In a new interview with Rolling Stone, Lindsey Buckingham discusses his life after being fired from Fleetwood Mac, the band he joined in 1974 with then-partner Stevie Nicks, after a disagreement with the group’s members prior to their reunion tour. Buckingham talks about the phone calls that led to his firing, along with his personal reaction to the news and his solo tour around the newly released collection of solo cuts, The Best of Lindsey Buckingham.

The guitarist and songwriter explains that he first heard about the firing while on the phone with Fleetwood Mac manager Irving Azoff, who informed Buckingham that Nicks had announced she would never share the stage with him again. After first believing that Nicks would be leaving the band, Buckingham learned from Azoff the truth of the matter.

Buckingham notes that he and Fleetwood Mac had gotten together for rehearsals prior to their performance at the MusiCares tribute concert honoring the band’s legacy and that “everything was great,” though Azoff informed him that Nicks had a problem with a couple of Buckingham’s antics from that night, including him getting upset at Fleetwood Mac being introduced while Nicks’ “Rhiannon” was being played at the event.

Along with Buckingham’s firing, Fleetwood Mac announced earlier this year that they would continue the reunion tour plans with new guitarists, Neil Finn of Crowded House and Mike Campbell of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. At the time, the band’s members cited disagreements with Buckingham asking to postpone the tour as one of the reasons for the split, but Buckingham contends that Fleetwood Mac was his priority all along. “And I don’t think there was ever anything that was just cause to be fired,” he tells Rolling Stone. “We have all done things that were not constructive. All of us have worn on each other’s psyches at times. That’s the history of the group.”

Buckingham and his wife, Kristen, go on to explain the hurt they’ve felt since the firing, including when Fleetwood Mac debuted their new lineup on Ellen last month. Even though Buckingham still has connections to Fleetwood Mac, such as his niece’s husband working as a drum tech with the band, and he has attempted to contact Mac co-founder and drummer Mick Fleetwood, Buckingham and his former bandmates have not talked since the MusiCares event.

“I had a visceral reaction to it for a long time,” Buckingham says, “I’d be fine for a while, and then it would come back. Am I heartbroken about not doing another tour with Fleetwood Mac? No, because I can see that there are many other areas to look into. The one thing that does bother me and breaks my heart is we spent 43 years always finding a way to rise above our personal differences and our difficulties to pursue and articulate a higher truth. That is our legacy. That is what the songs are about. This is not the way you end something like this….I’ve done my best to reach out to them…But I am not planning that anything will change from what it is now.”

Read the full piece here.