The Dixie Chicks Hate Hate, So Does Bill O'Reilly

The Chicks, who built their act in Dallas, say they won't change their music, despite the controversy: Dixie Chicks Talk About Death Threats.

O'Reilley critcizes the country stations that won't play Chicks music--especially their new single "Not Ready To Make Nice," but not all Red Staters are with him: Not Ready to Make Nice With Dixie Chicks Either

In the 60 Minutes segment, the band refuses to apologize to country music fans who were angered by Maines' remarks or to "make nice" to the radio stations that refused to play their music. When asked by Kroft why the band just doesn't try to make country music fans happy, Maines tells him that's not the way the Dixie Chicks work. "We don't make decisions based on that. We don't go, 'OK, our fans are in the red states, so I'm going play a red, white and blue guitar and put on my I Love Bush T-shirt,'" she says. "We’re not like that because we’re not politicians. We’re musicians," Maines tells Kroft.

The album, including the new single, comes out May 23. It straddles country and rock genres. "Since country music's turned into this redneck theme, it's become kind of a negative thing in my mind, where I didn't think it was negative before," says fiddle player Martie Maguire. "I think for a while, a lot of artists were doing a lot of great things … that were broadening the audience so that country was cool. So it makes me sad that it's kind of reverted back to a place that I'm not that proud of — and this is coming from a true country fan. I can't listen to the radio right now," Maguire tells Kroft.

The Dixie Chicks said they didn’t take it so personally that some programmers cannot play their music. “I think you explain it that when you are in the corporate world for your livelihood and when a hundred people e-mail you that they will never listen to your station again, you get scared of losing your job, and why did they need to stand up for us? They’re not our friends, they’re not our family and they caved.”

Neil Haislop was taking notes as the Chicks said the death threat they received from somebody Dallas was so specific, down to “the time, place and weapon, that the Texas Rangers and the FBI were called in to protect them in Dallas and the show in San Antonio. “We flew in on a jet, we went straight from the police cars to the stage. And, after the show, straight from the stage to the police cars and back to the plane. It was surreal and at that stage everything was surreal, thank goodness nothing happened,” said Emily.

The were astonished that the danger at the time even effected a radio station. “We had a guy at a radio station tell us they had our picture on their van and they were just driving down the highway and a car pulled with a shotgun and pointed at them out the window just because our picture was on their van. It’s very real (the threat) and it only takes one cuckoo person.”

Verbal shots at 'country music' or 'radio,' which is, of course, not one entitity but actually 44+ million folks of all ages, regions and political slants plus a couple thousand radio stations working hard every day to reflect the core values and build a community hurt too.

Unifying value #1 is passion for country music. What's the point of saying negative things about "our" favorite kind of music? That's no way to rebuild a relationship.

Healing starts with someone saying "I'm sorry." The Dixie Chicks still don't seem to get that, in spite of many, many opportunities to do so. As a result, I've come to feel sorry.

For them.