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The Dixie Chicks, Long Past Making Nice

By Alan Light

• June 10, 2016

CINCINNATI — In 2011, Martie Maguire of the Dixie Chicks took her twin daughters to a Taylor Swift concert, and it churned up some melancholy.

The Chicks, whose bluegrass roots and rock ’n’ roll spirit broke down country music barriers and made them the best-selling female band of all time in the United States, were in the middle of a lengthy hiatus. The trio had not been heard from since scaling back a 2006 tour that suffered from continuing reverberations from “the incident” : a remark the singer Natalie Maines had made about President George W. Bush a few years earlier.

“I was feeling like maybe our time had passed, and this was Taylor’s time,” said Ms. Maguire. Then Ms. Swift covered the Chicks’ 1999 hit “Cowboy Take Me Away,” much to her daughters’ astonishment, and the crowd sang along. Loudly.

Ms. Maguire said the moment was “surreal” and “super emotional.” Apparently, the world had not forgotten about the Dixie Chicks, whose four studio albums sold more than 30 million copies. Now, the band — Ms. Maines, Ms. Maguire and Emily Strayer — is finding out how much of its fan base is still out there. When the group members realized that 2015 would be their 20th anniversary together, they started thinking about how to mark the occasion; last week, they set out on their first headlining tour in the United States in 10 years. (They play Madison Square Garden on Monday, June 13.)

During the band’s break, Ms. Maguire and Ms. Strayer released two albums under the name Court Yard Hounds, and Ms. Maines put out a solo record , but they say that for now, new Dixie Chicks music is “not on the agenda.” Ms. Strayer (who was known as Emily Robison during the band’s glory years and who remarried in 2013) said that she and Ms. Maguire write regularly, “just to keep the muscle moving.” Ms. Maines added, “My muscle for songwriting is like a 600-pound man right now — way flabby, not exercised at all.”

But live, the trio sounds like it has never been away. “I just wait for it to feel right, and it felt right,” said Ms. Maines, 41, on the night before the 53-city “DCX MMXVI Tour” kicked off. The Chicks gathered in a backstage lounge at the Riverbend Music Center, an outdoor amphitheater on the banks of the Ohio River here, and happily talked over one another, making their decision to return to the spotlight sound casual and carefree.

If the Riverbend audience is representative, the Chicks’ fans are primed for this comeback. The sold-out show cleared more than 20,000 tickets, one of their biggest crowds ever. Forty-something fans filled the more expensive seats under the roof, while packs of raucous college-age women in tank tops, jean shorts and boots packed the lawn area.

The rise and fall of the Dixie Chicks, with its extreme highs and lows, seems practically scripted for maximum drama. Ms. Strayer, 43, who plays banjo and guitar, and Ms. Maguire, 46, a fiddle player, are sisters (born Emily and Martha Erwin), who were among the co-founders of the band. It took its name from Little Feat’s hit “Dixie Chicken,” in Dallas in the late 1980s. After a few independent releases and lineup changes, Ms. Maines stepped in as lead singer in 1995.

The group seemed to come out of nowhere when its 1997 album, “Wide Open Spaces,” spun off three No. 1 singles on the country charts and was certified 12 times platinum. Its 1999 follow-up, “Fly,” slightly modernized the band’s sound and style, and sold 10 million copies.

As they racked up honors, including multiple Grammy Awards (13 to date), the Dixie Chicks were helping transform the playing field in Nashville and empowering a generation of female musicians.

“When we saw these women writing witty, intelligent music; playing instruments; and basically doing it all, it inspired us to do the same,” wrote Madison Marlow, of the country duo Maddie & Tae, in an email.

Her partner, Taylor Dye (who, like Ms. Marlow, was all of 2 when “Wide Open Spaces” was released), added, “The Dixie Chicks encouraged us all to unapologetically be who we are.”

Then, in 2001, the Chicks sued their label, Sony Music, for unpaid royalties; they settled out of court, but it delayed the release of the 2002 acoustic-based “Home.” Though the record’s sound was less conventionally commercial, it sold six million copies.

But in March 2003, in the days leading up to the invasion of Iraq, Ms. Maines introduced the song “Travelin’ Soldier” at a London concert. “Just so you know, we’re on the good side with y’all,” she said. “We do not want this war, this violence, and we’re ashamed that the president of the United States is from Texas.”

A firestorm erupted back home. Country radio stations banned the group’s music; protesters smashed and burned the band’s CDs; Ms. Maines received death threats. The Chicks appeared nude on the cover of Entertainment Weekly magazine , with some of the slurs directed at them — “Saddam’s Angels,” “Dixie Sluts” — painted on their bodies. (The events were chronicled in the 2006 documentary “Shut Up & Sing.” )

Though “the incident” has come to largely define the public legacy of the Dixie Chicks, often overwhelming their musical contributions, the band members now seem to shrug it off. They laugh when Ms. Maguire recounts recently visiting a friend, who instructed her not to go into the bathroom because she might be offended by something on the wall — a picture of the family with President Bush.

“I’m really proud of what went down,” said Ms. Maines. “I spoke up for what I believe — that’s what art is about and what musicians should be about. And if I’d known anybody was listening, I would have said something to really make a mark.”

“I look at how much more polarized and intolerant people have become now,” she continued. “With social media, opinions all start becoming noise, but at that point, people weren’t really supposed to have an opinion.”

Ms. Strayer said that the controversy “feels like another lifetime to me, it doesn’t even feel real — our country’s changed, we’ve changed, the fans definitely have.”

She described a recent phone call from her ex-husband. “He said, ‘Well, what’s going to happen the day that the kids find that Entertainment Weekly cover, what are you going to tell them?’ — like, ‘Gotcha!’ So I said, ‘Well, I’ll probably explain to them what happened to us, and how you have to stand up for yourself when something like that happens.’”

Ms. Maines added, with a guffaw, “I’m going to tell them, ‘This is how good Mommy’s body looked before she had you!’”

Ms. Maines has remained active in various social causes. She has been a supporter of the West Memphis Three, a group of Arkansas men convicted of the 1993 murder of three young boys. And on the current tour, she is raising funds for Proclaim Justice, an organization that advocates for the wrongfully imprisoned. Ms. Maines expressed reluctance, though, about getting involved in the current presidential election.

“I hate politics,” she said. “It’s become an industry. It sickens me.”

During the concert, the Chicks’ performance of “Ready to Run” was accompanied by video screens with goofy animated images of all the candidates, crosscut with shots of clowns and hot dogs. But one moment in the show received particular attention in the news media : While they sang their 2000 hit “Goodbye Earl,” a tale of a woman and her best friend murdering an abusive husband, a montage of criminals and shady-looking characters through history flashed to a quick shot of Donald J. Trump, with devil horns, a mustache and a goatee scribbled on. In a sign of changing times, it drew cheers.

“He’s great entertainment for a reality show,” said Ms. Maines. “He’s scary as hell for president of the United States.” (Social media response was predictable, with the Dixie Chicks’ Facebook page instantly filling up with comments like “You idiots should keep your politics to yourselves and stick to playing music.”)

One thing that never recovered was the Dixie Chicks’ relationship with Nashville. Their last album, the 2006 LP “Taking the Long Way,” took a more pop-oriented direction on its way to winning five Grammy Awards . The band members claim to pay no attention to country music today; Ms. Strayer even needed to describe to the other two last year’s “Tomato-gate” controversy , when an influential radio consultant insisted that country stations needed to limit how much music they play by female artists.

The 24-song set at Riverbend illustrated some of the music that is closer to the band’s heart these days, including covers of a song by Lana Del Rey and by the group favorite Beyoncé: a hoedown version of “Daddy Lessons,” which became a viral hit when they first performed it, just a week after the release of “Lemonade.”

Ms. Maguire expressed the closest thing to regret about taking a decade away from the group. “I don’t love that we didn’t do anything for 10 years,” she said. “But I’m really proud that we focused so intently on our children.”

In the end, the biggest deal about this tour for the Dixie Chicks may be that it offers the first chance for their sons and daughters — nine in total, ranging in age from 3 to 15 — to see their mothers at work. “I realized that my second-oldest daughter had never even seen our videos,” said Ms. Strayer, “so about a month ago, we sat in bed and watched them all — and she was mortified. ‘You did not wear that! You did not just do that!’”

Ms. Maines reiterated that, especially after their experiences, she had no problem walking away from the celebrity mountaintop. “You look at the stars who do maintain staying on top and honestly it looks like so much work and self-involvement,” she said. “I wouldn’t have done all this personal growth and become the person that I’ve worked on becoming. There’s something almost sad about that being what you’re so hungry for — I just don’t relate to that. So I was happy to pass the baton.”

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Is country music ready to forgive the Dixie Chicks?

In 2003, the Dixie Chicks denounced George W Bush on stage in London and the country establishment turned against them. Now they’re touring the US for the first time since 2006 – in an even more politically divided environment

After a nearly decade-long hiatus, the Dixie Chicks are finally ready to tour the US once again. On Monday, the country supergroup announced an American leg of their upcoming jaunt, which will kick off next year in Europe and arrive in Cincinnati, Ohio, on 1 June for a run of more than 40 dates in North America. The Dixie Chicks – Emily Robison, Martie Maguire, and lead singer Natalie Maines – have performed sporadically at various events over the past few years, but this tour marks their first string of headlining shows in the US since 2006, when they hit the road in support of their album Taking the Long Way , a collection recorded in the wake of Maines’s comments about George W Bush and the Iraq war, which put the women at the center of a massive political firestorm.

Oh, you don’t remember? Well, in case you blocked the whole controversy from your mind (and who could blame you?), here’s a refresher. While performing in London in March 2003, just nine days before the US invasion of Iraq, Maines told the crowd: “Just so you know, we’re on the good side with y’all. We do not want this war, this violence, and we’re ashamed that the president of the United States is from Texas.”

Almost immediately, Maines’s statement proved explosive in the country music world, which has traditionally presented – and continues to present – a proudly patriotic front. In fact, tributes to American soldiers have become so commonplace in country music over the past 20 years that, these days, it almost sounds normal for Cole Swindell to randomly proclaim, “I’m raisin’ my glass to those savin’ our ass overseas!” in the middle of a derivative breakup song .

At the time of Maines’s quote, though, not even two years after the 9/11 attacks, country music was particularly steeped in earnestly patriotic drum-banging. Toby Keith’s Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue , on which he promised, “You’ll be sorry that you messed with the US of A/ ’Cause we’ll put a boot in your ass – it’s the American way,” became his career-defining hit in 2002. And in 2003, just weeks after Maines’s comment, Daryl Worley’s Have You Forgotten?, which urged listeners to remember the shock that they first felt about the terrorist acts, stayed on top of Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart for seven weeks. This was, of course, before doubt had set in about America’s presence in the Middle East, and Maines was seen as downright traitorous by many country fans for not voicing support for Bush and his war on terror.

The response from the country music establishment was swift: in one week, the Dixie Chicks’ single Landslide plummeted from 10 to 43 on the Hot 100, falling off the chart after that. A throng of ex-fans met in a parking lot and crushed their old Dixie Chicks CDs with a bulldozer. The band immediately lost their promotional deal with Lipton. DJs on many country stations were prohibited from playing their music at all, and two Colorado DJs were suspended for doing so. Despite the group’s attempts to alleviate the fallout with a PR campaign, the damage had already been done. The Dixie Chicks, the single bestselling female group of all time, had been blackballed by country music overnight.

In 2006, the Dixie Chicks released a pop-rock album called Taking the Long Way, which featured the unapologetic single Not Ready to Make Nice . The album won them critical acclaim and a Grammy in 2007, but its sales paled in comparison to their previous efforts, and country radio wouldn’t touch it with a 10-foot pole. And after the release of their documentary, Shut Up and Sing , the Dixie Chicks weren’t ready to make much of anything for a while. Maguire and Robison released two albums as a duo called Court Yard Hounds , but Maines, always the spark plug of the trio, kept a lower profile. It’s hard to blame her.

But now the Dixie Chicks are making their comeback in what is arguably an even more politically divisive time than a decade ago. The conservative/liberal divide remains vitriolic and unhelpful as the US continues to debate its role in the Middle East – a question that’s returned to the forefront of people’s minds in the wake of the Paris terrorist attacks. Add on the fact that we’re entering an election year already marked by absurd overstatements from both parties, and it seems that the Dixie Chicks could be headed for a second round of political criticism. I can only assume Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton will both have something to say about them soon.

It’s not clear whether the trio will release new music ahead of their tour, and for now, the Dixie Chicks aren’t making a peep about their plans. (Two of them did sign a new publishing deal last December, though.) If they do decide to release new material, it will be very interesting to see whether they will attempt to return to country music, and, if so, whether country radio will be willing to play them. We can only hope that both things happen. It would be a huge deal, not just for country music’s reputation as a “community” that’s able to accept political differences – even though (shocker!) Nashville is, privately at least, a pretty liberal town – but also for the state of thriving female talent in the genre.

The Dixie Chicks’ swift removal from country radio in 2003 is one of the key reasons that country music has developed such a woman problem over the past 15 years. At the time of the Dixie Chicks’ album Fly in 1999, female-led songs made up 38% of the annual top 100 country songs. But since their ousting from the airwaves, that number has dwindled at an alarming rate. Last year, the percentage of songs led by a female vocalist on that list had sunk to just 18% – and one programmer ruffled feathers earlier this year when he suggested that radio stations could garner higher ratings if they’d further reduce women’s airplay.

All of this has not gone unnoticed. In the past few years, radio conglomerates and programmers have continually claimed that they’re committed to developing and supporting female talent – never missing a chance to pat themselves on the back for doing so. Most of this talk has been hot air, and critical darlings like Kacey Musgraves and Ashley Monroe still aren’t getting played on radio despite good album sales. But lately, a few women do seem to be making an impact, providing a glimmer of hope for aspiring female artists wanting to make it big in the mainstream. In the past year alone, Kelsea Ballerini, Maddie & Tae , Jana Kramer, and Cam have all had breakthrough moments with viable radio hits, and although Kramer and Ballerini tread in much poppier territory than the Dixie Chicks ever did, Cam and Maddie & Tae actually hark back to the fiddle-driven sound and lyrical sass that made the Chicks famous. From a sheer numbers standpoint, the fact that these talented women are actually getting played at all is a small but significant step in the right direction.

This bit of progress is encouraging, no doubt, but what would be even more encouraging and more galvanizing for country music’s quest to showcase great female talent would be a full re-embracing of the Dixie Chicks. Whether that means allowing them to perform at the Academy of Country Music awards, reincorporating their old catalogue back on to country radio, or (fingers crossed) even playing their new material on the same stations, the powers that be in country music (including its listeners) need to admit that they overreacted, and welcome back one of the genre’s biggest acts with open arms.

The Dixie Chicks play their own instruments, write their own songs, and, before they were backed into a corner and forced to endlessly defend themselves for a single political comment made 12 years ago, they were viewed as beloved storytellers who stirred up feelings of wide-eyed romance, humorous revenge, and big-dreaming adventure. If country music doesn’t want those traits and doesn’t want pitch-perfect songs like Wide Open Spaces and Cowboy Take Me Away on its stations – and if it really can’t handle a little political commentary from grown women – then that’s the genre’s loss, and sane country fans’ loss, too.

• Grady Smith on country

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Shut Up & Sing

Film details, brief synopsis, cast & crew, barbara kopple, natalie maines, martie maguire, emily robison, simon renshaw, charlie robison, technical specs.

On stage at a 2003 London concert, Natalie Maines, lead singer of Texan trio the Dixie Chicks, spoke these 15 words to a small audience at the start of their sold-out international tour: "Just so you know, we're ashamed the president of the United States is from Texas." The comment was delivered on the eve of the American invasion of Iraq, and drew cheers from the decidedly anti-war and anti-Bush British crowd. It was an off-the-cuff remark typical of the lead singer's temperament. Natalie, and fellow Dixie Chicks Martie Maguire and Emily Robison, thought little of it. But history and this film demonstrate that at this heightened moment of political polarization in the United States, many people did care, and empowered this simple, yet loaded remark to carry serious and longstanding ramifications. The documentary shows the band from their peak of popularity as the national-anthem-singing darlings of country music and top-selling female recording artists of all time, through the now infamous anti-Bush comment, and on through the days, months and years of mayhem. The film also follows the lives and careers of the musicians through the writing and recording of their first album since "the incident"--and three years of political attack, making music, birthing babies, bonding, death threats, and laughter.

Cecilia Peck

Robyn adams, pamela aguilar, kenneth b anderson, alan barker, david becker, ari bessin-hill, jason blackburn, ulli bonnekamp, kelly brennan, rachel brody, susan bryant, christine burrill, michael campbell, ryan carroll, david cassidy, ryan chandler, dixie chicks, joan churchill, kevin cloutier, sheryl crow, michael culyba, jim czarnecki, joshua daniels, claude davies, naomi davis, william davis, judah-lev dickstein, giovanni disimone, maureen dougherty, adam dworkin, bob eisenhardt, anne fratto, sean frechette, david garcia, david gauff, tamara goldsworthy, lucian gorczynski, seth gordon, gary griffin, patty griffin, steven grothe, michael guilbert, shannon guirl, eric j haase, john hadley, tim haunert, wolfgang held, mike henderson, marcus hummon, craig hymson, peter jaszi, jennifer kardiak, sharon lacruise, kenneth lam, dennis linde, elizabeth lipschultz, gary louris, lloyd maines, harriet martin, dave meneses, gabriel miller, peter g. miller, peter miller, emma joan morris, emma morris, greg murphy, eddie o'conner, megan o'hara, emily oberman, doug o¿conner, linda perry, daniella ponet, david pritchard, yuri raicin, marshall reese, bob richman, ashraf rijal, darrin roberts, bruce robison, pamela romanowsky, steve schecter, nancy schreiber, james scott, rick seefrieb, martie seidel, bonnie siegler, molly snyder-fink, bill stokes, jeff stonehouse, lauren stonehouse, shana thompson, forrest thurmond, daniel voll, craig weaver, byron werner, bradford whitaker, raymond wright, drew zipkin, miscellaneous notes.

Co-winner of the Docufest Competition Special Jury Prize Silver Plaque at the 2006 Chicago International Film Festival.

Released in United States Fall October 27, 2006

Limited Release in United States October 27, 2006

Expanded Release in United States November 10, 2006

Released in United States on Video February 20, 2007

Released in United States 2006

Released in United States October 2006

Released in United States January 2007

Shown at London Film Festival (Film on the Square) October 18-November 2, 2006.

Shown at Chicago International Film Festival October 5-19, 2006.

Shown at Rome Film Festival (Extra) October 13-21, 2006.

Shown at Palm Springs International Film Festival (Awards Buzz - Best Documentary Feature) January 4-15, 2007.

Released in United States Fall October 27, 2006 (major markets)

Released in United States 2006 (Shown at London Film Festival (Film on the Square) October 18-November 2, 2006.)

Released in United States October 2006 (Shown at Rome Film Festival (Extra) October 13-21, 2006.)

Released in United States October 2006 (Shown at Chicago International Film Festival October 5-19, 2006.)

Released in United States January 2007 (Shown at Palm Springs International Film Festival (Awards Buzz ¿ Best Documentary Feature) January 4-15, 2007.)

Co-winner of the 2006 award for Best Documentary by the Boston Society of Film Critics (BSFC).

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This Day In History : March 12

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The Dixie Chicks backlash begins

In response to the critical comments made about him by singer Natalie Maines in the run-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq , President George W. Bush offered this response: “The Dixie Chicks are free to speak their mind. They can say what they want to say.” Of the backlash the Chicks (then known as the Dixie Chicks) were then facing within the world of country music, President Bush added: “They shouldn’t have their feelings hurt just because some people don’t want to buy their records when they speak out.” This music-related sideshow to the biggest international news story of the year began on March 12, 2003, when the British newspaper The Guardian published its review of a Chicks concert at the Shepherd’s Bush Empire in London two nights earlier.

In that review, The Guardian ‘s Betty Clarke included the following line: “‘Just so you know,’ says singer Natalie Maines, ‘We’re ashamed the President of the United States is from Texas .'” (Clarke left out the middle of the full quotation, which was, “Just so you know, we’re on the good side with y’all. We do not want this war, this violence. And we’re ashamed the President of the United States is from Texas.”) That line quickly became fodder for a grassroots anti-Chicks backlash. It began with thousands of phone calls flooding country-music radio stations from Denver to Nashville—calls demanding that the Chicks be removed from the stations’ playlists. Soon some of those same stations were calling for a boycott of the recent Chicks’ album and of their upcoming U.S. tour. Fellow country star Toby Keith famously joined the fray by performing in front of a backdrop that featured a gigantic image of Natalie Maines beside Saddam Hussein.

The economic and emotional impact of all this on the members of the Chicks is documented in the 2006 documentary Dixie Chicks: Shut Up and Sing . In its opening sequence, one can see how popular and how far from controversial the Chicks were just prior to this controversy, when they sang the national anthem at the 2003 Super Bowl. The film also captures a scene in which the Chicks’ own media handler is counseling Maines not to speak her mind too openly about President Bush in an upcoming interview with Diane Sawyer. 

In 2020, after a 15-year hiatus, the Chicks released a new album, "Gaslighter." That same year they announced they were changing their name to the Chicks, dropping the word "Dixie"

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The Chicks Head Out on First Tour in Five Years: ‘I Am A Little Stressed,’ Admits Natalie Maines

The tour, originally slated to take place in 2020 after the release of 'Gaslighter,' starts June 14.

By Gary Graff

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If things had gone according to plan, The Chicks would have hit the road during the summer of 2020 to support Gaslighter , the trio’s first album since 2006’s Grammy-winning Taking the Long Way.

We all know how that went, though.

But two years later lead singer Natalie Maines and multi-instrumentalist sisters Martie Maguire and Emily Strayer are ready to make up for lost time. The Chicks Tour is ready to start June 14 in St. Louis, with 31 dates on tap before wrapping up Aug. 13 at The Gorge in George, Wash. It will mark the trio’s first time back on the road since 2017, and the first time touring as The Chicks after jettisoning the “Dixie” from their name in 2020.

The Chicks Are Hitting the Road for a Summer Tour: 'We Can't Wait to See You All Again!'

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“The band, they’re on Zooms together all the time listening to [ Gaslighter ] and figuring out, ‘What’s that?'” Maines says by Zoom from her home in Los Angeles, while Maguire and Strayer listen from Austin and San Antonio, Texas, respectively. Jack Antonoff, Gaslighter ‘s primary producer, was slated to sit in on one of the band calls, too, to help identify specific parts and sounds from the album’s 12 songs.

“It’s interesting,” says Maines, who hasn’t seen Strayer in person since the spring of 2020 (she and Maguire took their children to Disneyland last July). “It’ll be fun. I am a little stressed. My son, who is in the band this year [playing guitar and keyboards], is constantly stressed and practices all the time. I’m like, ‘Slade, really, I promise you, it’ s not gonna be as hard as you think. You already know the stuff better than us. Relax!'”

Strayer adds that The Chicks “were pretty deep into the planning process” in 2020 before the trek was canceled due to the pandemic. That, in turn, sent the group back to the drawing board for this year’s outing. “We kinda scrapped everything,” she says, “so we started from scratch. It’s been like planning two tours in two years, which is a lot for us. But for me the touring is the fun part of this whole process and getting to do set design and work out all the visuals that go along with the music, that’s one of the biggest payoffs, I think, for being an artist. So it is fun.”

Maines predicts that the songs from Gaslighter — which debuted at No. 3 on the Billboard 200 and No. 1 on the Top Country Albums chart in July 2020 — will be performed faithfully during the shows. “Usually, the first time out on new material we like to hear it like we painstakingly recorded it and see if we can do it,” she explains. “After that we can get creative with it.” That leaves material from the previous four albums (since Maines joined the band) potentially more pliable, but Maines promises The Chicks are well aware of how familiar their fans are with those songs — and that they haven’t heard them performed live for quite some time.

“I hate when people get too off,” Maines acknowledges. “It’s no fun if you go to a concert you love to sing along to, and they’ve changed it all up. We keep that in mind. We want our fans to be able to enjoy it and recognize it and sing along. So it’s not about changing melody or anything. We’ve done ‘Cowboy Take Me Away’ like the album version for, I hate to count the years… so maybe you’d just do it more broken down or something like that.”

What may be at work, however, is a different connection the group and particularly Maines may feel towards the Gaslighter songs. Many of the album’s more personal tracks were inspired by all three members’ divorces — and especially Maines’ acrimonious divorce from actor Adrian Pasdar, during which he sought access to unreleased songs that he alleged might violate confidentiality clauses in the couple’s prenuptial agreement. Two years on Maines says that, “I definitely still relate and am definitely still in touch with all that,” but from a different perspective. “It’s not a three-hanky album anymore,” she explains. “It definitely is in the past, and it definitely was a lot of therapy.”

All three of The Chicks, meanwhile, say they’ve had feedback from fans that Gaslighter has helped them through their own divorces and relationship issues. And Maines is quick to note that “all of the songs definitely didn’t feel like they were about me,” including issue-oriented songs such as the single “March March” that resonate as strongly now – especially in the wake of the renewed Black Lives Matter movement and restrictive abortion and voting laws in the group’s native Texas and elsewhere — as when they were originally written.

“In the releasing of the album I remember being really hopeful,” Maines says. “I kept thinking things are gonna be different, not because of our music, but things seemed so bad. I just remember feel like, ‘Oh, the video for ‘March March’ is so empowering. It’s not gonna be like this. And it’s really disappointing to see that it’s maybe worse now. I thought that would be better.”

The Chicks say they’ve received overwhelmingly positive reaction to the band’s name change that accompanied Gaslighter , something they say they’d been contemplating for awhile. “I remember in the moment we couldn’t do it fast enough,” Maguire says, “but there were so many things we had to do in order to have the new name. We wanted to do it today because everything was so intense in the moment. We like to be in front of things, not a step behind, especially something that matters like that. We were like, ‘OK, if NASCAR’s doing this, we’ve just got to get on board.” Maines says there are still occasions where “I’ll read something in email that refers to a band bank account that says Dixie Chicks or something, and I’m like, ‘We’re not the Dixie Chicks!’ It bothers me to see that word now.”

The Chicks Tour is, understandably, taking up the trio’s attention right now, but there are also thoughts about what might be next. With their children older — Strayer has the youngest, at nine years old — they say there’s more time to write and plan and devote to music. There’s even “an album in mind,” one that “not necessarily requires writing,” according to Maines. “It’s possibly an album that’s all songs of a songwriter we all love — I’ll say that.” Another 14-year interim is unlikely, then. “Nah,” Maines says, “it’ll probably be more like…eight,” as her bandmates laugh.

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