Sitting somewhere with an abstract-art background obscuring her precise location, (Dixie) Chicks frontwoman Natalie Maines erupts into an explosive maybe-I-shouldn’t cackle during our Zoom call as she talks about how she’s about to get in trouble for saying too much. This time, it’s regarding a controversial decision made by country trio Lady A, formerly known as Lady Antebellum. After the band changed their name in solidarity with the current Black Lives Matter movement, they sued a Black blues singer named Lady A for the trademark to the title. And yes, Maines has something to say about that.

After all, this is Natalie Maines, who directed pointed criticism at then-President George W. Bush in 2003 at a London concert, when the Lubbock, Texas native said The Chicks were "ashamed the President of the United States is from Texas."

Country music blackballed them. Conservatives torched their CDs. The promo poster for the 2006 documentary about the fallout, Shut Up and Sing, depicted The Chicks sitting on top of the U.S. Capitol building, their half-naked bodies graffitied with words and phrases like "Dixie Bimbos," "Traitors" and "Big Mouth." In the 2020 doc Miss Americana, about Taylor Swift’s evolution into a vocal anti-Trump liberal and LGBTQ-rights advocate, Swift said she had been pressured to refrain from being politically and socially free-spoken to avoid a Chicks-like career implosion.

Returning after a 14-year recording hiatus, Maines, fortunately, still refuses to shut up on Gaslighter, the trio’s most authentic and unflinchingly personal album yet. Joined by sisters Martie Maguire and Emily Robison, Gaslighter does exactly what Maines couldn’t during our interview (a prenup preempts her from doing so): detail her divorce from her husband, actor Adrian Pasdar, of 17 years with scathing lyrical specificity, the kind of wig-snatching realness the queer community devours. An honest album about survival, it couldn’t have come at a better time.

During our Zoom session, Maines discussed the post-controversy era of their career as the moment she noticed a major show of support from the LGBTQ community, the queer creators who nurtured the new album’s vibe, and the gays she’d party…

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