Stevie Nicks tried to be “sweet and nice” to Lindsey Buckingham in order to keep Fleetwood Mac together.

The roller-coaster relationship between the two bandmates fuelled the making of the band’s acclaimed 1977 album ‘Rumours’ and Stevie admits that she tried to keep the peace to make sure that the group wasn’t ruined.

Stevie told The New Yorker magazine: “You just have to throw yourself into your song. I mean, I broke up with Lindsey in 1976. We’d only been in Fleetwood Mac for a year and a half, and we were breaking up when we joined Fleetwood Mac.

“So we just put our relationship kind of back together, because I was smart enough to know that, if we had broken up the second month of being in Fleetwood Mac, it would have blown the whole thing.”

Stevie continued: “I just bided my time, and tried to make everything as easy as possible, tried to be as sweet and nice to Lindsey as I could be. He wasn’t happy, either.

“Then something happened that was, you know, ‘We’re done.’ And he knew it. It was time. And the band was solid, by that time, so I could walk away knowing that he was safe. And that the band was safe. And that we could work it out.”

‘Rumours’ featured the songs ‘Go Your Own Way’ and ‘Dreams’ – written by Lindsey and Stevie respectively – and she believes the tracks reflect the ending of their relationship.

The 73-year-old musician said: “I can just go right back to what pushed me toward writing those words. And I always laugh because Lindsey’s ‘Go Your Own Way’ and my ‘Dreams’ are like, counter songs to each other.

“I’m like, ‘When the rain washes you clean, you’ll know,’ and he’s like, ‘Packing up, shacking up’s all you want to do.’ Both songs kind of mean the same thing – it’s really about our breakup.

“He’s looking at it from a very unpleasant, angry way, and I’m saying, in my more airy-fairy way, we’re gonna be all right. We’ll get through this.”