Lindsey Buckingham Interview Ahead of Tour Opening Night

For Lindsey Buckingham, there is the Big Machine and there is the Small Machine.

The Big Machine is Fleetwood Mac, the band he’s played with since 1975 alongside Stevie Nicks, Mick Fleetwood, John McVie and, until recently, Christine McVie. The Small machine is Buckingham’s solo work, which will be thrown into the spotlight when he performs Saturday night at John Ascuaga’s Nugget.

It’s a symbiotic relationship, Buckingham said last week in a phone interview from his Los Angeles home.

“What happens with a group like Fleetwood Mac, is that it is a brand,” Buckingham said. “There’s an axiom in business where you define the brand, find the formula and you exploit the brand; then you use up that formula until it is used up and you move on, which is a great business formula.”

But, he points out, “It isn’t really a very good formula for someone aspiring to be an artist in the long term.”

Which is where the solo work comes in.

“The solo work, because it’s inherently for a smaller audience, it does sort of tap into the left side of my musical palate, because there’s nothing commercial to uphold,” he said. “It’s been the solo work that’s allowed me to maintain my ideals and to let me aspire to be the artist.”

Bukingham’s Nugget concert is the first night of more than 30 shows across the United States in support of his most recent solo album, “Seeds We Sow.”

Full Interview at Reno-Metromix