Political Women

The Indigo Girls are the rare act whose fervent audience encompasses radical feminists and fundamentalists. The introspective music of this Georgia folk duo--whose major-label debut album surpassed all expectations by going gold within months of its release this year--is personal enough that fans feel a special bonding with the Girls.

It’s not always an unbreakable bond, though. Case in point: Occasionally, the Indigo Girls will agree to make a pitch from the stage for booths that political activists have set up in the lobby--which doesn’t rankle so many feathers when it’s Greenpeace, but petitions favoring abortion rights are another matter.

“At Vanderbilt University in Nashville, we had a lot of people get up and walk out,” says Amy Ray, 25, who shares the stage with Emily Saliers, her friend and partner since age 10.

“We have some very fundamentalist Christian people that like our music because of certain songs that we never intended to be strictly Christian. We just intended them to be spiritual,” says Ray. “We were brought up Christians and consider ourselves Christians, but we don’t consider our music Christian music. The problem is that when we announce that we’re pro-choice, they don’t feel like they can listen to our music anymore so they walk out. That was very upsetting to us.”

When the Indigo Girls perform Tuesday at the Ventura Theatre, Wednesday at the Coach House, Friday at the Wiltern and Saturday at San Diego’s California Theatre, the crowd is likely to be the usual congregation of unlikely bedfellows--though it wasn’t always so.

“In most towns there’s definitely an initial following from women, and then as we get more popular in that area it becomes a much more mixed following,” says Ray. “That happened in Atlanta, too, when we started. We appreciate that support, and our women’s and feminist and lesbian followings have been important in our career. But we don’t want to be possessed by a group of people as their musicians. We want to be thought of as musicians first and women second.”