17 February 2021
Newsdesk
Natalie Maines agreed dropping "dixie" from The Dixie Chicks lifted a "weight" the group hadn't realised they were "carrying... until it was gone."
The Cowboy Take Me Away singers announced last summer they would be known as The Chicks following a public plea by U.S. journalist Jeremy Helligar, who explained the word "dixie" is "the epitome of white America" and "conjures a time and a place of bondage".
Bandmates Maines, Martie Maguire and Emily Strayer agreed and quickly ditched "dixie" from their name online - with Natalie telling Apple Music's Essentials Radio that she felt a certain amount of pressure had gone after the swapped their name.
"You didn't even know you were carrying that weight until it was gone," she said.
"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," she went on.
Maguire added that she and her bandmates were pitching "ridiculous" name ideas for the group during a Zoom call with their management.
"We had a really funny management Zoom call where we were throwing out ridiculous names and it just came back to... 'OK, the most obvious thing is The Chicks,'" she recalled, noting the band contacted their legal team to get the name change started as soon as they had agreed on the new moniker.
