In life, there are three certainties: death, taxes, and some sort of drama in the Fleetwood Mac camp.

The timeline of the beloved soft-rockers is an incredibly colourful one — both metaphorically and, in the case of this delightful Wikipedia graph detailing the member’s comings and goings, literally.

The latest band member to exit is guitarist Lindsey Buckingham, who was removed from the band back in April and replaced by Crowded House’s Neil Finn. A lot of he-said/they-said has followed in the past few months, right up until October — which is the month shit very much hit the fan.

A few days ago, Buckingham filed a class-action lawsuit against his former bandmates — one of whom, Christine McVie, he had literally made a full studio album with a year ago. The band’s spokesperson responded with a simple, succinct and somewhat threatening message: “We look forward to Fleetwood Mac’s day in court.”

If you’re a casual observer, you might not even realise how much there is to unpack insofar as the inner-band turmoil is concerned. With this in mind, here’s a quick rundown of Lindsey’s history with the band and how if the Mac don’t love him now, they may never love him again.

Let’s Head Back To The Beginning

In the early ’70s, Fleetwood Mac were a very different beast to the one they became known for by the end of the decade.

At the time, the band were steeped in the blues, trading licks with a revolving door of guitarists while holding steady with their consistent titular rhythm section — Mick Fleetwood (Fleetwood) and John McVie (Mac). Even before their infamous years of drama, Buckingham entered the fold under tense circumstances — the man he was replacing, Bob Welch, had just had an affair with Fleetwood’s wife.

Prior to joining, Buckingham was doing the rounds with his then-girlfriend, Stevie Nicks, in an acoustic duo that was struggling to make ends meet.

The story goes that Fleetwood was so impressed with Buckingham’s guitar playing that he was prepared to hire him on the spot.

Buckingham agreed, but with a proviso — that Nicks would join as well. The deal was sealed, and in 1975 what is now known as the classic line-up of the band — Buckingham, Nicks, Fleetwood, McVie and his then-wife Christine — made their seven-times-platinum eponymous LP.

Hot Mess After Glorious Hot Mess

The rest, as they say, is history. Nicks and Buckingham famously split, as did the McVies, and the inner turmoil in the band fuelled what is widely regarded by many to be one of the best albums of all time, 1976’s Rumours.

Somehow, the band would survive several more years and three more albums — Tusk, Mirage, and Tango in the Night — before Buckingham finally called it quits in the middle of 1987.

He went on to forge a solo career, although the Mac was never entirely out of his rear-view mirror — he occasionally lent a hand to a track or two on post-Tango albums, and the classic line-up returned for a one-off performance in 1993 at the inauguration of President Clinton. (Quite a step up from Three Doors Down, wouldn’t you say?)

The inner turmoil in the band fuelled what is widely regarded by many to be one of the best albums of all time, 1976’s Rumours.

The group got back together in earnest in 1997, although Christine McVie retired a year later. The remaining four members soldiered on and kept it together long enough to complete several world tours and a brand-new studio album, 2003’s Say You Will.

In 2014, Christine McVie unexpectedly returned to the band, marking the first time the classic line-up had performed together in over 15 years. The band headed off on their ‘On With The Show’ world tour, which saw them return to Australia for a run of arena shows and Day On The Green mini-festivals in 2015.

There were even — ahem — rumours of the classic line-up making an album together for the first time in 30 years. Unfortunately, this never came to be — although Buckingham’s album with Christine, imaginatively titled Lindsey Buckingham/Christine McVie, did feature contributions from both Fleetwood and John McVie.

At the end of every performance during the On With The Show run, Fleetwood would make a speech to the audience that concluded with a triumphant proclamation: “The Mac is most definitely back!”

It was only a matter of time, however, before the snake would once again eat its tail.

And Now…It’s All Falling Apart Again

Although the general public was alerted to Buckingham’s departure in April this year, it’s alleged that the real firing took place a few months before in January.

According to a tell-all Rolling Stone interview published last week, Buckingham was at home just days after the classic line-up had performed what would end up being their final show together at a MusiCares benefit concert. He took a call from Irving Azoff, the longstanding manager of the Mac, and was told in no uncertain terms that Nicks never wanted to perform alongside him ever again.

Buckingham reached out to Fleetwood — twice — but to no response. After confusion as to whether Nicks was leaving the group or not, Azoff confirmed that it was indeed Buckingham that was being removed from the band after an accumulative 34 years of service.

When the news finally hit the press in April, the band simply wished Buckingham “all the best.”

Funnily enough, however, the news had broken a few days earlier thanks to an errant tweet by former Mac guitarist Billy Burnette — who, funnily enough, had replaced Buckingham upon his initial departure in 1987.

“Lindsey Buckingham is out but I’m not in,” Burnette wrote in the since-deleted tweet. “A little pissed off but I’ll get over it.” He ends the tweet with a plug for his tell-all book — it doesn’t get much more Fleetwood Mac than that.

Later, Rolling Stone spoke with the band about what had happened with Buckingham. In this piece, Nicks alleges that one of the main issues came with the fact Buckingham wanted to delay rehearsals for the next Mac world tour so he could complete a solo tour.

“We were supposed to go into rehearsals in June and he wanted to put it off until November 2019,” Nicks said. “That’s a long time.”

Fleetwood, meanwhile, noted that the band had “arrived at an impasse,” adding: “We made a decision that we could not go on without him.” Former Tom Petty guitarist Mike Campbell and the aforementioned Finn were brought in, and the tour began on October 3 — which, in a cruel twist, happened to be Buckingham’s birthday.

So What The Hell Is Happening Now?

At first it seemed as though Buckingham was preparing to move on — his own Rolling Stone feature noted that he’d assembled a band for a theatre tour and put together a compilation album of his solo material to release, as well as a new solo album of original material.

Literally a day after that feature was published online, however, reports broke that Buckingham had indeed filed a lawsuit against his former bandmates.

His grounds, according to the lengthy documents, include breach of fiduciary duty and breach of oral contract. He believes each member of the band would have made somewhere between 12 and 14 million dollars for this current tour — and he appears to be coming for around that in damages.

It’s hard to know who to trust in this scenario, as everyone has a brand to protect and uphold here. Buckingham notes that the band were only able to return to their arena status when he and the classic lineup returned, while Nicks and co. are out to prove they can stay at the top without him.

It’s another saga in the seemingly endless drama that has engulfed the Fleetwood Mac legacy time and time again. We have a handful of facts and two sides of the same story — and it’s worth noting that whatever happens next could possibly end the band as we know it for good.

All that can be said now is to stay tuned — Fleetwood Mac are never going back again.

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David James Young is a writer and podcaster who appreciates Tusk in its entirety with the pauses. He tweets at @DJYwrites.