You're a platinum-selling country star riding a record-setting wave of popularity. But a few weeks ago, you made a comment during a concert that has angered and alienated your core constituency.

If you're the Dixie Chicks, you pose naked on the cover of Entertainment Weekly.

This latest move is likely to turn up the flames on a controversy that has been burning for more than a month. That's a feeling echoed by program directors at the area's two leading country-music stations, neither of which has played a Dixie Chicks' song since early March when singer Natalie Maines told a London audience she was ashamed that President Bush is from Texas.

Under the headline "Dixie Chicks Come Clean," the May 2 issue shows the country-music trio posed in a pyramid of bare skin. Across their torsos are painted phrases – "Traitors," "Saddam's Angels," "Shut Up!" – drawn from the volumes of letters and e-mails the band has received.

(And in answer to the first question this photograph will spark, an Entertainment Weekly spokeswoman asserts: "That's them, their bodies. There were no computer tricks, no airbrushing.")

With the women's unflinching stares into the camera and the blurb's promise of "Country's Controversial Superstars Take on Their Critics," the cover is striking, even defiant.

"We wanted to show the absurdity of the extreme names people have been calling us," fiddle player Martie Maguire says in the story.

The attention-getting cover story comes on the heels of the group's interview this week with Diane Sawyer on ABC's Primetime Thursday . Publicity campaigns undertaken by celebrities who have fallen from their public's graces are nothing new. But traditionally the celebrity is practicing some form of damage control – a high-profile mea culpa or by going silent on the subject.

But not the Dixie Chicks. Far from throwing water on the fire, they seem to be throwing gasoline.

"What this reflects is that the old damage control just doesn't work anymore because everybody knows the playbook," says Robert Thompson, a professor of pop culture and television at Syracuse University. "Everybody is so media savvy now that if you apologize, people just dismiss it as what your consultant told you to say."

A band representative on Thursday said the singers had no comment on the cover photograph or the interview. But others in country music certainly have.

"I don't know that they'll ever be as big with the country audience as they used to or as important to the country audience as they used to be," says Paul Williams, program director of KPLX-FM (99.5) "The Wolf."

"At first I thought it was a joke," says Ted Stecker, program director for KSCS-FM (96.3), of the Entertainment Weekly cover. "I don't think it's a good move for them right now.

Unlike other outspoken celebrities, such as rocker Sheryl Crow or activist director Michael Moore, whose anti-war comments have generally been applauded by their fans, the Dixie Chicks' comments play against country music's bedrock fans.

"You could write off the comment that started all this as something said in the excitement of the moment," says Leo Braudy, author of The Frenzy of Renown: Fame and its History. "But what's going on now is the result of calculation.

"It's a pretty striking strategy. Rather than backing down and appearing on the cover waving a flag or dressed in military uniforms, they are not just standing their ground, they're pushing it even farther."

Oh, look what I found, EXCLUSIVE EXCERPTS from the Entertainment Weekly interview! (The Mods, without explanation, ghettoized the original thread last night after dozens of comments:

Chick Talk

Here are unpublished excerpts from the Dixie Chicks' interview for Entertainment Weekly's May 2 cover story -- they talk about the war, their music, and more

by Chris Willman


THREE OF A KIND ''I don't blame Natalie for feeling that passion to speak out. It definitely could have been me,'' says Maguire, right (with fellow Chicks Maines and Robison)

Ever since mid-March, bewildered ex-fans and curious recent converts have clamored to know the naked truth about the Dixie Chicks. Was singer Natalie Maines' assertion that ''we're ashamed that the president of the United States is from Texas'' an unfortunate slip of the tongue or a deliberate statement of defiance? Yes, they apologized -- but are they really, really, really, really sorry? EW sat down with Maines, fiddle player Martie Maguire, and banjo player Emily Robison on April 10 -- exactly four weeks after the fateful remark on that London stage -- for a magazine cover story. Here, exclusive to EW.com, are more of their candid thoughts from their first full interview since the controversy broke.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY You've always liked to speak off the cuff in concert. But after you said what you said, didn't you immediately have an inkling that this would unpleasantly surprise a lot of your fans?
NATALIE MAINES I was shocked that they were shocked, I guess. I didn't know people thought of me as conservative. I've never tried to hide who I am. People know us. They know that we're nice...
EMILY ROBISON ...that we're patriotic. It's not like we're sitting out there on a platform talking about political issues; that's not our thing.
MAINES I guess to sort of keep hope, I have to believe that it happened because of the state of the world and because of everyone's fear and because everything has been so misquoted and misrepresented. This is our first time to talk, and my hope is that when people see us again, they'll remember that we're not the monsters we've been made out to be for the last month.

EW Are you modifying your stage show because of all this?
MAINES I never understood the words to our song ''Truth No. 2'' -- I just liked it -- but now I get every single thing [songwriter Patty Griffin] was saying. So the video footage behind us for ''Truth No. 2'' during the tour hints of this. It's a basic statement of everyone in history who has been told to shut up. We were thinking you could show, in chronological order, Montgomery, Alabama, when black people first went to that high school, or the bus boycott, and then on through John Lennon and this and that. And Emily's like ''Y'all, are you sure? This is gonna seem like we think this is as important as those things.'' Now you look back at that and go, ''Yeah, well, you hoped it wouldn't have been!'' [They laugh.] It doesn't seem quite so farfetched and ridiculous anymore. I was watching VH1's ''100 Greatest Shocking Moments in Rock & Roll,'' and heard John Lennon saying the Beatles were bigger than Jesus. It was the first time I had ever seen that footage. It was like, Wow, it is the same -- boycotted from the radio, fans holding signs, the steamroller rolling over their records.... Ours are CDs now, and that's about the only difference in that visual.

EW It must have been tempting to immediately respond to a lot of things you saw happening like that in the last month.
MARTIE MAGUIRE It's been hard to keep our mouths shut because we're all big mouths. I wanted to get on the message boards and talk radio and reason with these people! Like that was gonna happen, when they're calling you the Dixie Sluts...
ROBISON Because there was a [controversial] statement made, then we must be sleeping around! It's hard for Martie, who is so concerned with what people think so much of the time. It's very interesting to watch her just go, ''Okay, screw me trying to make everyone feel warm and fuzzy.''
MAINES Yeah, we know when SHE'S pissed, it's bad.

EW It's pretty bold to be coming out now with ''Truth No. 2'' as the next single, since its opening lines sound like a self-fulfilling prophecy.
MAGUIRE It's probably not gonna be the next single [after all]. We don't know if the next song we put out is gonna be played, even if it's a sweet song. So [Sony] definitely doesn't want to put out something that is as in your face as ''You don't like the sound of the truth coming from my mouth...''

RED, WHITE, BLACK-AND-BLUE The Chicks have seen album sales drop and their CDs steamrolled

EW What are the underlying emotions you have about the war that affected what came out of your mouth that night?
MAINES I feel I guess maybe some guilt in that we're so lucky to be born here, and you know, why are the [Iraqis] born there? It's the luck of the draw. A child there has such a different life than my child's gonna have, and there's just a lot of questions and concern and guilt that goes along with that. And I have the same tears for when they put a face to the name of a soldier. It's easier to hear ''six people died.'' But when they show you the picture of one of them alive...
MAGUIRE It happened so fast. And they kept saying, ''Oh, [the crisis built up] over 12 years'' or whatever. But it felt like a decision that was made abruptly. I think it felt like that to a lot of Americans.
MAINES People are saying: ''A time of war is not the time to be asking questions and not supporting your leader.'' That's one of those statements where I can't believe somebody hears themselves say that. This is killing people, and whether you're gonna do it or not, this is the time to be asking questions! This is the time to be saying, Why do we have to do this tomorrow? Why is tomorrow the date? And I just feel like we never got an answer to that. I'm not antiwar, period, overall, always.
MAGUIRE I remember a time when you were very divided about it...
MAINES And asking questions of people, wanting to hear both sides.
MAGUIRE That's the best place to be, at least leading up to your final stance on it. At least at some point, please, be on the fence, asking questions!
MAINES Everyone has started to say, if you are not for the war, you're not for the soldiers. And people just started to accept that these two things go together, because it's been said so many times. This girl wrote to me, ''Dear Miss Maines: Don't you know that when you disagree with the leader of our country and do not show unity with the president, that is just what Saddam Hussein wants? When Saddam Hussein hears what you've said, he's gonna know he's won.'' It's like, ''What? While he's browsing our website?'' [She laughs.] Don't think he got this in his daily memos. Are you serious? We're country singers.

EW Given how publicly apolitical you've been before now, did you really feel strongly enough about this war that it was worth speaking out?
MAGUIRE This is the first time in my 33 years that I've felt so sensitive, so passionate, so emotional, so scared -- I mean, really scared -- watching the news. And I think a lot of people feel that way and have a right to feel that way. So I don't blame Natalie for feeling that passion to speak out. It definitely could have been me. This is the biggest thing that's ever happened in my life, and I've had big things happen in my life -- divorce, overwhelming success. And I don't mean what's happening with the boycott and all that. I'm talking about the fact that we've gone to war. I had not felt unsafe in my country until this point. But I felt more unsafe the day we went to war in Iraq than I did after Sept. 11. Now we really have alienated ourselves as a country from a lot of other countries that we need as allies. Americans, especially Americans my age, aren't using to feeling [unsafe]. You just grow up feeling so proud that you live in this country, that you can do anything, there's nothing you can't do as a woman. You feel like this is an equal opportunity country and it's pretty safe. I think that's out the window now. Kids are never gonna grow up like I grew up -- starting now -- ever. They're never gonna know that feeling of feeling so sheltered and safe, and that concerns me.

EW Do you think some fans feel betrayed because they liked you and therefore assumed that you'd probably share their core beliefs, politically or otherwise?
MAINES I never, ever met someone or even had a friendship with someone where I even thought about what their political party was. That didn't determine at all if liked this person. And 95 percent of my family are conservative Republicans, but they don't not invite me to dinner, or...
MAGUIRE ...crush your CDs? [She laughs.]
MAINES And I don't not invite them. We're family. Those things don't define you. It's a part of who you are but it doesn't define whether you're a good or bad person. The thing that bums me out is, now I do look at people and think, ''Are they conservative, or Republican?'' I was sitting in the dentist chair going, ''Oh, great, if she hates me, she's really gonna do a job on my mouth!'' I hate having to look at people now wondering, do they like me, or not like me?

EW Are you upset to find out that some fans disagree with you?
MAINES We've always respected and accepted constructive criticism. I completely understand the people who hate what I said. That's America. No problem with that. But it's interesting to be boycotted because we weren't -- I'm sorry, I won't say ''we'' anymore -- because I wasn't for the war. We are definitely being made an example of. Because if people were going to boycott everyone who wasn't for the war, there'd barely be any movies they would be allowed to watch. You can pretty much not watch TV. You better throw away all your albums, except for whoever in country music you know shares your views.

EW You do have to wonder how long and hard they had to search before they finally found the Marshall Tucker Band to play at the protest concert taking place in South Carolina on the opening night of your tour.
MAINES We love that! You know, the whole point here is that people are allowed to say what they want to say. And if people want to come to our show and boo...[friends] have said, ''Well, you should just walk off.'' No way! I'll play to whoever's there to listen to us.

EW It's easy to imagine that this has been a nightmare for you in many ways. Have there been any positives in it?
MAGUIRE We've become closer. There was never a doubt in my mind that I was gonna be behind Natalie 100 percent.
ROBISON Anxiety is a great way to lose weight. I lost the last five pounds.... [She recently had her first child.]
MAINES Hey, the next time I have a baby, will one of y'all do something like this?

EW Some of your supporters believe that right-wing talk radio is keeping this controversy and boycott alive. Do you agree?
MAINES I understand the talk radio people doing it more than I understand a country music DJ. Whether you're Howard Stern or Don Imus, you're not gonna have a job if you don't take a strong sock at people. Those listeners want to hear strong opinions, and they want to hear that I need to be taken out back and horsewhipped. But with country radio, it was irresponsible.... I think initially, when the stations started banning, it was kind of a ''Hey, this is the most attention we've ever gotten!'' And then it kind of got to ''Hey, y'all, now we don't know how to get back.''... I have my whole life hated that the squeaky wheel gets the grease. We are showing the love to radio stations and program directors who have supported us from day one. And there will be no ass-kissing to people who have banned and betrayed us. This career does not define us. Music does. We will continue to play music forever. We're not afraid.

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