Are The Indigo Girls Still Together?
Emily Saliers and Amy Ray from The Indigo Girls.
Who could forget the incomparable folk rock music duo The Indigo Girls? Deeply ingrained in the foundation of any ‘90s kid, the band, consisting of childhood friends Amy Ray and Emily Saliers, reached mainstream success with songs like “Closer to Fine,” “Galileo” and “Shame On You.” The LGBTQ+ icons were ahead of their time, but where are they now?
If you feel like you haven’t seen the band in the last few years, you may not have been paying attention. In fact, The Indigo Girls play a big part in the closing bit of comedian Tig Notaro’s acclaimed 2018 comedy special, Happy to Be Here.
Notaro has long championed the duo as one of her favorite bands, saying, “One of my favorite songs is 'Ghost' by Indigo Girls. Emily Saliers wrote that, and she is one of the most talented songwriters ever.”
The Indigo Girls also had a song featured prominently in a certain female-centric record-breaking movie from last year... Hint, it wasn't Oppenheimer. But just what else has the duo been up to? And is the band still together? We have the answers to all that and more.
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Are the Indigo Girls still together?
The Indigo Girls are very much still an active band almost 40 years since their first album debuted. The duo released their 16th studio album, Look Long, in May 2020. Although the pandemic interrupted their plans for an album tour at that time, the band has since gone back to performing live in recent years, with shows throughout 2022 and 2023, some of which included long-time violinist Lyris Hung.
Photo by Paras Griffin/Getty Images
How did the Indigo Girls wind up on the Barbie soundtrack?
Barbie fans may have noticed the prominent use of the 1989 Indigo Girls’ hit “Closer to Fine” throughout the 2023 film.
Ray reacted to the request in an interview with NPR. “We were both like, Barbie?” the singer said with a laugh. “They want to use Indigo Girls in a Barbie movie?”
Saliers said she was surprised when she saw how the song was incorporated into the film. “... I knew that the song would be in the scene where Barbie is driving out of Barbieland and into the real world, and then Ken pops up in the back seat and shocks her. And they're singing this song. So I knew it was going to be in that scene, but it ended up being in three different scenes. So it was absolutely a total shock, first of all, to be seeing it premiering in that environment and, second of all, to have it appear that many times in the movie. And most of all, I loved the movie. I loved it.”
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What is the new Indigo Girls documentary?
The Indigo Girls are the subject of a documentary by Alexandria Bombach that premiered at Sundance in 2023, Indigo Girls: It’s Only Life After All. From Oscilloscope Laboratories, the acclaimed documentary’s trailer premiered March 11 and the doc itself will see a one-night-only national theatrical run on April 10.
A more intimate screening complete with a live performance will take place in the duo’s hometown of Atlanta on Friday, March 29. For those of you who won’t be able to see it in theaters, a digital release will not be far behind as it’s set to begin streaming on May 7.
“Festival audiences have embraced and celebrated this story of Amy and Emily, and now we get to bring this film to fans in theaters all over the country," Bombach said. "A film about community should be seen in community.”
Ray reacted to the experience, saying, “From our earliest days at Little Five Points Community Pub in Atlanta, the ideal of ‘community’ has informed our music and activism. We feel blessed to have worked with such a compelling crew of folks, who created a document that reflects the vital part our audience, activists, friends, family, and mentors play in our ongoing creative lives.”
Saliers added, “It is a beautiful documentary that captures the life force of our community. Now our community has an opportunity to see it on the big screen—we are thankful for that.”
What is Amy Ray from the Indigo Girls doing now?
It will likely come as no surprise that Amy Ray is still writing and performing. Ray has managed to find success as a solo artist, with seven studio albums and three live albums to her name. In fact, her most recent solo album, If It All Goes South, came out in the fall of 2022.
With this album, Ray explored her connection to her southern roots (both Ray and Saliers are Georgia natives). It featured collaborations with the likes of Brandi Carlisle, Allison Russell, I’m With Her and HC McEntire.
She's also continued the political activism she became known for during her music career, notably with the song “Tear It Down,” which features Russell and explores the quest for anti-racism.
“I wrote that song during the pandemic, when a lot of the [Black Lives Matter] demonstrations and protests were going on,” Ray explained.
Ray has also continued touring, with a performance in January 2024 at the Grass Valley Center for the Arts in Grass Valley, CA.
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What is Emily Saliers from the Indigo Girls doing now?
Emily Saliers has also remained extremely busy. The singer/songwriter has been penning music for not one but two stage musicals in recent years.
“One of them is tentatively called Country Radio,” Saliers has said. “It’s the story of a young queer girl growing up in the South and her journey. And she’s also a writer and has a friend who is an incredible singer. It’s about her working through her love of the Southland that she knew and grew up with, and all of the struggles involved with that.”
The other is a story of a park ranger’s quest to get her town designated as a dark sky reserve, and it also features a love story between the ranger and an NPR podcaster who comes to town and shakes things up. It’s tentatively called Starstruck.
Saliers has also been open in recent years about her path to sobriety. "I was destined to be an alcoholic,” she explained while noting that alcoholism runs in her family. "I didn’t know it. ...We played bars and stuff and we did shots from the stage—this is when we were babies—and drinking was such a social part of what we did for work, and then I had a very social life. I thought I was an extrovert, but I was really just an alcoholic."
She continued, “Amy can attest to how terrible it was when I was drinking. All the excuses I made, my irresponsibility, not showing up [to work]. But I was terrified. I think all alcoholics are terrified to admit that they’re alcoholics."
Ray and Saliers’ other loved ones eventually staged an intervention that led to the singer spending three months in rehab. She got sober in 2011.
"It's the hardest f---ing thing I've ever done," Saliers said in reference to getting sober. “It’s so hard sometimes, you just wanna get out, you know, quickly, and you can’t anymore. You have to sit through a lot of discomfort and the other thing I’m learning now is I lost a whole chunk of my development—intellectual development, my evolution as a human being. I just deprived myself of that in that time that I was drinking so hard."
