The Chicks sat down with multi-talented Kelleigh Bannen for a lengthy chat. Together they discussed everything from their biggest hits to getting in trouble with their label for drinking onstage. They also discussed their big name change and how it was a long time coming.
“That needed to happen and we knew that needed to happen for quite some time. We were feeling uneasy about it probably after the Bush stuff and not knowing how to do that, and just trying to kind of mature with that name is really hard because you just feel like it has so many connotations that make people think they know who you are based on your name, and it just kind of felt icky,” the band’s Martie Maguire says. “So we would try to move to DCX. So if you look back, a lot of our tour, our merch has DCX or The Chicks and just that subtlety was not catching on.”
“So definitely, with George Floyd’s murder and everything that started happening with Black Lives Matter, we were like, ‘Oh my God. We got to do this and do this as soon as possible.’ But it took some time to just dot the I’s, cross the T’s, make sure it was legally, what were we going to change it to? We had a really funny management Zoom call where we were throwing out ridiculous names and it just came back to, we had to go through that to come back to, ‘Okay, the most obvious thing is The Chicks.’ Now, we got to get lawyers involved and figure out how to make that our name.”
Natalie Maines adds, “And it’s not like we were walking around feeling burdened by this name, it was more like when something changes or whatever. It’s like once it happens, then you realize the weight that was lifted… You didn’t even know you were carrying that weight until it was gone. And then it’s like, ‘Oh yeah, we’re The Chicks? What were we thinking? That’s a way cooler name. What are we so scared of? We’re The Chicks.'”
Listen to the full interview on Essentials Radio with Kelleigh Bannen on Apple Music. Listen to it anytime on-demand at apple.co/_EssentialsRadio and listen to The Chicks Essentials playlist on Apple Music HERE.
