This is the album that started all the trouble.

“Lindsey Buckingham,” the singer-guitarist’s seventh solo venture, was finished nearly four years ago. Upon completing the 10-song collection, he asked his bandmates in Fleetwood Mac if they’d be willing to slightly delay an upcoming tour so he could promote his new music.

But Fleetwood Mac’s 2018 tour dates had already been sketched out. Still, Buckingham says, the majority of the group — drummer Mick Fleetwood, keyboardist-vocalist Christine McVie and bassist John McVie — seemed flexible. Stevie Nicks, the band’s primary lead singer and singular superstar, however, would not budge.

The tension between Buckingham and Nicks, who were an infamously volatile couple during Fleetwood Mac’s 1970s peak, only grew from there. In January 2018, when the group walked onstage to receive their MusiCares Person of the Year award, “Rhiannon” — a song written by Nicks — was playing, which Buckingham complained about. Then Nicks, who accepted the prize on behalf of the band, felt that Buckingham was mocking her for her lengthy speech.

“Ironically,” Buckingham says, “nothing went down that night that was (as contentious) as the stuff we’d been through for 43 years.” But within a week, he was fired from Fleetwood Mac.

It was a seismic shift in Buckingham’s life — one he is still struggling to accept today, at age 71. As it would turn out, it was only the first in a series of upheavals. Following his departure, Buckingham sued Fleetwood Mac for lost wages, including the $12 million to $14 million he claimed he would have made on that 2018 tour.

After the lawsuit was settled in December of that year, he planned to turn his attention back to releasing his solo music. But in February 2019, he suffered a heart attack and had to undergo triple bypass surgery. During the process, the insertion of a breathing tube damaged his vocal cords, leaving him questioning whether he’d ever be able to sing again.

He spent much of the pandemic focusing on his recovery. Then in June, his wife of 21 years filed for divorce.

“I’ll tell you what: Between the Fleetwood Mac stuff and the heart attack, it’s all been humbling,” Buckingham says. “I’ve never suffered from a lack of confidence, and sometimes could get carried away with that in the process of leading the band. But everything has pulled me in a little bit. I’m not as aggressive a person as I was before, which is probably not a bad thing. It made me look around more — and become less self- involved, hopefully.”

He’s proud of his recently released self-titled album, even though he knows that perhaps “one in 10 who pay attention to Fleetwood Mac will pay attention” to it. But part of the reason he’s so open about his tumultuous past few years is because he knows that drama helps fans invest in his music.

“That was part of the appeal of ‘Rumours,’ ” he says, referring to the 1977 Fleetwood Mac album that was created while the band members were in the midst of affairs, addictions and breakups. “I think there’s a little element of that out there right now. It’s sort of humanizing. The fact that I got (this album) out at all finally is sort of a nice thing for people to think, ‘Oh, cool, he’s still doing it.’ ”

The COVID-19 shutdown exacerbated Buckingham’s marital issues, he says, and at first, his wife told him she just needed a “spatial break.” He was surprised when she filed divorce papers and is still hopeful that they’ll be able to work things out.

Which is, deep down, the same way he feels about Fleetwood Mac.

When Nicks gave the band an ultimatum — it’s either him or me is the way Buckingham says it went down — he was disappointed that no one stood up for him.

“It would be like a scenario where Mick Jagger says, ‘Either Keith (Richards) goes or I go,’ ” he says. “No, neither one of you can go. But I guess the singer has to stay. The figurehead has to stay.”

Nicks is, undeniably, the star attraction in Fleetwood Mac — and her draw has only increased in recent years as she’s cemented herself further in the pop culture firmament. Her witchy style has become a fashion reference for Free People-loving millennials, she occasionally drops in on Harry Styles tours to duet on “Landslide” and, before the delta variant hit, she was set to headline major festivals like BottleRock Napa Valley and Austin City Limits.

While Fleetwood Mac fans were certainly dismayed when Buckingham was axed — he was replaced for the 2018 /2019 tour by Crowded House’s Neil Finn and Mike Campbell of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers — they still showed up in record numbers to fill arenas and sing along to the band’s classic songbook, including the Buckingham-penned “Go Your Own Way,” “Second Hand News” and “Monday Morning.”

Buckingham plays all the instruments on his new album, which he crafted in a studio at his home on a 48-track reel-to-reel, using a razor blade to cut two-track tape.

He has written two new songs since his heart attack. He says his voice has mostly returned to normal, though he’s had to lower the key of a few songs he’s performing on his tour that recently kicked off. Sometimes he gets lightheaded when he stands up too quickly, “but it’s nothing that isn’t manageable.”

He did hear from Nicks after his bypass, and he has emailed and texted her a few times since, though he says she doesn’t usually respond. “She’s very guarded and protective of her own world, and I think she sees me as a potential upsetter of that,” he says.

His relationship with Mick Fleetwood is better, though it mostly exists via text message. “He’s talked about getting us back together. But that’s him, and he probably didn’t want to see me go in the first place. I know he didn’t. But there’s a difference between him saying that and Stevie saying that.”

So no, he says, he isn’t hanging his hat on a reunion. Anyway, the fans who still approach him on the street? To them, he’s still a part of Fleetwood Mac, there every time someone plays the band’s recordings.

“People don’t talk about my involvement in Fleetwood Mac in the past tense. It may be chronologically in the past, but it’s living now,” he says. “Fleetwood Mac was the big machine. I can still get on with the small machine.”