-Our first guests tonight
are 13-time Grammy Award-winning musicians
and the highest-selling U.S. female band in history.
Their latest album, "Gaslighter," is available now.
Please welcome to the show,
the legendary Natalie Maines, Emily Strayer,
and Martie Maguire of The Chicks.
Thank you so much for being here.
-Hi. -How are you?
-Thanks for having us. -It is lovely
to have you all here, albeit virtually.
I know that two of you are in Texas.
Natalie, you're in L.A.
How are you -- How have you handled quarantine?
-[ Laughs ] Splendidly.
It's amazing.
Yes, I would say
I'm definitely the most sequestered of the three of us.
But I did had to go to the DMV,
which is a scary place even without quarantine.
But my son turned 16 and wanted his driving test.
So I did battle that.
The scariest part of that was the porta-potty.
-Yeah, well, they say
try to avoid the porta-potties at the DMV at all costs.
-Yeah. -But this is --
I think, is it Martie, you also have 16-year-old twins.
Are they going through their driving, as well?
-Um, they're about to.
-Okay. -Yeah, they have permits,
but, yeah, they just turned 16 in April.
Two at the same time. I'm terrified.
-Because of social distancing,
can you have sort of driving instructors in a car with you?
How does that work now?
-No, and I have been out a couple times
with one of them in particular.
[ Laughing ] And it's white-knuckling, you know.
So, yeah, I have my boyfriend take them out,
because he's a lot braver than I am.
-Yeah, I guess if you don't have a special car
where you have that driver's ed brake on the passenger side,
it can be a terrifying experience.
-Yeah, quite. [ Laughter ]
-And, Emily, congratulations are in order.
Is it your oldest that's getting into college,
got into college?
-Yes. I got my first kid off to college.
And we didn't have to set foot on a campus.
We just did a drive-by, just waved
and then looked at all the majors that they had,
and it was a good fit. And he applied and got in.
And, so, I'm happy.
-That's -- Congratulations to him.
So he never walked around the campus earlier in his life?
It was just, it looked good,
and you drove by, and that was enough?
-He's familiar with that part of the country.
So I knew he knew the area, the people, and everything.
It was just, we were just looking for majors
more than anything.
But, yeah, we didn't do any, you know, visits
or anything like that.
So it's probably good for him, too, though.
-Well, that will make his --
Whenever he finally gets on campus,
it will be a whole new experience.
[ Laughter ]
Guys, congratulations on the album.
It's fantastic all the way through.
The title track is fantastic.
But certainly, the world we live in
interrupted the rollout of this album,
up to including the fact
that we were going to all get together in the spring
and day-drink together.
I was looking forward to it a great deal.
Do you think you would have drank me under the table?
Is that -- Were you confident of that?
-What's -- What's your drink of ch--
What would you have been drinking?
-Well, I grabbed a tequila right now, so --
-Well, that's what we drink. -What do you guys have?
Do you have something? -Tequila.
-Tequila. -Wine.
-Okay. Great. [ Laughs ] -Red wine.
I'm sorry, rosé wine.
-I would say -- -Oh, well, I feel like
Martie would have been under the table, then.
-Right, Martie's --
-We could drink you under the table, I think.
-My tolerance has gone way up during corona.
-Well, I think it broke one way or the other, right?
I think people either really built up their tolerance
or now people are total lightweights.
-I'm scared, actually.
Every day, I ask my boyfriend, "Do you think I'm an alcoholic?
Do you think I'm an alcoholic?" [ Laughter ]
-And what does he say?
-Yes. [ Laughter ]
-Excellent. -I think historically,
the people who have to ask every day
are usually on the wrong side of it.
[ Laughter ]
-Right. Right. If I'm willing to ask, I'm probably not.
-But Martie weighs like 8 pounds,
so like two glasses of wine, and she's just like really tipsy.
[ Laughter ]
-What -- You know, a lot of people, I think,
especially in the very beginning of this,
wondered if this would be a time
that would increase or decrease their creativity.
How did you find it as --
Was this a time that you sort of thrived creatively,
or did you find yourself being blocked?
-Uh, not musically.
Have not created a single note.
But I always have craft projects and house projects,
and around the holidays, I've been making wreaths.
Would you like to see them? -I would love to see a wreath.
This is very exciting. -I thought you might.
So I have them on hand.
-Oh, that's very nice!
That looks professional.
-Thank you. Etsy professional. Here's one more.
Let's see.
[ Grunts ] This one's big.
This one is for you.
-Oh, my God! That is absolutely --
Now, how long, start to finish,
does it take to make a wreath that size?
-This one, I made yesterday.
And it took me...
I'm going to say six hours.
-That's -- -Really? That's it?
-That seems about right. -I binge-watched
"Real Housewives of Potomac" and made that wreath.
[ Laughter ]
-I don't know what could be more Christmassy than that.
Martie and Emily, were you aware that Natalie was making wreaths?
Is this -- Are you guys close enough as a band
that this information made it to you?
-I didn't know specifically,
but I did not -- It was not a shock to me.
She's always doing something, like, crafty.
One year, it was latch hooks.
She was going to make -- -[ Laughing ] That's right.
-And then, you know --
-I did the entire -- What's the supper,
the supper from the Bible?
-"The Last Supper"? -"The Last Supper."
I latch-hooked "The Last Supper."
[ Laughter ]
-Where is that? Do you have that handy?
-I should stress to you guys, I'm not religious,
and I got that right away.
[ Laughter ]
-Which supper? -I'm not real religious.
[ Laughter ]
-"Oh, she -- She did a painting.
You remember The Big Supper?"
"I don't think it's called that."
[ Laughter ]
-Wait, was it the first supper
or the second to the last supper?
-Stick to wreaths. -[ Laughing ] The last supper.
-Hey, this is -- You know, this is a very --
It seems to me that your fans,
and correct me if I'm wrong, they --
When you guys release work,
because you have fans that care a great deal about your work,
they try to delve into the lyrics especially
and try to find meaning in them,
a brand of, I guess, fan sleuthing.
Is that fun for you guys when people do that,
and how close do they get?
-I don't watch a whole lot of it,
but some of it's close. Some of it's not.
[ Laughs ]
But, yeah, you know, we didn't want to spell it all out.
We wanted people to get to
sort of decipher the album for themselves.
And some of their guesses that I've seen have been right,
and some have not.
I will say, I do not own a boat.
And that seems to be everyone's biggest question.
-Well, you should make one.
You obviously are very crafty. -Mm-hmm.
-You must all be excited.
You know, there's a million reasons
to be excited for this to be over.
But I imagine, like, these are songs
that you haven't had much of a chance to play live together.
-Not at all. -Yeah.
-We were supposed to go --
We were supposed to release the album in May,
go on tour in June. None of that happened.
We had to kind of fight with the label to get the album out,
'cause we just wanted everybody to have the music.
But probably won't tour for another year and a half.
-Well, when the time comes
that we can all be in places and rooms together,
I hope we can get our day-drinking back on the books.
It was a delight to talk to you all.
Thanks so much for being here.
-Thanks so much for having us.