(Credits: Far Out / Raph Pour-Hashemi)
Mon 24 November 2025 16:40, UK
For a while, Fleetwood Mac were a British incarnation. Formed in the swinging streets of London in 1967, the group were a bubbling cauldron of blues rock. Though America’s blues and rock music inspired them, they were born from a British sensibility.
The grey and murky skies of the English capital are far removed from what Fleetwood Mac would become. Following the introduction of Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham, the group would quickly become an icon of easy-living on America’s sunshine coast.
By the start of the 1970s, the rock scene in California had started to get a bit more mellow. Since this was the same region of the US that had birthed artists like the Grateful Dead and helped spearhead the hippie mindset during the ‘Summer of Love’, it’s no surprise that the next generation would take things down a notch, with artists like The Byrds and Crosby, Stills, and Nash making the kind of laid-back music anyone could get into. While Lindsey Buckingham would be a late arrival to that scene, he admitted that he wanted nothing to do with its leaders, the Eagles.
When looking at the Eagles and Fleetwood Mac’s music, though, there are more than a few remarkable similarities. Compared to where the band started in the world of blues, Buckingham’s love of traditional bluegrass and folksy genres led to them becoming a lot more pop-oriented, much like the Eagles had tried on Desperado.
It’s not like both bands weren’t on friendly terms, either. Throughout their time in the spotlight, both bands were known to cross on the touring circuit and even lead to a romance between Stevie Nicks and Don Henley in the late 1970s, ending with her creating the song ‘Sara’ dedicated to the unborn child she had with the Eagles singer.
The later incarnation of Fleetwood Mac. (Credits: Far Out / Alamy)
While the Eagles were no slouches when it came to making massive hits, there was always something else going on behind the scenes. For all of the great attention to detail they put into their songs, Don Henley had a common goal in mind with Glenn Frey, ruling the band with an iron fist to get the sounds they heard in their head.
On the other hand, Fleetwood Mac had to divide up the work across multiple musicians and also had to juggle different egos. While Buckingham could take the reins when he wanted to, he always had to compromise when it came to Stevie Nicks’s songs and Christine McVie’s masterpieces, all while getting the approval of band leader Mick Fleetwood.
When talking about his sense of direction, Buckingham said that part of the reason why both bands were so different was because of how many different opinions were going on in the studio, telling Rolling Stone, “One thing I admire about the Eagles is they always seem to know what they want. They always seem to know why they want it. They always seem to want it at the same time. We’re just the opposite. It’s kind of a political minefield out there. It’s interesting”.
Even if the Eagles had one goal in mind, it’s not like they didn’t have their fair share of flairups, either. When working on Hotel California, getting the track ‘Victim of Love’ down in the studio led to the entire band going behind Don Felder’s back, cutting the entire song again and replacing his vocals with Henley’s.
Despite most of Fleetwood Mac being at each other’s throats half the time, it’s usually that tension that fed into their massive success, almost as if their songs were ways to exorcise their pain. It might not be the healthiest environment to work in, but it’s hard to argue when the results sound so good.
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