Neil Finn Would ‘Gladly Step Aside’ for Lindsey Buckingham
Crowded House frontman Neil Finn said he’d “gladly step aside” to allow Lindsey Buckingham’s return to Fleetwood Mac.
Finn joined the band alongside Mike Campbell in 2018 following Buckingham’s dismissal. While it’s not known if there’s any chance of a reunion, drummer Mick Fleetwood last year revealed the pair was back on speaking terms.
“I would be delighted for them if they reconcile,” Finn told Rolling Stone in a new interview. “I would gladly step aside to allow that to happen. I’m not entering the arena in terms of whether that is possible. But I’m really happy that Mick has crossed some bridges with Lindsey. I know that had to happen at some point.”
Finn noted that "I know it’s not as simple as that. But look, if it served Fleetwood Mac and its best interests, I would be delighted for them. I wouldn’t lay any claim or put any obstacles in front of them.”
He also recalled the conversation that led to joining the band. “I was pretty shocked," he said. "We got to know Mick in the period before that, a couple of years, quite well. We hung out quite a bit. And when he called, he took around 20 minutes to get around asking me. It was a very unexpected development. It was an honor to be asked.”
Finn admitted he was uncertain whether it would be a good move at first. “But my kids and [wife] Sharon looked at me and said, ‘You’re going to stand in a room with Mick and John [McVie] and Christine [McVie] and see what it feels like,'" he recalled. "That’s all it was. We had to play together to know it was going to work. I went over and did so, and it sounded really good. But yeah, it was a bolt out of nowhere.”
Looking at Fleetwood Mac’s potential future, he said, “There was a huge will when we left it to do more things. Not a full tour. We had the idea of going into the studio with the band. Everyone was like, ‘It could be great!’ But there’s a big journey from ‘it could be great’ to actually going in the studio.”