The Chicks aren’t mincing any words, that’s for sure.
In a recent interview with the LA Times promoting their current six-night residency at Planet Hollywood in Las Vegas, they discussed how the Bush incident in March of 2003 changed their career trajectory and place in country music.
I’m sure we all remember the gist of it, but in case you don’t know too much about it, the girl band received major backlash when lead singer Natalie Maines said at a show in London in 2003 that they were ashamed to be from the same state as former President George Bush (sitting President at the time), and they didn’t support the war and imminent invasion of Iraq.
It triggered major backlash back in the states, and got them blacklisted by many country radio stations, damaged sales and even caused people to stop buying concert tickets, just to name a few things quickly. Maines did issue an apology several days later.
Needless to say, it wasn’t great for their reputation during what was a very tumultuous time in America, and it sounds like two decades later, they don’t regret it at all.
In fact, Natalie Maines say it’s still a defining aspect of their career “in the way it set us free.” She added that it got them out of being in a “box” with country music, adding that they “never wanted to be in” it in the first place:
“It’s defining in the way it set us free.
It got us out of this box of country music, which we never wanted to be in and never felt like that’s who we were.
We didn’t have to do any of that bulls— anymore. It wasn’t like, ‘Oh, country music, please take us back.’ It was middle fingers: ‘Bye!'”
Sure…
The Chicks, formerly known as the Dixie Chicks, have released eight albums within the country genre, and have won 13 Grammy awards for their work, including the Grammy for Album of the Year in 2007 for Taking the Long Way.
Of course, they remain a pretty controversial band to this day, and are still very outspoken in terms of their politics.
The released their first album in almost 15 years in 2020, Gaslighter, and their Las Vegas residency kicked off last night.
They also have a world tour starting in early June.
