Dixie Chicks Will Release New Album, Tour Arenas in 2020
The Dixie Chicks will release a new album of all-new material and tour arenas in 2020.
Singer Natalie Maines confirmed the news in an interview with the Spiritualgasm podcast that aired on Thursday (Sept. 19). Maines reports that the new album is titled Gaslighter, and she tells hosts Sterling Jones and Arielle Kebbel that the music is mostly complete. She says the album began as a covers project to fulfill their contractual obligation to Sony, but turned into an all-originals project that she thinks is their best yet.
The news comes just months after the trio of Maines, Emily Strayer and Martie Maguire teased fans about new music by sharing a video from in the studio, which also included pop musician and producer Jack Antonoff.
Maines says she started getting inspired after she started divorcing her husband, actor Adrian Pasdar.
"Songwriting is really hard for me, and I think, for many years, I didn't want to analyze my life or my relationship," she states. "I was just in it and dedicated and devoted ... I just was not ready to open up like that."
"Our last album was the most personal and autobiographical we'd ever been," Maines adds, "and then this one is, like, 10 times that."
She called Maguire during the show, and Maguire said that listening to the final mixes of the album has been making her cry. Jones mentioned a song from the album titled "Go It Alone" as his favorite from the album, and calls the title track "old-fashioned Dixie Chick fun."
Maines did not give a firm release date, nor did she provide details for the upcoming tour other than to say that she has recently seen some routing details for the shows.
Gaslighter will be the Chicks' first album since Taking the Long Way in 2006. That album was their first since negative comments Maines made about then-President George W. Bush during the runup to the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. The backlash from that damaged their career and resulted in country stations banning their music in many markets. The Dixie Chicks returned to the U.S. for their first stateside tour dates since then in 2016, and most recently collaborated with Taylor Swift on "Soon You'll Get Better," a track on her new Lover album.
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