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DIXIE CHICKS Stars and Strife

Exclusive: Two months after Natalie Maines' infamous remark about President Bush, the Dixie Chicks bare all about the war, the backlash, and their future

Excerpt from Entertainment Weekly's May 2, 2003, issue
By Chris Willman

MARTIE MAGUIRE: “When Natalie was introducing ‘Travelin' Soldier,’ she said how it's not pro-war or a peace song, it's just a straight-down-the-middle, what-happens-in-war song. And right after Natalie said what she said, Emily got on the mike and said, ''But you know we support the troops 100 percent,'' so that there wouldn't be any misunderstanding. How convenient for the press to pick up what they want to pick up. After the show, we went to a party, and the American ambassador to Britain, who had been at the concert, was there. He didn't say anything and he wanted a picture with us, so he must not have been offended. That's actually the doctored picture of us that's on the Internet. Saddam Hussein's head has been put on the American ambassador to England's body. How bizarre.”

PHYSICAL GRAFITTI
The Chicks (Robison, Maines, and Maguire) face up to controversy.
Image Credit: Entertainment Weekly Cover

It's four weeks to the day since that March 10 concert in London where the Dixie Chicks famously messed with a fellow Texan. Their overseas tour finally concluded, the trio have realighted in Austin to face the music that's been blaring since singer Natalie Maines told her audience -- on the brink of wartime -- that ''we're ashamed that the President of the United States is from Texas.'' And now their manager is about to weigh in with a pretty bad joke.

''Let's make this story far more interesting than it really is,'' Simon Renshaw suggests. ''The whole thing is a papist conspiracy. This was all about us and Michael Moore figuring out a way to promote the Roman Catholic Church!''

''Oh, please,'' begs Chicks fiddler Martie Maguire, 33, sensing that even this obvious satire might end up being taken seriously. ''We don't need any more controversy.''

A pause. ''Well,'' Maines reminds everyone, ''we did just pose naked.''

Perhaps you've noticed. Earlier in the day, for Entertainment Weekly's cover, the Chicks got themselves thoroughly plucked. It was their idea: Though Maguire admits that their publicist doubted the wisdom of being branded with epithets, ''we wanted to show the absurdity of the extreme names people have been calling us. How do you look at the three of us and think, Those are Saddam's Angels?'' Adds Maines, 28: ''We don't want people to think that we're trying to be provocative. It's not about the nakedness. It's that the clothes got in the way of the labels. We're not defined by who we are anymore. Other people are doing that for us.''
(More: EW.com)
2003 © Entertainment Weekly.

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