“It gets lonely in these hotels,” says Mick Fleetwood, with a laugh when he gets on the line. So he’s more than happy to do a phone interview from Atlanta on a day off during Fleetwood Mac’s tour.
Co-founded by its namesake drummer in 1967, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame band — which will bring its “An Evening With Fleetwood Mac” show to Madison Square Garden on Monday and March 18, and the Prudential Center on Wednesday — will take a rest day here and there, but after 52 years, there are absolutely no plans to retire from the road.
“This is what we do,” Fleetwood, 71, tells The Post. “That really is where we’re at . . . In the past, when we literally never stopped, we never even thought of smelling the roses and going on a holiday or something. It was always straight in the studio, straight on the road.”
No doubt, Fleetwood Mac doesn’t stop thinking about tomorrow — even if it’s without Lindsey Buckingham. The singer-guitarist, who joined the group with Stevie Nicks in 1974, was unceremoniously booted from the group in April 2018. He was replaced by not one but two musicians: Neil Finn, former frontman of Crowded House (“Don’t Dream It’s Over”), and Mike Campbell, erstwhile guitarist for Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.
Buckingham’s dismissal — over which he sued Fleetwood Mac (the lawsuit was later settled out of court) — was the latest drama for a band whose biggest album, 1977’s classic “Rumours,” was rife with it.
“We weren’t happy — [happy] sounds almost like too light of a word to use,” Fleetwood says of Buckingham’s firing. “It just wasn’t a happy situation anymore, really for everyone.”
Still, the British-born drummer admits the split with Buckingham was complicated.