to have one more nice run out there,” he told Classic Rock. "That would be the proper way to go."
Ironing home her uncertainty about the band’s future, McVie added: "I really can’t say for sure because I could be wrong. So I’ll just leave it open and say that we might."
The songwriter will release her compilation album Songbird on June 24. The remastered set features material from two solo projects (1984’s Christine McVie and 2004’s In the Meantime), a pair of previously unreleased tracks and a new orchestral rendition of her Rumours tune "Songbird."