EXCLUSIVE: Crazed Torments Behind 'Tusk' Revealed 46 Years After Release of Fleetwood Mac's Epic Double-Album Ode to Excess
'Tusk' has gone on to be branded a classic more than four decades later.
Aug. 13 2025, Published 10:00 a.m. ET
Recorded over 13 months in Los Angeles at a cost of around $1million, Tusk, Fleetwood Mac's 1979 double-album, is a document of personal chaos and pain, RadarOnline.com can reveal.
The album, released 46 years ago, was the troubled band's audacious follow-up to Rumours – the 40-million-selling juggernaut that made them global icons.
But instead of delivering a safe sequel, the group embarked on an experiment in sonic sabotage, embracing new wave influences, unconventional recording techniques amid increasingly strained relationships.
The process also unfolded against a backdrop of divorces, affairs, heavy cocaine use, and an exhausting world tour that nearly broke the band.
Details Behind 'Tusk' And It's Recording
Fleetwood Mac recorded 'Tusk' over 13 months in Los Angeles.
Stevie Nicks, now 77, has said about the idea behind the record: "It's Tusk the elephant – that whole African-drum, tusk-in-the-air, happy, religious, ritualistic thing, with (drummer) Mick (Fleetwood) as the African chief. In the studio, we had two ivory tusks as tall as Mick on either side of the console.
"If something went wrong, it was, 'Tusk is down.' Those 13 months were our journey up the sacred mountain to the sacred African percussion place, where all the gods of music lived."
By early 1978, Mac's songwriter, guitarist, and Nick's former lover, Lindsay Buckingham, had declared he could not bear to make Rumours II.
Influenced by punk's raw energy, he began tracking songs at home, using slowed-down tape machines, bathroom-floor vocals, and even Kleenex boxes for percussion.
He brought the demos to Village Recorders, newly refitted for $1.4million – a space Nicks transformed into a perfumed, draped den of mysticism.
The Pain Behind The Album
Lindsay Buckingham used unusual recording techniques at home.
Engineer Ken Caillat remembered Buckingham's unorthodox approach: "He was a maniac. Buckingham would tape microphones to the floor, sing in a push-up position, and once cut off all his hair with nail scissors during the crazed early recording sessions for Tusk."
Meanwhile, tensions escalated. Nicks, newly bonded with Christine McVie, secretly set up a solo label.
Fleetwood, fresh from divorcing Jenny Boyd, had an affair with Nicks before falling for her best friend, Sara Recor, which was the inspiration for Tusk's hit track Sara.
Illness and grief also shadowed the recording sessions for the epic double album.
Buckingham suffered an epileptic seizure on tour and later lost his father, Morris, at 56. Fleetwood's father, Wing Commander Mike Fleetwood, died of cancer that summer.
Stevie Nicks described the project as a ritual African drum journey.
"After he died, I always had his tapes of poems and writings," he recalled about his passing.
He added: "Whenever I'd get drunk, we'd sit and listen to my dad. Maybe strange to some, but that's how much it meant to me."
Released 12 October 1979, Tusk offered 20 tracks of what Buckingham called "subverting the norm."
But the critical response was mixed, and sales were barely a quarter of Rumours. Yet the mayor of Los Angeles declared release day "Fleetwood Mac Day."
Drama Within The Band
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Decades later, critics reappraised 'Tusk' as a bold masterpiece.
The band's 1979-'80 world tour was a year-long binge of chartered jets, grand pianos craned into hotel suites, and lavish cocaine budgets.
Fleetwood collapsed with hypoglycemia. Buckingham, resentful of Nick's huge fan base, once kicked her off stage in New Zealand.
McVie slapped him afterwards, telling him: "Don't you ever do that to this band again!"
In the aftermath, the tour's financial black hole ended Fleetwood's run as manager.
But decades later, Tusk has been reappraised as a bold, fractured masterpiece.
"It's a forever story with those two," Fleetwood said of the enduring bond between Buckingham and Nicks, adding: "As it is with all of us."
