FLYING HIGH AGAIN
The Chicks return with new name and album, whistling Dixie no more
Two years ago The Chicks had a lot of plans. There was a new album, “Gaslighter,” to promote. And a new band name to introduce, dropping the Dixie the trio had used since 1989 over its connotations to racism and American slavery. The album came out and the name was changed, but both were trumped by the global pandemic.
Now The Chicks are finally on the road and ready to make up for lost time.
“We were pretty deep into the planning process for the 2020 tour,” Emily Strayer, 49 — who co-founded the band with her older sister Martie Maguire in Dallas — says from her home in Austin, Texas, during a group Zoom. “And when we started planning this (tour) we kinda scrapped everything and started from scratch. We have a different stage designer, just the structure of the stage and the lighting rig, all that's different. So it's been like planning two tours in two years, which is a lot for us.
“But to me touring is the fun part of the whole process, and getting to do set design and work out all the visuals that go along with the music is one of the biggest payoffs.”
Suffice to say that Strayer, Maguire and Natalie Maines, who joined during 1995, are familiar with drama.
The trio released four consecutive multi-platinum albums between 1998-2006, scoring 14 Top 10 country hits as well — six of which reached No. 1. But the group occasionally ruffled feathers, lightly with the revenge fantasy of 2000's “Goodbye Earl” but more seriously during March of 2003, following the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and Maines' comments to a British audience that The Chicks were “ashamed” then-President George W. Bush was a fellow Texan. The backlash from fans, radio stations and fellow artists was severe and potentially career-threatening, documented in the film “Shut Up and Sing.”
But the group held its ground, and its subsequent album, “Taking the Long Way” in 2006, debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and Country Albums chart. Exhausted from the struggle, however, The Chicks took a hiatus to work on other projects and to raise children, reuniting for occasional live shows and a tour in 2016.
By the time the group returned to
recording, however, The Chicks had something different in mind. Produced by Jack Antonoff (fun., Bleachers, Taylor Swift, Pink, etc.), “Gaslighter” is more contemporary pop and barely country — though it did give the group yet another No. 1 on the country chart. “We just wanted to take a different approach as far as writing with different songwriters and experimenting a little bit more with our sort of bluegrass instruments — making them not sound so bluegrass, and also being completely open to what the topics and subject matter was going to be,” says Maines, 47, whose acrimonious divorce from actor Adrian Pasdar informed some of “Gaslighter's” songs. Pasdar even sought access to then-unreleased songs that he alleged might violate confidentiality clauses in the couple's prenuptial agreement.
As for more topical fare such as “March March,” Maines adds that, “I remember being really hopeful… I kept thinking things are gonna be different, not because of our music, but things were so bad it was like, ‘It's not gonna be like this'” when the album was released. “It's really disappointing to see it's maybe worse right now,” she notes. “I really thought it would be better.”
The Chicks announced the band name change on June 25, 2020, about three weeks in front of “Gaslighter's” release. Maines says that “we had contemplated it for a long time,” and that the group regularly referred to itself as the Chicks, or DCX. But the George Floyd murder and protests, and then seeing the Confederate flag referred to as “the Dixie Swastika” on social media, expedited their decision.
“I remember in the moment we couldn't do it fast enough,” says Maguire, 52, “but there were so many things we had to do in order to have
the new name. I remember the frustration — ‘We want to do it today!' 'cause everything was so intense in that moment. We like to be in front of things, not a step behind, especially something that matters like that.
“And then when you had NASCAR and a lot of these very conservative institutions coming out. We're like, ‘If NASCAR's doing this, too, we've just got to get on board!'”
Maines adds that, “It was a very easy transition. It didn't feel so major. Now it's more weird…like, I'll read something in an email that refers to a band bank account that says Dixie Chicks. I'm like, ‘We're not the Dixie Chicks! This needs to change!' It bothers me now to see that word anywhere.”
Two years on The Chicks are ready to put a focus on the music again. The delayed tour launched June 14 and runs through July 30. Meanwhile, Maines says the trio has “an album idea in mind that doesn't necessarily require writing…possibly an album of all songs by a songwriter we all love.” She doesn't offer specifics, other than to predict there won't be another 14-year gap between Chicks albums.
“I think it'll be easier this time because…when we had a ton of little kids it was hard to create the time to make a record like we do. We were just all really busy,” Maines says, adding — as Strayer and Maguire laugh from their Zoom windows — “I think this one probably won't take more than…eight (years).”
The Chicks and Patty Griffin perform at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, June 22, at the Pine Knob
Music Theatre, 33 Bob Seger Drive, Independence Township. $29.50 and up. 313-471-7000 or 313Presents.com.