Here’s why The Chicks are so excited to tour — and why they want you to show up early

The milestones achieved by The Chicks over the last 25 years are staggering. Thirteen Grammys, which is fourth among all groups, and more than any other female group. No. 1 hits like “Wide Open Spaces,” “Cowboy Take Me Away” and “Landslide,” and a recent No. 1 album in “Gaslighter.”

Six headlining tours, including the current one that stops at Coastal Credit Union Music Park at Walnut Creek in Raleigh on July 12 and PNC Music Pavilion in Charlotte on July 14.

But the most impressive achievement that lead singer Natalie Maines, fiddler Martie Maguire and banjoist Emily Strayer have put up as a band may be their overall longevity and durability.

That doesn’t mean their tenure as one of the most popular groups on the planet has been without bumps in the road. In fact, the three Texans refer to Maines voicing her disapproval of the Iraq war and then-President George W. Bush in 2003 — and the fallout from those remarks — as “The Controversy.”

While many country-music fans (and nearly every country-radio station) have never forgiven the three, that hasn’t kept them from turning out hits and creating a genre of gutsy, revealing, vocal-focused music that spans bluegrass, country, rock, and now pop.

“Gaslighter,” released during the first few months of the pandemic in 2020, was produced by Jack Antonoff, who may be best known for his work with another country-to-pop sensation, Taylor Swift. And although The Chicks didn’t necessarily set out to write a pop-driven album, it became evidence to Strayer after meeting Antonoff that he would guide their music to where the band wanted it to be.

“When you know you have someone who can go down any road, it’s just so comforting to know that the best thing for that written song is going to happen,” she said.

Added Maines: “For this (album) to lean more pop, it really is about (Antonoff’s) production, but also Martie and Emily got really experimental with how they used their instruments.”

With this in mind, the artists, their label and the promoter are hoping their upcoming “The Chicks Tour” goes more like their sold-out jaunts of their late-’90s/early-’00s heyday — back when they were known as the Dixie Chicks — than their post-controversy run of shows that saw dates canceled and venues changed.

When asked about their preparation for the 31-date tour, which begins in the middle of June, it was clear the three weren’t taking it lightly.

In fact, during our interview with the trio late in April, Maines said they had just flown home to Texas after spending time in Los Angeles, where Maines now lives, getting tuned up in a “proper rehearsal space” — one big enough to accommodate the scale of the production and the size of their band. She also said they were planning to get together for more tour prep in another two weeks.

As for their forthcoming shows, Maines was quick to encourage those planning to attend to come early, because their set will be loaded with some of their most popular singles “straight out of the gate,” she said, adding that “we’ve also kind of revamped some of the old favorites.”

But they also will cover most of the songs on “Gaslighter.”

“We did have a conscious goal of trying to get every song from (the album) played live,” Maguire said, so that they would all appear on a set list every few shows.

(Another reason not to be late? Opener Patty Griffin, a Grammy winner herself and the writer of three songs recorded by The Chicks. “It’s awesome to have her back,” said Strayer, who noted that Griffin was on the band’s first tour. “It’s like a reunion. We’ve basically taken a lot of her songs and tried to make them ours.”)

Their most recent album’s title song starts off with the type of beautiful three-part harmony The Chicks are so well-known for, and features brutally honest songwriting for which Maines has made a name for herself. “Sleep at Night” and “Tights on My Boat” are so personal that they sparked legal claims from Maines’ ex-husband, who is the obvious subject of many of the songs on “Gaslighter.”

Maguire and Strayer have been through their own divorces, too, and “Julianna Calm Down” and “Young Man” explore the effect of divorce on all of the band members’ children — including Maines’ son, Slade, and Maguire’s daughter, Eva (who is also Strayer’s niece), both of whom will perform with the band on this tour.

The album isn’t all somber reflection, though. “For Her” is the kind of post-MeToo encouragement female fans would expect from The Chicks. “March March” highlights the wide-ranging musical abilities of Maguire and Strayer and reminds us that politics aren’t far from The Chicks’ minds. “Texas Man” is a poppy, grown-up version of “Cowboy Take Me Away” that should fire up The Chicks’ early fans.

“We’re all just really excited,” Maines said, “to finally get to play this new music.”

And generally speaking, the tour is an upbeat affair — a celebration, in a sense, of the band’s mega-hits, of their ability to weather a fierce storm of controversy, and of the fact that they’ve brought harmony to the soundtrack of so many peoples’ lives.

The Chicks in Charlotte

When: 7:30 p.m. Thursday, July 14.

Where: PNC Music Pavilion, 707 Pavilion Blvd.

Tickets: $40 for lawn seats; $55 and up for reserved.

Details: www.livenation.com; thechicks.com.

This story was originally published May 27, 2022 at 10:17 AM.