Natalie Maines (Photo: Michael Tran)Here's good and bad news for fans of the Dixie Chicks. First, the good news: Lead singer Natalie Maines has finally completed a solo album. The bad news? Well, it's actually only bad news for those who were hoping for a country record. Maines's solo set will be all rock.
"Happy Natalie Maines Finished Her Album Day everybody!" the singer tweeted on Wednesday, to much happy response from her followers. The new project is titled Mother, and according to Maines, will be released on May 7, 2013.
Maines first started hinting at the project earlier this year when she responded affirmatively to a fan tweet asking if she were thinking about doing anything solo. She told Howard Stern's Howard 100 News in June that her friend and fellow musician Ben Harper would be producing the album. In October, she confirmed on Twitter that the record would be rock and not country.
The title likely comes from the Pink Floyd tune of the same name, which Maines covered in a series of rare live appearances guesting on Harper's tour over the summer. She has already recorded the song for the soundtrack West of Memphis: Voices of Justice, which accompanies an upcoming documentary focusing on accused (and exonerated) murderers the West Memphis Three.
Maines has been largely out of the spotlight in the past few years, performing only sporadically and choosing instead to be a stay-at-home to her two sons with husband Adrian Pasdar.
Maines's bandmates Emily Robison and Martie Maguire are currently performing together as the Court Yard Hounds--they released their self-titled debut in 2010, but have yet to produce a follow-up. All three members of the Dixie Chicks claim the Chicks have not broken up, but no new music seems to be on the horizon for the women as a trio.
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