also extensively used the Fairlight CMI sampling synthesizer. His influences include Brian Wilson and Phil Spector. Buckingham has also worked extensively as a producer both for Fleetwood Mac and for his solo work. "I think of myself as a stylist, and the process of writing a song is part and parcel with putting it together in the studio." In an interview with Guitar World Acoustic Magazine, Buckingham said: I've always believed that you play to highlight the song, not to highlight the player. The song is all that matters. There are two ways you can choose to go. You can try to be someone like Eddie Van Halen, who is a great guitarist, a virtuoso. Yet he doesn't make good records because what he plays is totally lost in the context of this band's music. Then there are guitar players like Chet Atkins, who weren't out there trying to show themselves off as guitarists per se, but were using the guitar as a tool to make good records. I remember loving Chet's work when I was a kid, but it was only later, when I really listened to his guitar parts, that I realized how much they were a part of the song's fabric, and how much you'd be going 'Oh, that song just isn't working' if they weren't there. In another interview to Guitar World, he said about using his fingers rather than a plectrum: I started playing very young and from early on, the people I was listening to had some element of finger style. Probably the first guitarist I was emulating was Scotty Moore, when I was maybe 6 or 7. And he played with a pick, but he also used fingers. And a lot of the session players, like Chet Atkins, they played with fingers or a pick. Then I listened to a certain amount of light classical guitar playing. And of course later on, when the first wave of rock 'n' roll kind of fell away, folk music was very popular and very influential in my style. So it was really less of a choice than what I fell into. I use a pick occasionally. I certainly use it more in the studio when you want to get a certain tone. But it's just the way I came up. I wasn't taught. I just sort of figured things out on my own terms. I guess