Robin HarperThe Chicks return this week with Gaslighter, their first full-length original project since 2006.
The once-ultra successful country trio effectively got benched by country radio after speaking out against the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. Although the band won’t be chasing a return to the country charts with any of the music on Gaslighter, the group says they’ve long moved on from the incident, even if not everyone in the country industry has.
“Even if we never said another word, I feel like they want us to be controversial,” band mate Emily Strayer notes in a new interview with The Washington Post. “They want to make us angry all the time, and we’re not angry people.”
It isn’t anger that keeps the band from trying to place a single at country radio. They say it’s simple logic.
“Rest assured, I’ve never spent one minute of my life, thank God, being ‘mad’ at country radio,” asserts Natalie Maines, who bore the brunt of much of the venom directed at The Chicks during the 2003 backlash as the one who spoke out on stage during a London concert, declaring that they were “ashamed” that then-President George W. Bush was from Texas.
“It’s like going back to your abuser. Or doing something for a second time and hoping for a different outcome or result,” Maines says, explaining why the band is done with courting radio. “It’s just called learning from your life.”
Gaslighter drops in full on Friday. The band has already released a handful of songs from the album, including the title track.
By Carena Liptak
Copyright © 2020, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.
