Texas trio stick to their guns

Texas trio stick to their guns
By Ludovic Hunter-Tilney
Published: June 21 2006 03:00 | Last updated: June 21 2006 03:00
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2006


Some bands court notoriety, others have it thrust on them. The Dixie Chicks had ruffled feathers in country music circles before - in one song they sang about a woman killing her abusive husband and getting away with it - but nothing prepared the Texan trio for the outrage caused when their lead singer Natalie Maines told the audience at a London concert in 2003: "Just so you know, we're ashamed the president of the United States is from Texas."

Made on the eve of the invasion of Iraq, Maines' remark met with fury in the US, especially in the conservative heartland where many of the band's fans live. They were denounced as "Dixie Sluts" and "Saddam's Angels". A town in Texas staged a rally in which a bulldozer destroyed copies of their CDs. There were death threats and radio boycotts. The Dixie Chicks went from being the highest-selling female group in history, with more than 30m sales, to the most reviled.

Although Maines offered a guarded apology, she and her bandmates, sisters Emily Robison and Martie Maguire, went on to fan the flames by making remarks distancing themselves from country music, and by appearing naked on a magazine cover with slogans such as "traitor" and "free speech" printed on their bodies: not something Voltaire would have done perhaps, but in his spirit.

Three years later, the uproar still astonishes them. "She's never said anything political before," Maguire says of Maines. "Hello, we're about to witness an invasion going on for reasons we're not seeing any hard evidence of - I think it's OK to protest a little bit. It wasn't on our website; it wasn't on the biggest platform she could choose. So I just think the level of anger was through the roof, and I don't understand that kind of intolerance."

Now they are back with a new album, Taking the Long Way, which contains the unrepentant comeback single "Not Ready to Make Nice", on which Maines sings, "It turned my whole world around and I kind of like it", as if the vilification had proved oddly liberating. "It wasn't necessarily like that," she says. "It's more what we learnt from it, who we became because of it. For us the song is very sad and emotional. There's no attitude behind it. Instead I think there's a strength born of necessity."

"If there's anger, it's from frustration that the only way we can make nice is to do it on your terms, and if we have to change what we are for you to forgive us, well we can't do that," Robison, who plays banjo and guitar, adds. "It's funny, we had people come up to us saying they wanted everything to be OK for us and they really felt what we were going through but it always ended with: 'Can't you just say sorry?' "

That would have been the easy way out: pop culture loves a penitent celebrity. "You have to claim you were drunk or on drugs," jokes Maguire, who plays fiddle.

We meet in a London hotel room under the watchful eye of a film crew making a documentary. A photograph of Winston Churchill scowls on a nearby table, next to a collection of English poetry ("Oh, we like to dabble," Robison says). All three are in their 30s, the band having been founded by Robison and Maguire, the sisters, in 1989. Back then they dressed as cowgirls and played traditional country music. Now they look sleek and chic and talk about conquering new territory. "There's a certain high," Robison says, "that comes from . . . " "Winning people over," Maines chips in.

Taking the Long Way has had a mixed reception in the US. It entered the charts at number one and has sold almost 1m copies in three weeks. Yet many country radio stations are refusing to play "Not Ready to Make Nice" and ticket sales for the band's forthcoming tour have been weak in some red states.

To compound the Chicks' perceived treachery, their new songs, whose mood oscillates between defiance and wistfulness, veer away from straight country towardscountry-rock. They bear the imprint of Maines' relocation from Texas to Los Angeles, as well as the presence of Rick Rubin, the rap and rock maestro, as producer. In the bafflingly dogmatic world of country, this defection towards rock verges on an act of apostasy. "Country music seems to feel a special need to have a self-preservation mode," Robison says. "It's bizarre, but in country they feel like there's something they're trying to salvage."

"They have an inner dilemma because they want a broader audience and they want to keep their country roots too," Maguire says.

"It's like they're going, 'We love Shania Twain because she brings in this new audience and more listeners, but do we really want her showing her belly button? Do we really want her putting a pop spin on country? Is country going to be a dying format?' It's understandable in a way but I think that what is happening now is that country is moving away from the broader audienceand going back to the stereotype."

Three years ago the Dixie Chicks were touring an album of acoustic bluegrass songs whose sales numbered more than 6m. Now, thanks to a stray remark on stage, their profile has changed irrevocably and drawn them into the US's divided politics.

"It's definitely not where I envisioned our career going. It was definitely a left turn," Robison says with a laugh. "In so many ways it made us a part of pop culture that we may never have become just with our music. It is odd that a band which for the most part was not a political band got thrust into this dialogue."

"And I have to say that in the future, I'll be very proud 20 years down the road to have been the anti-Bush band," Maines says.

"I think history will be in agreement," Robison adds dryly.

The Dixie Chicks' US tour begins in Detroit on July 21