It had been more than a decade since anyone heard new music from The Chicks, and Martie Maguire swears they weren’t sure it would ever happen again. “We dipped our toe in the water in 2016 and did a tour with older music,” she says. “But we thought, we can’t really do this again. We can’t keep doing tours of regurgitated singles.” Then Natalie Maines went through a brutal divorce, the kind of life event that tends to light a creative fuse. “We all had our own baggage,” Martie admits. “We collectively had something to say again.”
That spark became Gaslighter, an album that plays like a manifesto, a therapy session, and a sonic reinvention all at once. Enter Jack Antonoff—the pop producer whose name is now stamped on every millennial heartbreak. “We thought maybe we’d work with a few producers,” Martie says, “but once we met Jack, we felt like he needed to be the producer. We wrote ‘Gaslighter’ and were like, okay, he gets us.”
Antonoff’s “getting it” apparently involved pushing Maguire into uncharted territory. “He’d say, ‘Play your fiddle upside down,’” she laughs. “Not literally, but he wanted me to play with this super light bow so it sounded like air. I thought it sounded awful! I wanted it pretty and polished. He wanted emotion.” The result is a record where her violin sounds less like a country instrument and more like a film score—cinematic, wounded, and weirdly beautiful.
Lyrically, Gaslighter walks the line between personal and political the way only The Chicks can. Maines’ divorce fuels much of the record, but songs like “March March” hit harder in the world outside her living room. “We’re always aware of not wanting to preach,” Martie says. “Nobody wants our opinions shoved down their throats. But it gets easier with age—you know what you want to say and you pick your battles.”
When George Floyd was murdered, “March March” suddenly went from album cut to anthem. “We were about to release ‘Texas Man,’ which would’ve been so inappropriate,” she says. “Then we thought maybe we shouldn’t release anything. But our creative director had this idea to make the video about the history of marching and change. We’re barely in it—you just see our hands playing instruments.” The song ended up everywhere—from ACLU events to Obama’s summer playlist. “We told groups, you don’t have to pay royalties. Use it for whatever you want,” Martie says. “We were honored.”
Obama himself made an appearance in their lives when they introduced him at a virtual event. “I was so nervous,” she says. “Just being on a Zoom call with him was one of the highlights of my life. Sometimes you see famous people and think, they probably don’t even know who we are. So, yeah—that was pretty cool.”
Even now, Maguire sounds a little surprised that a bluegrass kid who once jammed in Texas barns is fielding calls from Beyoncé and Taylor Swift. “Music’s supposed to be inclusive,” she says. “That’s what I love about collaborations—it’s not just my career and your career, it’s everybody celebrating each other.”
Gaslighter also closed a chapter with Sony, but she insists it’s not the end. “It’s exciting,” she says. “We’re in a position to renegotiate some of the unfair stuff—streaming, royalties, the things that need a magnifying glass. Maybe if we can get a fairer contract, that sets a precedent for others.”
The band had a full tour planned before COVID hit, complete with family on stage. “Natalie’s boys have bands—they were gonna open. My daughter was gonna play violin with me. We were so excited to see fans again,” Martie says. “That’s been the biggest bummer.”
She pauses, then smiles audibly through the phone. “We’ll do it again. We have fun together. And I think we still have something to say.”
Listen to the interview above and then check out the videos below.
