Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome to the Bob Left Sets podcast. Very
Speaker 1: special guest today Nancy Wilson, one of the founding members
Speaker 1: of Heart and Edition. The guitarist also a singer. You
Speaker 1: saw her dancing in the MTV era. Good to see
Speaker 1: you here, Nancy. It's good to be here, Bob. I
Speaker 1: really appreciate being here with you. Okay, So you grew
Speaker 1: up in the state of Washington, right, So what does
Speaker 1: your father do for a living. He was, Um, he
Speaker 1: was a retired major from the Marine Corps. And we've
Speaker 1: traveled around really a lot as kids, all over the place,
Speaker 1: in Taiwan, different places in the States. Um, And so
Speaker 1: you know, I think that's it was earlier in my life.
Speaker 1: I was already on on a tour per se. Well,
Speaker 1: it's funny that so many rockers are like that. It's like, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, the guys from the police, their father was
Speaker 1: in the CIA, the people who traveled. So you were
Speaker 1: living in the State of Watching. Your father was still
Speaker 1: in the military. They had been stationed there at one point.
Speaker 1: They went back to retire and live there afterwards. So
Speaker 1: when you were growing up, was he still working? He was?
Speaker 1: He was away a lot. Um in various actions that
Speaker 1: he fought in Korea, you know, Guam and a lot
Speaker 1: of the South Pacific stuff. So my mom was the
Speaker 1: father and the mother, you know for the three girls
Speaker 1: of us and um she she had a war face
Speaker 1: when she needed to have been quite a woman. So
Speaker 1: you're the youngest of three. I am the youngest of three,
Speaker 1: and so how much older the other two? Um as
Speaker 1: the middle she's four years older and Lynn is eight
Speaker 1: years older. Now we don't get much focus on lynd
Speaker 1: where's Lynn today? She's still in Seattle area, UM where
Speaker 1: I used to live on a farm, a piece of
Speaker 1: a farm that I used to have there, and you know,
Speaker 1: gardening and and doing the actually archiving a lot of
Speaker 1: heart stuff that was in storage there when I left.
Speaker 1: And so she's got a big job because it's archeological
Speaker 1: layers of decades of stuff. Well did you save stuff?
Speaker 1: I saved a lot of stuff. You know. It's very
Speaker 1: interesting because I'm a hoarder. You've always come and they
Speaker 1: say you want to pry. It's like, well, you know,
Speaker 1: i've ever become famous, this will be like, oh, I
Speaker 1: have I hoard weird stuff though, like little like little
Speaker 1: scraps of things. Like little name tags, you know, from
Speaker 1: an event like at the Elton John oscar party or
Speaker 1: something like the name tag, or you know um or
Speaker 1: rose pedals from a wedding that was meaningful or things
Speaker 1: like that too. Well, if you're obviously a legendary star,
Speaker 1: do you still get a thrill when you meet your heroes?
Speaker 1: I do? So who have you met, Let's say recently
Speaker 1: we said you can't believe it. Well, being in the
Speaker 1: same room with Paul McCartney a few times was extremely
Speaker 1: massively huge for me. You know, I just I just
Speaker 1: started gushing. YouTube. The guys in YouTube, there's such beasts. Okay,
Speaker 1: so you're there. Do they immediately know who you are? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Well usually we're in situations where they would know anyway, Okay,
Speaker 1: you know shows any insecurity, it's like, well I know
Speaker 1: who they are, they may not know who I am.
Speaker 1: Tom Petty was one of those for me. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: so sad to see that that. I still can't believe
Speaker 1: he's dead. I mean I always saw him a couple
Speaker 1: of nights before at the Hollywood. So anyway, you're in Washington,
Speaker 1: are they playing music in the home? Oh? Yeah, we
Speaker 1: um we always had music. There was always a good
Speaker 1: stereo system, you know, one of those big boxes that
Speaker 1: had we had the consoles and then we had the
Speaker 1: kind of wall mounted and we had real to reel,
Speaker 1: really real to real growing up, yeah, growing up a stereo,
Speaker 1: real to real two track, and we would make you know,
Speaker 1: calm any music and do like half speed and along
Speaker 1: with do you know what the inspiration for the purchase
Speaker 1: of that was. My parents would buy record albums LPs,
Speaker 1: long playing record albums at the time, and they would
Speaker 1: tape them in their entirety to keep the quality, the
Speaker 1: cund quality of the records intact, so that when the
Speaker 1: record got scratched because there was dogs and kids, um,
Speaker 1: they'd still have a really fine quality system and you know,
Speaker 1: a way to listen to their favorite albums. So you
Speaker 1: have one album on one side, which almost usually would
Speaker 1: pan out time wise, in the right amount of time.
Speaker 1: Sometimes not, it would just run off the reel um
Speaker 1: and then the other side was another album. You turn
Speaker 1: the tape over and do you remember what albums? So
Speaker 1: what were they playing? What kind of music? They had
Speaker 1: a lot of Broadway musicals, West Side stories, you know,
Speaker 1: did you have that? I remember one Sunday, you know,
Speaker 1: you're in Seattle was raining. I remember one Sunday I
Speaker 1: made my mother play all of her Broadway records because
Speaker 1: it was a song of my And it wasn't until
Speaker 1: the very last record that we hit the song that
Speaker 1: I wanted to hear, which was with a little bit
Speaker 1: of Luck. Oh it was a little bit of luck
Speaker 1: with a little bit Yeah, I know that one too.
Speaker 1: And there was um, you know, really corny ones like
Speaker 1: Oklahoma and uh really even cornier ones like South Pacific
Speaker 1: when I went to all my iPod and that's really funny.
Speaker 1: So they're playing those records, especially since you have older sisters.
Speaker 1: Are they buying any children's or pop records? No, but
Speaker 1: they bought Edgar versus Verres first electronique experimental music that
Speaker 1: Frank Zappa was really into Edgar. Oh yeah, what was
Speaker 1: the inspiration for that? They were just music students, you know.
Speaker 1: They had um anything that Leonard Bernstein touched, they had
Speaker 1: to have um we we watched the Leonard Bernstein's Music
Speaker 1: show on it was just brilliant. Yeah. And they also
Speaker 1: had um Ray Charles. They had to read Franklin, Peggy Lee.
Speaker 1: So they were very well rounded musical influences on us,
Speaker 1: and we all sang and ore we had ukuleles, and
Speaker 1: my mom played piano. And so did you take piano lessons? Yeah,
Speaker 1: a few years of piano lessons, which was you know,
Speaker 1: like pulling teeth, never practice, but then you use it later,
Speaker 1: which is a good thing to know, you know, just
Speaker 1: to have the kind of the theory in your head,
Speaker 1: um about intervals and harmonies and stuff. But so and
Speaker 1: she taught us a lot of stuff on piano, and
Speaker 1: our aunts and uncles would sing and harmonize play ukule
Speaker 1: at least together. Um, we sang you know, offcolor, old
Speaker 1: pub songs, old English and Irish puff songs like Lydia Pinkham,
Speaker 1: you know that one. I don't know. They had the
Speaker 1: Piper to the Sea and that kind of stuff. So,
Speaker 1: and when do you start playing the guitar? When I
Speaker 1: started playing guitar was when I saw the Beatles on
Speaker 1: Ed Sullivan sixty three. Was it? Okay, that's right, of course,
Speaker 1: you know exactly. I just remember because my parents used
Speaker 1: to go out, you know at Friday night and Saturday night.
Speaker 1: And my mother said, she's a real culture vulture. Oh,
Speaker 1: you have to watch Jack Parr, who had hosted the
Speaker 1: tonight show had a Friday night one hour show. You
Speaker 1: have to watch this show, this new show. There's this
Speaker 1: band from England. My mother was telling. My mother was
Speaker 1: never a fan of My mother loved the Four Seasons.
Speaker 1: She bought Big Girls, we had those, but she was
Speaker 1: not normally a fan. And I remember this was November
Speaker 1: sixty three. They had a video shot in the theater,
Speaker 1: like from behind the bottom row of seats is usually
Speaker 1: like a little wall, and it was the Beatles. We
Speaker 1: didn't know because everyone was screaming. We thought the name
Speaker 1: of the song was we Love Too Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: as opposed to she Loves You. And we laughed hysterically. Okay,
Speaker 1: and then you know, two months later it was the
Speaker 1: biggest thing going. Well I know, but we also it
Speaker 1: was the folk boom before and we had those albums too, right.
Speaker 1: We had better Fallen Mary of course blowing in the wind,
Speaker 1: but Joan Bayazz a little bit of Joan Bayazz, but
Speaker 1: not as much because if the vibrato issue with her
Speaker 1: voice was a little you know, we were more into
Speaker 1: Peter Palm Mary. They were a huge but we got
Speaker 1: nylon string guitar which we started to play. But as
Speaker 1: soon as the Beatles hit, we all went electric. So
Speaker 1: you were not playing you were not playing guitar at
Speaker 1: all until the Beatles run. Its all of them, right.
Speaker 1: I was playing a lot of ukulele and p know
Speaker 1: and you know. But then we had to have the guitars.
Speaker 1: We just had to be the Beatles. Instead of trying
Speaker 1: to marry them, we had to be them. And you
Speaker 1: have a band, you consciously that instead of bearing the Beatles,
Speaker 1: you'll be a Beatle. I'll be a Beatle. Yeah, I'll
Speaker 1: develop a fake English accent in order to feel like
Speaker 1: I'm a Beatle. Like it was that intense. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: it was this a solo thing where you in on it. No, Um, she's,
Speaker 1: you know, my older sister. So we had to do
Speaker 1: it together, and we got guitars and we learned how
Speaker 1: to play Beatle songs, and we got the mail Bay
Speaker 1: Chord book of course, of course, and we learned all
Speaker 1: those cores and we got so you're totally self taught,
Speaker 1: as um. I never took guitar lessons per se. I
Speaker 1: took a couple of classical guitar lessons once, but I
Speaker 1: didn't have time because I was already touring a point
Speaker 1: at that point. So, I mean it was nineteen really
Speaker 1: when I joined Hart basically, but let's go before that.
Speaker 1: It's you pick up the guitar. Yeah, and you start
Speaker 1: to play with your sisters, the whole history of singing
Speaker 1: in the house. Do you then say we're going to
Speaker 1: form a band and we're gonna play. That's exactly what
Speaker 1: we we did. It was like we have to form
Speaker 1: a band. Um, it was kind of a folk It
Speaker 1: was a protest song kind of folk ed folk tinged
Speaker 1: protest band where we did like Gates of Eden, you know,
Speaker 1: Bob Dylan's stuff, um, you know, blowing in the wind,
Speaker 1: and but then we also did stuff like you know, uh,
Speaker 1: stuff like Cherish what was on the radio at the time, Association,
Speaker 1: and so we were kind of pop folk, you know,
Speaker 1: rock ish acoustics type, all girl foursome. Okay, who are
Speaker 1: the other two girls? There were girls were sort of
Speaker 1: enlisted out of school that didn't really know how to
Speaker 1: play or sing, but we just forced them. But because
Speaker 1: they were our friends, so we just wanted to have
Speaker 1: a band with friends in it. And um, we learned
Speaker 1: how to play harmony, sing harmony, play pop music off
Speaker 1: the radio and beatles songs. Okay, so you're obviously literally
Speaker 1: famous now, but growing up in school at the public school,
Speaker 1: were you one of the leaders, were you in the background.
Speaker 1: Did you have a lot of friends prior to the
Speaker 1: music thing. Um always was kind of the ugly, shy,
Speaker 1: sort of fat girl really with a secret sort of life,
Speaker 1: you know, at home with music, and uh yeah, it
Speaker 1: was never like a I always kind of wished i'd
Speaker 1: been like a cheerleader or could be like those people,
Speaker 1: the popular people, right, that was the word. You want
Speaker 1: to be popular, praying that you would be popular, and
Speaker 1: hoping you could like have different body parts like the
Speaker 1: other people that you didn't have that they had, you know,
Speaker 1: just be somebody else, you know, besides me. Now you
Speaker 1: form the band, how long is it until you actually
Speaker 1: start to play outside the house? Um, we formed it
Speaker 1: pretty quickly. We learned stuff fast. We developed a set,
Speaker 1: a set list, and then we got a gig um
Speaker 1: at a like folk festival someplace, and we actually we're
Speaker 1: granny dresses and stood on a stage. There was big microphones,
Speaker 1: like big microphones in front of our faces and an audience.
Speaker 1: Then we started playing wherever we could play. We played
Speaker 1: a lot of living rooms. Um. We even played at
Speaker 1: a drive in theater one time in between the movies
Speaker 1: before the movie started, and we're getting paid for these jobs. No, yeah,
Speaker 1: so we were all It was ame as it was
Speaker 1: a mania. That's what people talk about music today. They
Speaker 1: have no idea what it was like. And the radio
Speaker 1: was the tribal drum. But did you see this as
Speaker 1: a career or a lark? I totally thought it was
Speaker 1: the rest of my life to do. This is my job,
Speaker 1: my vision, my quest, um, my purpose. And we just
Speaker 1: aimed ourselves like pistols at that thing and we managed
Speaker 1: to somehow achieve it. So like this all starts you're
Speaker 1: like in fourth fifth grade, Okay, so and then your
Speaker 1: sister Anne is four years older. What plays out while
Speaker 1: you're in high school? Well she, um, she met guys
Speaker 1: with electrical guitars and amps and drums and equipment with
Speaker 1: a van. So so she was off, you know, on
Speaker 1: her own trajectory at that point. And I was still
Speaker 1: doing sort of acoustic performances on my own and little
Speaker 1: coffee shops. And when I was under age with my boyfriend,
Speaker 1: my first sort of real boyfriend, who I had a
Speaker 1: duet acoustic duet with called Jeff and Nancy. We were
Speaker 1: we got a job in Um up in the mountains,
Speaker 1: in a real redneck town up there where they used
Speaker 1: to shoot twin peaks um and we were just saying
Speaker 1: a bunch of country music for the beer swilling guys
Speaker 1: up there. And you know, there we got a manager
Speaker 1: and he gave me an Ovation guitar and plugged it in,
Speaker 1: you know, so it was all that was the big thing.
Speaker 1: With a round fiber glass back you could plug it in.
Speaker 1: That was a huge thing in like yeah, and you know,
Speaker 1: I was like a poster girl for Ovation there for
Speaker 1: a little while. So you were playing with Jeff and
Speaker 1: your sister's got her own bands, doing her own thing.
Speaker 1: She was, Yeah, she was kind of in a more
Speaker 1: psychedelic band at the time. Staying at my sister Lynd's
Speaker 1: commune a lot rehearsing that your sister lived at a commune.
Speaker 1: They had a commune, Yeah, like a hippie commune. What
Speaker 1: did your parents Your father was in the military. What
Speaker 1: do you say about his daughter being in a commune. Well,
Speaker 1: they took a bit of a dim view of the commune.
Speaker 1: They called themselves the Hoopers, look like a takeoff on
Speaker 1: the hippies, and there were some definitely of mind expansion
Speaker 1: type days going on over there, and we'd skip out
Speaker 1: school and we'd go play music over there and getting
Speaker 1: we've gotten some trouble because Lynn's husband was a photographer
Speaker 1: and there was some nude photography involved, so which was radical,
Speaker 1: so radical, you know at that point. Now it's like
Speaker 1: every every news stand cover, every the internet, it's everywhere.
Speaker 1: So your sister is playing in bands, but also living
Speaker 1: in Seattle, you have your duo with Jeff. Is your
Speaker 1: sister having any success with her? It's like about work
Speaker 1: influence bands. They were um, they were playing um at
Speaker 1: some officers clubs, you know, so they were getting work,
Speaker 1: they were getting paid and uh, you know, I was
Speaker 1: getting paid a little up at in the North Bend
Speaker 1: at the KEG and Q tavern, but um. But yeah.
Speaker 1: She was starting to make a kind of a name
Speaker 1: round town for herself because she was such a great singer,
Speaker 1: and she was just one of the singers in the band.
Speaker 1: There were guy singers in the band that would do
Speaker 1: all the rock songs that she would just do the ballads.
Speaker 1: When she started doing Zeppelin covers, it was a whole
Speaker 1: different bollo Ax and so she started to be known
Speaker 1: as a kind of a premier local singer and she's
Speaker 1: got that gift. Okay, were you both because you know
Speaker 1: there's history with love Bongers, etcetera. Were you that big
Speaker 1: at Zeppelin fan? We were, Um, we saw st up
Speaker 1: And play at the Green Lake Aqua Theater in Seattle,
Speaker 1: opening for the Fifth Dimensions. Yeah, they were just they
Speaker 1: were yeah right, they were just an opening act and
Speaker 1: we were so we were scandalized by their sexuality because
Speaker 1: we were pretty young and we just thought they were
Speaker 1: just they were like showing their bare chested and you know,
Speaker 1: really suggestive, and you know, Robert Plant was kind of
Speaker 1: like it looks sort of like a man man and
Speaker 1: a woman at the same time, and it was, you know,
Speaker 1: really like it seemed like black magic. You know. So
Speaker 1: we were scandalized and then we were hooked. And then
Speaker 1: we had to learn their songs and we still have
Speaker 1: done a lot of their stuff. Right, favorite, if there's
Speaker 1: only one, I think the Rain Song because it incorporates
Speaker 1: all of the melodic almost classical structure um and then
Speaker 1: dissonance and the power and the delicacy that they very
Speaker 1: well articulate. Possess all of those things, and that one
Speaker 1: song has all of those elements. Okay, so now you're
Speaker 1: in high school, when do you start playing with the
Speaker 1: bands with your sister? UM? I had been kind of
Speaker 1: a shadow and ants presence for being younger and stuff
Speaker 1: for so long in my life that I decided I
Speaker 1: would put off joining her band and go to college first.
Speaker 1: So I went to a year and a half of
Speaker 1: university in Oregon where UM Portland's state was the second
Speaker 1: one and UM Pacific University was the first year. Really beautiful, old,
Speaker 1: out in nature kind of campuses, nothing much to do
Speaker 1: except study, and I studied, you know, creative writing and
Speaker 1: music theory and stuff I figured I could use to
Speaker 1: bring along to the table as a musician and a writer.
Speaker 1: And it was a really good idea. But like between
Speaker 1: the school years, I'd sit in with Ann's band that
Speaker 1: was called Heart by then. UM and uh, you know
Speaker 1: do like really complicated acoustic introductions to things and yes,
Speaker 1: songs and and you learn all that stuff in college,
Speaker 1: and that helped. I knew all that stuff really early on. UM.
Speaker 1: I never really studied guitar, but I I worked at
Speaker 1: it really hard, play well. I learned it like on
Speaker 1: a on an LP, you could you could switch the
Speaker 1: speed down to have you can get machines that help
Speaker 1: you do that now, but you can little vial, Yeah,
Speaker 1: just a little button you could fush over to the
Speaker 1: half speed and it's the same key because it's an
Speaker 1: octave lower and it's half as fast, and you could
Speaker 1: play everything at learning speed until you could do it again.
Speaker 1: We're playing with Anne in between the two years of college,
Speaker 1: and then how did you ultimately decide to drop out
Speaker 1: and play with her? Well, um, well, my parents ran
Speaker 1: out of money for one thing. Literally, it's the opposite.
Speaker 1: Usually the parents are pissed at the kid drops out
Speaker 1: of college. No, I think they were pretty strapped, and
Speaker 1: you know, they had indulged me in the kind of
Speaker 1: the educational thing that I wanted to get a taste of,
Speaker 1: and I felt like i'd kind of gotten enough of
Speaker 1: the of a something to take along from it with
Speaker 1: me that I would just be able to, you know,
Speaker 1: not finish that second year and go join the army
Speaker 1: and see the world and regrets whatsoever about dropping on
Speaker 1: a school m hm, No, we know you have to
Speaker 1: twin boys. Are they planning to go to college. They
Speaker 1: are there, one of them is already accepted to l
Speaker 1: m U Animation and he's a really good animator already.
Speaker 1: And the other guy is probably cal Arts or maybe
Speaker 1: UM Concordia in Montreal. And how would you feel if
Speaker 1: they dropped out? UM? I would give them the same
Speaker 1: advice that my mom and dad gave me joining the band,
Speaker 1: when they said, you know, follow your bliss, do what
Speaker 1: it is you know you're going to be passionate about,
Speaker 1: and but don't change who you are, Like if you
Speaker 1: go to Tinseltown, stay who you are. So of course
Speaker 1: we all went to Tinseltown and we've changed, okay, so
Speaker 1: you kind of had to figure out of and later
Speaker 1: who we were, you know, to start out with like
Speaker 1: a Joe Wall song. So the so you drop out
Speaker 1: because your parents ran out of money, and you immediately
Speaker 1: join your sister's band. And to what degree is that
Speaker 1: the band that ultimately makes the first record? UM that
Speaker 1: is pretty much almost the same band minus a couple
Speaker 1: of players. We switched up with a rhythm section basically
Speaker 1: and made the first subum that way. Well, but before
Speaker 1: we get to the first album, you go to join
Speaker 1: your sister's band. She immediately opened. She there's no issue
Speaker 1: if you joining. She wants you know, there was a
Speaker 1: standing open invitation forever to join that band, So I
Speaker 1: knew I would join it. And we had so much
Speaker 1: comfort zone with each other as musicians and singers and
Speaker 1: players and writers already at that point that it was
Speaker 1: just a natural, you know, evolution in Okay, So when
Speaker 1: you joined the band, what's the status of the band
Speaker 1: in terms of career arc But at that point they
Speaker 1: were the biggest cabaret band in Vancouver, b C. They were.
Speaker 1: They were a house band at the Zodiac Room at
Speaker 1: this hotel in town, and they were touring around in
Speaker 1: Canada in in one van in winter and when you know,
Speaker 1: two lane highways. So I joined the band at that
Speaker 1: point and started playing clubs cabarets immediately with them, and
Speaker 1: you know, learning how to play pool and you know,
Speaker 1: how to have cocktails and stuff like. You grew up
Speaker 1: very quickly. I was pretty young for well, the drinking
Speaker 1: age was younger in Vancouver. It's nineteen instead, so I
Speaker 1: was of age at that point and the band was
Speaker 1: making enough money to support you. Well, I was living
Speaker 1: on a on a water bed bag without a frame
Speaker 1: in a basement on a car very cold floor, was
Speaker 1: a bag of water in a basement. So I was
Speaker 1: in the spare kind of basement room down there, freezing
Speaker 1: my ass. Huh. But um there was there was money
Speaker 1: enough for the band house to buy like a fifty
Speaker 1: pound sack of brown rice and vegetables, you know, so
Speaker 1: we all were on a really healthy diet. Now I
Speaker 1: was involved in a relationship with the guy who ended
Speaker 1: up being the manager of the band, Yeah, the Swengali,
Speaker 1: the magic Man, the magic Man, and his name was
Speaker 1: Michael Fisher, and he was the brother of the guitar
Speaker 1: player who kind of I kind of ended up with
Speaker 1: Roger Fish. I was going to get get there you
Speaker 1: when I had when you moved to Canada. Was Michael
Speaker 1: Fisher already involved? Yes, he he was. Well. He had
Speaker 1: come down illegally across the border to visit Roger and
Speaker 1: his family, who Ants had in her band already, So
Speaker 1: Roger was in um Ant's band. Michael came to visit
Speaker 1: his family. He was a draft evader, so he had
Speaker 1: to come illegally across the border, and she met Mike
Speaker 1: and fell in love with Mike, like hugely in love
Speaker 1: with Mike and followed him back across the border, walking
Speaker 1: hitchhiking with a backpack and a guitar, and the rest
Speaker 1: of the band moved to Vancouver to make the band
Speaker 1: happen there so that Ann and Mike would be together.
Speaker 1: And was Mike immediately the manager? Yeah, he he had
Speaker 1: that kind of um organized energy and he was getting
Speaker 1: the gigs and he was um organizing the household and
Speaker 1: keeping the books and you know, so how do you
Speaker 1: get involved with Roger Um? I kind of had to
Speaker 1: be persuaded into that situation. It was. It was it
Speaker 1: was very convenient because we were traveling and an extra
Speaker 1: hotel room was not well, I didn't realize, you know,
Speaker 1: what I was doing at that age either, So it
Speaker 1: was it was a convenient relationship to have for the
Speaker 1: purposes of UM getting the band further along, But personally
Speaker 1: it just wasn't going to work for me. And in
Speaker 1: his case it was the opposite. He was he really
Speaker 1: you had a thing for me, and I was just
Speaker 1: kind of going along with something just to try to
Speaker 1: get ahead. So I was in that way, I was
Speaker 1: being like the dude in relationship. And how long did
Speaker 1: that go on? A couple of years Okay, So how
Speaker 1: do you end up getting the deal Mushroom Records? Well,
Speaker 1: we were first turned down by every major label who
Speaker 1: was pitching. Yeah. We we got our tapes together. We've
Speaker 1: taped live performances real to real, and we made demos
Speaker 1: and we wrote songs and mailed them to record companies
Speaker 1: in the mail and got turned down about four times each.
Speaker 1: And then there was a local, small um record company
Speaker 1: called Mushroom Records, owned by a paint mogul guy in
Speaker 1: Vancouver who they had a little studio and they wanted
Speaker 1: to try to develop us, and they got their local
Speaker 1: um Mike Flicker, the local sort of producer eye there,
Speaker 1: and we got it together and we made the album. Okay,
Speaker 1: but you were a student of the game and at
Speaker 1: that time really was just majors. There weren't independence of
Speaker 1: that level. How did you feel about making a deal
Speaker 1: with Mushroom Records? It felt lucky, like somebody's gonna want
Speaker 1: something from us, you know. Um, it felt like it
Speaker 1: could there could be a chance a snowball dancing hell
Speaker 1: because it was a smaller town, a smaller group of cool,
Speaker 1: passionate people that we could put a face too instead
Speaker 1: of just a big corporate brick wall, you know, and
Speaker 1: it felt more personal and it was a better deal
Speaker 1: for us, even though you know, at first they only
Speaker 1: wanted to sign Anne only, and I got it. I
Speaker 1: don't know how to quite how to responds. It was
Speaker 1: a little bit. Yeah, that was a little hard, you know,
Speaker 1: because she and she was cool enough to say, no,
Speaker 1: I'm I won't do this without these key people and
Speaker 1: me being one of them, and a couple of the
Speaker 1: other players. So you have to sign all of these
Speaker 1: people or I don't sign anything, which was to her
Speaker 1: credit and she never regretted that ever. But the interesting
Speaker 1: thing is, Mike Flicker made that record that is one
Speaker 1: of the best sounding records of all time. People may
Speaker 1: or may not remember. God thirty five years the big
Speaker 1: thing was half Speed Mastered records, and there was a
Speaker 1: half Speed rest Dreamboat. Any you can put that on,
Speaker 1: It would just wake up the whole room. They couldn't
Speaker 1: believe the sound of the record cut by this nobody
Speaker 1: nowhere right. Well, they had one of those incredibly beautiful
Speaker 1: um rooms that you like a muscle shoals kind of
Speaker 1: a room with that type of a board and all
Speaker 1: the tube gear and all the beautiful analog outboard gear
Speaker 1: and um, it was just and he just had a
Speaker 1: really good way of recording things, um up close, so
Speaker 1: you hear the wood in the guitar, and you hear
Speaker 1: the wood in the room, and just really had you know,
Speaker 1: actually ends making an album right now with Mike Flicker
Speaker 1: on her own. Yeah, which is very cool. Right, So
Speaker 1: you're making that record, you're wet behind the years. To
Speaker 1: what degree is that a forgetting the album that resulted?
Speaker 1: To what degree was at a rewarding or frustrating experience
Speaker 1: because usually people always say, oh, my first record, they
Speaker 1: told me what to do, it was what I wanted
Speaker 1: to do, etcetera. Yeah, Well, we were just hell bent,
Speaker 1: you know. We were just um dogged about what we
Speaker 1: what we were going to get out of making this record.
Speaker 1: We worked really hard. We were we were recording and
Speaker 1: then doing shows at night, recording by day doing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we were just putting every single stitch of us into it.
Speaker 1: And um, and it was a big learning curve because
Speaker 1: playing in a band, I had hardly played in that
Speaker 1: band for very long yet I was a sort of
Speaker 1: more of a solo player and singer, and so getting
Speaker 1: the groove right with a band of players is a
Speaker 1: really big lesson. It's a big learning curve to not
Speaker 1: be ahead of that pushing ahead, you know, or two
Speaker 1: lagging too far behind. And the take that has the
Speaker 1: magic in it. You know, you do full takes every
Speaker 1: time of the song, all the way through time and
Speaker 1: time and time and time and time again, until one
Speaker 1: of them felt like there was the magic, or like
Speaker 1: the first half of this one and the second half
Speaker 1: of that one where they take the actual physical tape out,
Speaker 1: cut it with a razor blade and you know, splice
Speaker 1: it together and then see if it worked with no
Speaker 1: safety so it's like whoa. Those were very you know,
Speaker 1: brave times in the recording studio, great times. Very How
Speaker 1: long did it take you to make the first record? Um,
Speaker 1: we didn't have a long time to do it. I
Speaker 1: think it was maybe a couple of months. So the
Speaker 1: record is now done. Are you happy with the record? Very?
Speaker 1: Happy with the record? Okay, happy with the package, happy
Speaker 1: with everything. I hated the package. The picture, you know,
Speaker 1: it was like one of the first times I really
Speaker 1: were makeup and a photo shoot and I thought it
Speaker 1: looked like I had dirt on my face or something.
Speaker 1: So I rubbed it all off, you know, before the
Speaker 1: photographer came in and I don't know, you could just
Speaker 1: see all the pimples everything. You know, it's never liked it,
Speaker 1: but everybody liked it. And it was controversial cover because
Speaker 1: we had bare shoulders that were touching, and so, you know,
Speaker 1: I always heard, you know, there was the classic thing,
Speaker 1: well are they sisters? Said the lovers? I never thought
Speaker 1: that like it? What's you know why I go there
Speaker 1: just to make it a little more scimilating or whatever.
Speaker 1: But that's what it was about. The record is done.
Speaker 1: At that time, I was living in Utah living. I
Speaker 1: remember hearing the songs on the radio, but being in
Speaker 1: the band. What was the first step in the road
Speaker 1: to success of that record, Well, in the book it's
Speaker 1: pretty well described the book Kicking and Dreaming. We were
Speaker 1: still in a club phase when the album started to
Speaker 1: gain momentum, and suddenly we were playing this really god
Speaker 1: awful dinner club, you know, in White Rock or someplace,
Speaker 1: and we got fired for for criticizing the food at
Speaker 1: the place on stage. And then the same night we
Speaker 1: got a call from Rod Stewart's people said come open
Speaker 1: for Rod Stewart in Montreal. So we got on a train,
Speaker 1: went across Canada and opened for Rod Stewart. But a
Speaker 1: little before that had the label gotten songs on the radio.
Speaker 1: On the radio. We we got in a rent a
Speaker 1: car with this guy named Shelley's Eagle and went to
Speaker 1: every is no longer with us, right, No, he's he
Speaker 1: didn't last very long after that, but um, he but
Speaker 1: he was, you know, a little wiry rat of a dude,
Speaker 1: and took us to each and every radio station in
Speaker 1: America basically, Um and I met met the DJs programmers,
Speaker 1: and so go away in the car, you know, did
Speaker 1: the payola thing, gave him whatever kind of drugs or
Speaker 1: whatever else he was doing, and we were just innocent
Speaker 1: enough to not really get it, you know. But we
Speaker 1: broke pretty well region by region according to the regions
Speaker 1: we had actually physically gone and worked station. It seemed
Speaker 1: from the outside it was very quick, it did seem
Speaker 1: from the outside, but it was a long Um. It
Speaker 1: was a region by regions, sort of a growth. We
Speaker 1: just kind of spread out like like a bad growth. No,
Speaker 1: we just uh, we kind of started. It was in
Speaker 1: the Midwest where they liked us first, and we kind
Speaker 1: of spread west after that and Finally, last but not least,
Speaker 1: the East Coast came on board. Okay, were there any
Speaker 1: moments of doubt or once you started making the record
Speaker 1: everything you just up, up, up. It was going fast
Speaker 1: and it was. It was really exciting and like opening
Speaker 1: for Rod Stewart at this big arena where people had
Speaker 1: heard our music and liked it already. We didn't know
Speaker 1: they'd already knew our music and we started playing probably
Speaker 1: magic Man, and they all lit there. Um. Then it
Speaker 1: was it was before matches. That's really dating myself, but
Speaker 1: I don't think the latters were a thing yet. They
Speaker 1: had zippos probably, and it looked like a sea of stars.
Speaker 1: It was just like magical. It was like unforgettably amazing
Speaker 1: and cool and big and um unfathomed, and the rock
Speaker 1: of it was like, this is rock. This is what
Speaker 1: I want rock and roll to be right here, right now.
Speaker 1: Let's see of stars. You know, God, you know it
Speaker 1: makes me takenal just hear about it all these years later.
Speaker 1: So then that's a one off with Rod Stewart. Um.
Speaker 1: We opened for Rod Um a few shows, I believe,
Speaker 1: and then we got more offers from like zz top
Speaker 1: z Z top we opened for ZZ and we opened
Speaker 1: for April Wine, big Canadian vans, so we did a
Speaker 1: lot of Canadian shows and bigger places, and um, you know,
Speaker 1: Billy Gibbons said, Hey, you're pretty good for a girl.
Speaker 1: Hold that thought. We'll take a quick break and get
Speaker 1: right back to this conversation with Nancy Wilson at the
Speaker 1: band part. Thanks for listening to this week's edition of
Speaker 1: the Bob Left Sets podcast. If you want to see
Speaker 1: photos and videos of my guests and the tune in
Speaker 1: studios here in Venice, California, check out at tune In
Speaker 1: on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. And now more with Nancy Wilson.
Speaker 1: Now you're on the road. We're in the height of
Speaker 1: the me too movement and you're one of the few people,
Speaker 1: one of the few women playing music is famous. But
Speaker 1: if you start narrowing it down to being a guitarist
Speaker 1: and playing rock, there aren't that many people. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: a small group of us. So what was it like
Speaker 1: being a woman in that world? Well, it was interesting.
Speaker 1: I'll go back to the fact that we were military rats, um,
Speaker 1: having that dogged sort of ideology just to get it,
Speaker 1: get there and do what it is. That was our
Speaker 1: bliss to get our bliss, you know, to wrangle the
Speaker 1: bliss our bliss to the ground. And um that because
Speaker 1: our mom was so strong I guess too, and had
Speaker 1: been the father and a mother mainly for us, that
Speaker 1: we saw the strength and we took her strength with
Speaker 1: us and we just didn't really take no. I mean
Speaker 1: when somebody tried to insinuate that we were sister lovers,
Speaker 1: you know, that's why we wrote Barracuda. Um, we just
Speaker 1: weren't going to have it that way. And we knew
Speaker 1: we were strong enough to especially with each other there
Speaker 1: to lean on as women. We weren't kind of singled out,
Speaker 1: you know, we had our own wagons in a circle.
Speaker 1: So um. And you know, when you play guitar and
Speaker 1: it's you can turn it up to ten or eleven. Um,
Speaker 1: it's a lethal weapon. I mean, it's it's a it's
Speaker 1: a force, and it's it's a weapon too. It's a
Speaker 1: weapon for good, which music is, you know, which is
Speaker 1: what you want to protect, is the you know, the
Speaker 1: beautiful um kernel of what makes music so great and
Speaker 1: what inspires people and heals people about music. But if
Speaker 1: anybody comes up with pin wheels for eyes running at
Speaker 1: you on a rock stage, you have a weapon in
Speaker 1: your hand, you know. I once went the first Elvis
Speaker 1: Costello tour, played the whiskey and some guy uh started
Speaker 1: acting out on stage and he literally put his strato
Speaker 1: caster uh. When the strato caster was a well, it's
Speaker 1: the other one with only two uh um, two big
Speaker 1: broad uh, the one that was most expensive, and it
Speaker 1: was also played by the by the Beach Boys. Suddenly
Speaker 1: I forget, but I used to know. All these guitar
Speaker 1: things was fascinating. But he put it over his folder
Speaker 1: and the other guys that are being broke glasses and
Speaker 1: they were right there to fight the guy. And I
Speaker 1: remember being there. Even made Time magazine. But the perception
Speaker 1: on the outside would be that being a woman, when
Speaker 1: you weren't on stage, you had to fend off men
Speaker 1: to a certain degree. Was that true? Yes? I mean
Speaker 1: in a band, you've got your camaraderie and your circle
Speaker 1: of dudes that you kind of travel as pack, so
Speaker 1: you already kind of normally have that bit of a
Speaker 1: buffer zone just naturally with you. But I had a
Speaker 1: lot of run ins with just guys that are trying
Speaker 1: to come on to me, and I developed a system
Speaker 1: I guess of of just like if you're walking, you
Speaker 1: have to walk with purpose, you know, you have to
Speaker 1: um speak with purpose. You can't be wishy washy, and
Speaker 1: you have to really know how to insinuate your power
Speaker 1: on someone else with words or with with even just
Speaker 1: body language. So it's funny you mentioned that because I
Speaker 1: was married to someone who didn't understand all that it
Speaker 1: would end up in bad situations. You have to send
Speaker 1: a signal, right, It's it can be very um invisible,
Speaker 1: you know, to the but you're sending the singles. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like when you're walking down the hall and you're
Speaker 1: gonna go this way and somebody else is going to
Speaker 1: go that way. The body language is what you read
Speaker 1: off the other person. Now, just you know this is
Speaker 1: all this is dangerous territory. But if you talk to
Speaker 1: male musicians to a great degree, they all say, I
Speaker 1: really couldn't talk anybody. I spoke through my music. And
Speaker 1: I wanted to be famous for the sexual opportunities, for
Speaker 1: the guy, for the girls. That ever cost the mind
Speaker 1: of a woman. I'm on the road, there are all
Speaker 1: these men who are fixated on me. I think, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think a lot of women have have wanted to
Speaker 1: use men the way they've probably felt used by men
Speaker 1: with that kind of power that rock rock stage gives
Speaker 1: you or music music will give you. UM. Performance can
Speaker 1: give you that. UM. But I guess I never felt
Speaker 1: that way. I never felt like objectifying men as sexualizing
Speaker 1: men from that standpoint. Was always really sexual person and
Speaker 1: very interested in the sexuality of the music, what the
Speaker 1: music brings across, and how romantic it can also be,
Speaker 1: which is more sexy to me than just sexy just
Speaker 1: staying there the way you describe that. You know what
Speaker 1: people people at this era where stardom is so anointed
Speaker 1: and prevalent, people forget that underneath it, people are actually musicians.
Speaker 1: So I have to trust you. Since you've met, you've
Speaker 1: used a lot of terms and a lot of insight
Speaker 1: as being a musician. Do you find that you like
Speaker 1: that cocoon and it is somewhat difficult interacting with non
Speaker 1: musician people or that's really really interesting question. Um. There
Speaker 1: is a total language with musicians. If you're in different
Speaker 1: recording studios for different purposes and different projects with almost
Speaker 1: any other musicians, you already have the language. Everyone has
Speaker 1: the same jokes, the same There's just a total musician style, um,
Speaker 1: a lifestyle, and a lot of it comes from all
Speaker 1: the hours of trying and failing and trying and failing
Speaker 1: and learning your craft and being getting good at it
Speaker 1: and knowing when to shut up and when to give
Speaker 1: you know, over too not to cover up too much space,
Speaker 1: but when to when to shine, you know, all those
Speaker 1: various lessons that musicians have take with them, and that
Speaker 1: makes a personality type. Um. So I've never felt as
Speaker 1: at home with a lot of regular folks in life,
Speaker 1: you know, Like, I mean, I like people, and I'm
Speaker 1: good with people, and I believe people are good, you know,
Speaker 1: despite a lot of the evidence. But um yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: just kind of a I'm kind of clumsy in social
Speaker 1: settings where it's like what will I say? Now? You know,
Speaker 1: how am I supposed to act? Right? Yeah, I certainly
Speaker 1: understand that. But let's go back to the band. So
Speaker 1: the Dreamboat any blows up, okay, and then the whole
Speaker 1: thing blows up. So you ultimately get in a war
Speaker 1: with a label. You switched to Epic. What's going on
Speaker 1: at that time? There was trouble with the second album.
Speaker 1: That's really kind of boring, you know, it's not interesting
Speaker 1: at all. But but you was you could have technically
Speaker 1: have been stopped from making it the rest of the album,
Speaker 1: recording the album, Okay, but just so I know, because
Speaker 1: you know, there's been a lot of stories whatever the
Speaker 1: second album you intended to make for Mushroom, Yeah, and
Speaker 1: then they found out you were negotiating with Epic. How
Speaker 1: that ultimately something in there got real fishy with between
Speaker 1: Mushroom and Epic and we needed to we had a
Speaker 1: key man clause to get us out of being forced
Speaker 1: to release a mush another Mushroom or Epic um released
Speaker 1: that they wanted to finish without our actual without our
Speaker 1: actual input. So there was it was a it was
Speaker 1: a litigious time, Bob. Their number of bands been through
Speaker 1: this and it almost you know, destroyed Springstein and Petty.
Speaker 1: So being in the middle of that, Maelstrom, what was
Speaker 1: your perspective, um, we were just really p oed. We
Speaker 1: were pissed, and we were on, you know, on a
Speaker 1: a tirade to get the album finished, um in in
Speaker 1: a ten day period so that we'd have our own
Speaker 1: input on the album. And the other one was released
Speaker 1: anyway that didn't have our approval and was taken and
Speaker 1: then was taken off the shelves after that, so it's
Speaker 1: a rarity, but you know, it was just all this stuff.
Speaker 1: We were sleeping under the console and taking turns, finishing
Speaker 1: overdubs and before the deadline, you know, to try to
Speaker 1: get our own artistic content on this album. So then
Speaker 1: you switched to Epeck. Though legal wars are behind you
Speaker 1: and you continue to have success. Yes, what was that
Speaker 1: like to be one that success after another? Well, it
Speaker 1: was it was It was fraught with you know, the
Speaker 1: things that naturally come after you've started, and then you're
Speaker 1: trying to sustain you're a career with something that's meaningfully
Speaker 1: creative in your life, and so we were touring more.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is the age old story. You know,
Speaker 1: all the story in the world. You have your lifetime
Speaker 1: to make your first of them and then you know,
Speaker 1: everyone says it, but it's true, and then you're kind
Speaker 1: of forced to hurry up and create and you have
Speaker 1: X amount of time. Rest of it, you're making money
Speaker 1: on the road, and then that's a big that's a
Speaker 1: siren song in itself because you're now you're big and
Speaker 1: popular and you're on the road and there's all this
Speaker 1: other world of of distractions and potential you know, um
Speaker 1: accidents that you're gonna and the potential accidents or what. Well,
Speaker 1: there's there's like the world becomes your oyster, and there's
Speaker 1: there's lavish restaurants, and there's lavish wines and everyone is
Speaker 1: stroking your ego and all those typical things that my
Speaker 1: mom and dad warned us about, the tinsel town of
Speaker 1: it all. You know, we're just like, Oh, I think
Speaker 1: I buy a farm on you know, the Oregon coast,
Speaker 1: a hundred and sixty acre farm, and you know, get
Speaker 1: dune buggies and have horses, and I think I'm like
Speaker 1: gonna be like Neil Young and you know, and go
Speaker 1: there and ride. It's like, only trouble is is fourteen
Speaker 1: hours to get there, you know. So you never get there,
Speaker 1: and then you have to sell the farm, and you
Speaker 1: had another house and you can't afford both of them
Speaker 1: and they won't sell it. Just all of the financial
Speaker 1: hoi filoy and who haa that you have to learn
Speaker 1: the hard way to get through. Okay. So Rock and
Speaker 1: rolls rife with stories of people who earned money they
Speaker 1: didn't get to them. You're working hard, you feel successful.
Speaker 1: Was money trickling down into your account. Well, I was
Speaker 1: spending it pretty fast, but no, I was just to
Speaker 1: be honest, I was, um like, more than a millionaire
Speaker 1: by twenty one, and then really broke by thirty five,
Speaker 1: and then a millionaire again. And in the eighties, you know,
Speaker 1: double millionaire over here and then really hard luck over there.
Speaker 1: It was just a real estate disorder, I think. So
Speaker 1: at this point in time, with all these ups and downs,
Speaker 1: do you think you're really good with money now or
Speaker 1: you're still bad. I don't know one thing about money anymore. Ever,
Speaker 1: I never have. Um, it's been you know, my Achilles
Speaker 1: heel um. But I'm married to somebody that does so yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: so he's a good yeah watch dog. So okay, you're
Speaker 1: making these records for Epic. Are you happy with those records?
Speaker 1: They were? They were less and less for me, less
Speaker 1: and less um solid artistically that we got a little
Speaker 1: more big for our bridges and hubrists kind of kicked
Speaker 1: in and we were gonna be there. We're gonna fire
Speaker 1: some guys in the band, and then we're going to
Speaker 1: record it the way we want to record it. We're
Speaker 1: gonna you know, be the producers and play more of
Speaker 1: the parts ourselves and um, he got uneven. Those albums
Speaker 1: got pretty uneven, there were They all had really nice
Speaker 1: I think gems in there, but as peace as a whole,
Speaker 1: those albums were kind of you know, scattered and how
Speaker 1: did it end with epic and you end up in Capital.
Speaker 1: We'd sort of had a downturn for a while there
Speaker 1: for all the obvious reasons. And when we decided we
Speaker 1: wanted to try to give it one more college try,
Speaker 1: we hired a manager, we hired we wanted to get
Speaker 1: a new record company and management, and wanted to retool
Speaker 1: our entire image. And so we we got out the
Speaker 1: glam and you know, I got the big hair and
Speaker 1: the fashionistas of rock, you know, and we we went
Speaker 1: very um prince in the revolution with it, and MTV
Speaker 1: started to happen, so then it was all about visuals
Speaker 1: and so you know, we had some of that to
Speaker 1: give over. Um that became obnoxious after Whilbough too, because
Speaker 1: it became overblown about bastic as you well remember, by
Speaker 1: the end of the eighties, the bombast had grown to
Speaker 1: such an extent that when the Seattle explosion came along,
Speaker 1: it was just like what the doctor ordered after MTV.
Speaker 1: You know, let's go back to where we were talking
Speaker 1: about the money. If you never played another note on stage,
Speaker 1: do you have enough money to get to the end.
Speaker 1: I have some savings, now, that's what I mean. I mean,
Speaker 1: you have enough saved and there's enough income from maybe
Speaker 1: songs or whatever such that if you stopped playing today,
Speaker 1: you could retire on that money. No, I don't think so. Okay, Honestly, um,
Speaker 1: the touring life is was the actual real money and
Speaker 1: not so much the songwriting anymore or the licensing that's
Speaker 1: really really dwindled who next to nothing? So it used
Speaker 1: to be very different. You know. Songwriting used to be
Speaker 1: really lucrative, and I'm sure it is for a lot
Speaker 1: of these guys now, but um, you have to have
Speaker 1: big hits, you know too. And and now it's like
Speaker 1: teams of production and writer teams and it's art by committee,
Speaker 1: you know. But but I used to make really good
Speaker 1: money at songwriting and touring. Um used to loan your songs. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: So let's go back and go to the Capital era.
Speaker 1: Is it your decision to clamb it up or is
Speaker 1: it their decision to clamb it up? The league? It
Speaker 1: was sort of a mutually agreed upon thrust, you know, like, Okay,
Speaker 1: we're gonna do it this way. We're gonna go on,
Speaker 1: We're gonna get big makeup, big hair design. You know,
Speaker 1: wardrobe and makeup and hair and um, you know, camera allights,
Speaker 1: action and you know, okay, now simper and pout and
Speaker 1: you know a lot of stuff we would just naturally
Speaker 1: do on a buck stage. But when there's cameras, now
Speaker 1: there's there's you know, lots of teams have been you know,
Speaker 1: cast have been her extras going on, you know, doing there.
Speaker 1: I mean some of those videos sets were just outlandishly ridiculous.
Speaker 1: I mean just ridiculous. And you see that stuff now
Speaker 1: and it's very entertaining because it was so but it's
Speaker 1: so dated, you know, it's so of its time. What
Speaker 1: do your kids say about those videos? They get a
Speaker 1: really good laugh out belly laugh when they see that stuff,
Speaker 1: and so do I. Okay, but now we all remember
Speaker 1: the power of MTV as big as you were, and
Speaker 1: you've been around for years at that point. Once you're
Speaker 1: on MTV, everybody knows who you are. The American living
Speaker 1: room says, hello, Yeah, it was weird because it was
Speaker 1: such a new feature in our story as musicians. And
Speaker 1: at one point somebody said, um, well, oh you must
Speaker 1: have had your boobs done, and I was like, what,
Speaker 1: you know, just because it was accented and um, and
Speaker 1: do you really play the guitar? Yes, it's not a prop,
Speaker 1: you know, And it was just kind of like that's
Speaker 1: where it sort of went over the line in a
Speaker 1: way for the just being having being taken seriously as
Speaker 1: a musician, when it's more like you're now you're a
Speaker 1: sex kitten, and what about the musician part, you know.
Speaker 1: And then in the height of MTV, can you go
Speaker 1: to the grocery store? Not as much? No, I mean,
Speaker 1: especially if Ann and I were together going anywhere, because
Speaker 1: it's like the two of them together is the aspect
Speaker 1: of them together. Um, I could get away with more
Speaker 1: you know, anonymity on my own. And I always like
Speaker 1: to try to go to the store, you know, um,
Speaker 1: to live a normal life. But whether audience that's right, Well,
Speaker 1: you know, I go to the store a lot now,
Speaker 1: and it's great. I like being normal. I like having
Speaker 1: a kitchen in a you know, washerton dryer for Christ's sake.
Speaker 1: But okay, going back to the empty VI era, all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, from the outside looks like the focused
Speaker 1: changes from your sister to you. Well, there was that
Speaker 1: too that was going on with her weight at the
Speaker 1: time was um less than what was supposedly acceptable, So
Speaker 1: she wasn't you know. They they there were some mean
Speaker 1: spirited things going on in the press about it. When
Speaker 1: we were playing shows, they would comment more about that
Speaker 1: than the show about her, you know, her her weight
Speaker 1: and that. Then they would contrast me to her and say,
Speaker 1: you know the demure um, you know, the blonde, sexy
Speaker 1: demure sister and then the the sort of overweight Catterwallen sister,
Speaker 1: and it was just really mean. A lot of that
Speaker 1: stuff was really mean. So we started to say, don't
Speaker 1: show us any reviews unless they're good, and then we
Speaker 1: didn't really see any reviews. But it was just a
Speaker 1: weird time um that was so focused on image and
Speaker 1: less on music that it I think that was part
Speaker 1: of 's issue. It's like she felt so much pressure.
Speaker 1: How did the two of you get along during that era.
Speaker 1: We had a harder time just as people getting through
Speaker 1: that era because of the pressure on me too before
Speaker 1: in front and when she had started the band, you know,
Speaker 1: and uh, and she was going through her own sort
Speaker 1: of personal stuff issues and I'm fighting with her own demons,
Speaker 1: and so it was right. I mean, we had the
Speaker 1: most money and but the least the least amount of
Speaker 1: joy from that whole era. And you know, there was
Speaker 1: just one day where they offered us like one million
Speaker 1: dollars to play a show at a festival somewhere, But
Speaker 1: it just happened to be the day that I had
Speaker 1: planned on getting married, you know, and I said, no,
Speaker 1: I mean, not one million dollars is going to change
Speaker 1: my mind. So you know, there's there's always ethical issues
Speaker 1: going on in that era, and a lot of it
Speaker 1: was artistically ethical issues. Okay, but at that point, once
Speaker 1: you're a capital, you're now using co writers, other people involved.
Speaker 1: We were, um, we were sort of encouraged by way
Speaker 1: of um, sort of how do you say, we won't
Speaker 1: back you, we won't back your album threatened, that's the word. Um.
Speaker 1: If we didn't use outside writers, the stable of l
Speaker 1: A hit makers typewriters, we could have a few of
Speaker 1: our own songs on the albums too. If we went
Speaker 1: with the hits that they chose from other writers, which
Speaker 1: that had written other writers have written, so you know,
Speaker 1: that was happening everywhere. It was Aerosmith, it was all
Speaker 1: the rock bands were doing it, all the big power ballads.
Speaker 1: You know. But even what was it like, because you
Speaker 1: have bona fides as a musician, so what was it
Speaker 1: like being thrust in that situation? It was? It was weird.
Speaker 1: I mean, we'd always prided ourselves on being originally active
Speaker 1: you know writers and um, even though we sort of
Speaker 1: lost some of our thread, you know, as talented hit songwriter, UM,
Speaker 1: being kind of forced having these other priders forced down
Speaker 1: our throats in a way was really upsetting and kind
Speaker 1: of um. It was you know, it was it was upsetting.
Speaker 1: And a lot of the songs we would audition, song
Speaker 1: after song after song after song with the then producer
Speaker 1: just cossette tape cassette tape cassette tape, song after song
Speaker 1: after song, and there were so many that were so
Speaker 1: formulaic and so much the same, and so many that
Speaker 1: were demo singers, um singing about some guy broke my heart,
Speaker 1: just like the Victim of the Victim and the Victim
Speaker 1: and more Victims and um or like the Sexy Chick songs.
Speaker 1: And it was just like really disappointing, and it was
Speaker 1: it was very narrow. It was a very narrow um
Speaker 1: line to walk. So we did find beautiful songs. We
Speaker 1: found these Dreams, which um, they didn't even want us
Speaker 1: to actually do, but I said, I have to do
Speaker 1: this song. This one's for me, and um and Bernie
Speaker 1: Topen's lyrics are always amazing. Um and Alone, great song,
Speaker 1: and a few others. But um, it was just really strange.
Speaker 1: Put your feature to the fire, and you know, in
Speaker 1: order to save a couple of your own originals, you
Speaker 1: have to do these other, big, bombastic ones. And so
Speaker 1: what was it like? Was it as satisfying having kids
Speaker 1: with somebody else's songs as it was having kids with
Speaker 1: your own? Um? No, Actually it was just a pride issue,
Speaker 1: like artistic you know control. I mean I loved I've
Speaker 1: grown to love songs like Alone and songs like these
Speaker 1: Dreams a lot because I think they hold integrity and
Speaker 1: they're kind of aimeless and and there there it's about
Speaker 1: more than just wimpy girls, you know, acting whimpy um,
Speaker 1: whining whining whimpy girls. But um, but yeah, I think
Speaker 1: it was it's it's a hollow victory when you have
Speaker 1: Huger success with less of your own footprint to you know,
Speaker 1: to show for it. And so how does it end
Speaker 1: in the capitol years? Is it you know, all of
Speaker 1: a sudden records aren't successful or what happens? Um? I
Speaker 1: think we had the deal that was for a couple
Speaker 1: of albums, I think, and we've fulfilled our agreement and
Speaker 1: we've done our deed and we'd um sort of reached
Speaker 1: a we've kind of reached our um critical mass as
Speaker 1: a band with the issues with Waite and the imaging
Speaker 1: and the end of the eighties and how music was
Speaker 1: about to explode into something completely different. So we kind
Speaker 1: of decided to let it lay at that. Let us
Speaker 1: just let us sit and take a sabbatical and go
Speaker 1: home and you know, get some time at home and
Speaker 1: see our family and do some laundry, have a kitchen
Speaker 1: and washer and dryer, and um drive a car, oh
Speaker 1: my god. And uh so we we kind of made
Speaker 1: the Lovemongers. Then well, we sort of had it with
Speaker 1: the big sporting event type you know, rock shows, where
Speaker 1: it was it was just too big, too much, and
Speaker 1: the pressure was to to be like like an MTV
Speaker 1: video all the time. So we decided we put on
Speaker 1: our combat boots and go to Seattle and kick around
Speaker 1: in some some clubs again and where you could just
Speaker 1: see the whites of their eyes and connect and just
Speaker 1: do whatever the heck we wanted to do song wise,
Speaker 1: Like we covered Moody Blues, and we covered stones, and
Speaker 1: we did our own stuff too, and some new stuff,
Speaker 1: and we made a couple albums. We made a good
Speaker 1: uh Christmas album, and we made a album called Whirlygig.
Speaker 1: We just had a blast. It was just it was
Speaker 1: like everything was lifted off of us and it was
Speaker 1: back to you know, making no money, actually paying to
Speaker 1: play basically. But it was really fulfilling. So ultimately good experience,
Speaker 1: very good experience, and that brings us with yeah, I
Speaker 1: guess so. And then what was the thinking then? Well,
Speaker 1: I was decided to start a family, and so I
Speaker 1: couldn't be kind of on tour with heart, you know,
Speaker 1: we kind of had put it on hold. And then um,
Speaker 1: instead of going back out with heart, UM, I stayed
Speaker 1: at home for a few years just trying to to
Speaker 1: you know, do fertility stuff and start my family, which
Speaker 1: took longer than I ever expected it would take. Starting
Speaker 1: at an older age at that time, and then um
Speaker 1: so Anne went out on her own and did like
Speaker 1: a bunch of like Marine Corps bases, and I guess
Speaker 1: there was like a Marlborough sponsorship or something like that,
Speaker 1: and she, you know, she kept on going, and I,
Speaker 1: you know, it took me quite a while to get
Speaker 1: back to doing Heart after I had my kids and
Speaker 1: they were two years old and we went back out
Speaker 1: and oh two the summer of love to her, Now
Speaker 1: that you have kids and you've done everything, is it
Speaker 1: possible to do everything? Is it possible to be a
Speaker 1: world famous rock star and I have a thing or well,
Speaker 1: I think it's next to impossible. I'm not sure how
Speaker 1: I've managed to do it. I mean, it's the biggest
Speaker 1: um stress that I've ever felt, was to try to
Speaker 1: balance how much to tour and how much to be
Speaker 1: home and in order to get enough to survive and
Speaker 1: afford everything at the same time. So it's something that
Speaker 1: I think a lot of career women, not just in music,
Speaker 1: but a lot of women have to deal with. And
Speaker 1: if if they're highly paid career women, then you've got
Speaker 1: you've got a team of experts to help with your kids.
Speaker 1: But a lot of people don't so you know, and
Speaker 1: I wanted to be on the ground. I wanted to
Speaker 1: be I didn't want to miss it either. So we
Speaker 1: were doing a lot of tours where they would come out.
Speaker 1: We'd have the diaper pail on the tour of us
Speaker 1: and we you don't have the babies, the football sized
Speaker 1: kids out with us. And then we'd have when they
Speaker 1: got bigger and they had to start school, then we'd
Speaker 1: have them come out for breaks and UM, have a
Speaker 1: nanny come with them and somebody to watch them when
Speaker 1: we were on the stage, feed him, get him to
Speaker 1: bed when we were before the show is over. So
Speaker 1: we've worked on it from every angle as much as
Speaker 1: we could work on it that way, and being able
Speaker 1: to see your kids and have your job at the
Speaker 1: same time, but it's hard when your job is traveling.
Speaker 1: You know, your kids are not you know, they're not
Speaker 1: vag born vagabonds like like me. You know, the military
Speaker 1: to our life. That's how we started. So it's interesting.
Speaker 1: So do you have any regrets that you didn't spend
Speaker 1: enough time with your kids or we didn't give them enough.
Speaker 1: I've I've pulled, I've been pulled apart a lot about it.
Speaker 1: UM feeling like I was going to miss a lot,
Speaker 1: and I missed some of it. And but you know,
Speaker 1: I do music, so that's my job. So that's I
Speaker 1: think that's the that's the sacrifice. Um. The most important
Speaker 1: part of the time together, though, is the quality of
Speaker 1: the time together. Sounds very you know, died in the
Speaker 1: world tried and true, but it is true that if
Speaker 1: you're present and you're really there, you're not just oh,
Speaker 1: I've just gotta you know, sort of be the token
Speaker 1: parent in the house. You know, it's like, no, you're
Speaker 1: gonna get You're gonna climb into the cardboard box with them,
Speaker 1: and you're gonna show them how to cook, and you're
Speaker 1: gonna watch the movies and read the books out loud
Speaker 1: at night, help them fall asleep and all of it.
Speaker 1: And if this point in time, it's kind of a
Speaker 1: difficult question in terms of to put yourself in these shoes.
Speaker 1: Do you feel that if you hadn't had children you
Speaker 1: would be is fulfilled? I always really wanted to have children, Um,
Speaker 1: and I'm a natural nurturing type person. So you know,
Speaker 1: I've always had dogs and I've just always been that person.
Speaker 1: Our mom was like that ends much more like our
Speaker 1: dad you know, so she's more kind of the aloof one.
Speaker 1: I'm more the hands on mommy type person. Okay, but
Speaker 1: you didn't have your kids until relatively late, so it
Speaker 1: was in the back of your mind all these years
Speaker 1: on the road. Wow, while my kids, am I going
Speaker 1: to have them? Not have them? Yeah? I always planned
Speaker 1: on having them, and I figured, you know, well, when
Speaker 1: the time is right, and then the next big wave
Speaker 1: would happen, you know, like you fight for the wave
Speaker 1: to happen, and then the wave comes and then you
Speaker 1: have to, you know, work for the wave and the
Speaker 1: wave carries you. So um, the timing was difficult, and
Speaker 1: I never felt that it would ever be if I
Speaker 1: don't make it happen and stop myself from continuing on
Speaker 1: the never ending cycle, that it would ever happen. So
Speaker 1: I stopped on purpose and just for that thing. And
Speaker 1: so people I don't have children, but people say, you know,
Speaker 1: once the kids are born, you know, it changes your
Speaker 1: life and it's the most important thing. Most people don't
Speaker 1: have the level of success in their career as you've had. Now.
Speaker 1: I don't want to do a direct comparison between career
Speaker 1: success and children, but what's it like from your perspective, Well,
Speaker 1: I think career success. We've lived our lifetime at least
Speaker 1: three or four times as as careerists. You know. Um,
Speaker 1: we're lucky if we we can still get arrested. I'm
Speaker 1: sure if heart goes out again, um, which remains to
Speaker 1: be seen. But uh, I think having the kids, the
Speaker 1: fulfillment of being a parent, and just the raw and
Speaker 1: insane pain of being a parent, and the responsibility and
Speaker 1: fear of being a parent, and fearing for the life
Speaker 1: of your child and the safety and all of the
Speaker 1: you know, all of the exasperating elements of parenting it.
Speaker 1: It also injects you with a a deeper sense of humanity,
Speaker 1: which then translates into the work. So I feel like
Speaker 1: the songs I've been writing now are way more kind
Speaker 1: of generated from a deeper place, not just a place
Speaker 1: I'm gonna get some dudes you know, or you know,
Speaker 1: but or just be you know, on a rock stage
Speaker 1: where people dig me. But it's a human thing. This
Speaker 1: is Bob left Step. So I'm a writer and you
Speaker 1: could read my stuff at left steps dot com. I'd
Speaker 1: like to invite you to attend my mu Sick Media Summit.
Speaker 1: Santa Barbara the last weekend enabled I'd love for you
Speaker 1: to come and learn from the best in the business,
Speaker 1: like Troy Carter of Spotify. If you're interested, go to
Speaker 1: Music Media Summit dot com to sign up. And now
Speaker 1: let's dive right back in with my guest Nancy Wilson.
Speaker 1: You reform the band in two thousand two, you go
Speaker 1: on the Summer of Love tour. Is there any idea
Speaker 1: of where you are in the marketplace? Do you think
Speaker 1: you can have hits again? Do you don't think you're
Speaker 1: gonna have hits again? What's the mind thought through there? Well, Um,
Speaker 1: we were out working the We were just ready to
Speaker 1: get out and work the real estate again and still
Speaker 1: tickets play heart songs that people know. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: we weren't really trying to write new stuff. We were
Speaker 1: just trying to get back on some kind of a
Speaker 1: track with me back in the band. And um, we
Speaker 1: played every single place with Electricity. You know, we went
Speaker 1: for the next like however many years till the last
Speaker 1: couple of years ago, we've been out playing every place
Speaker 1: with Electricity. You play essentially every summer, every summer mainly
Speaker 1: and the ship times, in the in the falls, and
Speaker 1: sometimes in the winter. How many A couple of hundred times.
Speaker 1: That's a lot of work. There's no there's nary a
Speaker 1: comfort zone to be had, like eighty two hundred sometimes two? Okay,
Speaker 1: who's the manager now? Um? Right now we're between Okay,
Speaker 1: who was the manager before? Carol Peters? Okay, so you're out.
Speaker 1: How do you feel playing the same I'm a writer.
Speaker 1: One of the bad things I have is I'll write
Speaker 1: something great, so that's it. I can't write it again,
Speaker 1: you know whatever. Whereas a musician can play the same
Speaker 1: song to eternity. But what's up like being on stage
Speaker 1: playing Crazy on You? You know, forty years later? Well,
Speaker 1: it's a it's really a testament to songs like Crazy
Speaker 1: on You and Barracuda that they're still fun to play. Um,
Speaker 1: and you see people react to it. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: I don't think Anne feels the same way. How do
Speaker 1: you think she feels? I think she feels more like, um,
Speaker 1: you know, I've done this enough and I want to
Speaker 1: do something really different and fun and for herself. But
Speaker 1: I still get a big drill out of like doing
Speaker 1: the kick when Crazy on You start and seeing people
Speaker 1: go nuts, and it's just like it's a high and
Speaker 1: songs like Barracuda and I have new band, now to
Speaker 1: a new band. Um, we're gonna get to that. But
Speaker 1: let's say, okay, so you do this. You go out
Speaker 1: every summer. Let's say you play and you're off stage
Speaker 1: eleven pm. Okay, when do you fall asleep? But too
Speaker 1: probably around two. And this is in a bus. In
Speaker 1: a bus to wind down, it takes a while to
Speaker 1: wind down, and you normally you want to have like
Speaker 1: something to eat, you know, because you couldn't eat before
Speaker 1: the show. You were nervous, So you have to have
Speaker 1: something sensible to eat that's not pizza. So you have
Speaker 1: to try to make something on the bus before the
Speaker 1: bus pulls away, so you're not jostling around trying to
Speaker 1: cook anything. So I got pretty good at cooking in
Speaker 1: the kitchenette on the bus the galley. Um. And then
Speaker 1: you kind of want to recap the night with the
Speaker 1: band members um or or try to watch a movie
Speaker 1: and just kind of, you know, unspool the energy. And
Speaker 1: because you know, once you go back into your bunk,
Speaker 1: it's just like you're in a little you're you're kind
Speaker 1: of stuck by yourself. Yeah right, I mean, some you
Speaker 1: can watch stuff in there too on your on your laptop,
Speaker 1: but it's jostling around and you can't really sleep very
Speaker 1: well anyway, so you know, and then you if if
Speaker 1: you're lucky, you can sleep, you can wake up at
Speaker 1: the gig the next gig and sleep in until sound
Speaker 1: check starts, and then you get up and do your
Speaker 1: sound check and do your hair and makeup and go play.
Speaker 1: But it's um, it's you know, and the hotels are
Speaker 1: not so much to brag about usually because you're trying
Speaker 1: to save money and so it's it's really kind of
Speaker 1: the best part of any rock and roll tour day
Speaker 1: is the two hours on stage. It's just that, you know,
Speaker 1: transcendent thing, and it's the thrill of people coming and
Speaker 1: shin sharing with you, you know, and the songs themselves
Speaker 1: are the the honey that draws draws the b and
Speaker 1: So let's assume you went on the road for three
Speaker 1: months and you come home. How long does it take
Speaker 1: to recover from that, um, well, it takes about it
Speaker 1: takes about three or four days or a week. Um too.
Speaker 1: Kind of the momentum that you're so used to, the
Speaker 1: momentum of always going and going and going and getting
Speaker 1: there doing that and going some more and never really stopping. Um,
Speaker 1: you're kind of like, wait a minute, I'm sitting here,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm looking at a piece of dust in
Speaker 1: the in the air. You know. It's sort of like
Speaker 1: that moment where you're like, Wow, should I meditate or something?
Speaker 1: You know, it's it's a real it's a it's really
Speaker 1: jarring when you stop. Yeah. So I mean this is
Speaker 1: public information. But on the last part tour, the public
Speaker 1: story was there was an altercation between Hand's husband and
Speaker 1: your children. Where does that leave the relationships now? Well,
Speaker 1: you know, right now, sadly, it's hasn't left it in
Speaker 1: a good place at all. Um. You know, I know
Speaker 1: Anna and I will always adore each other, and UM,
Speaker 1: I Wanna, you know, always attested loving each other. But
Speaker 1: that was just kind of a weird UM. I think
Speaker 1: it was kind of a power move, um and a
Speaker 1: control thing. In addition to the rub be bad behavior,
Speaker 1: there was that subtext Yeah that's what I believe and um,
Speaker 1: and it's been sort of that way ever since. And
Speaker 1: I understand her desire to get out there and not
Speaker 1: do the same thing, you know, and not be holed
Speaker 1: into the the heart machine, you know, Um, But I
Speaker 1: think the sad part. I mean, I respect her wishes
Speaker 1: to go out and try new stuff, which I think
Speaker 1: is great for her and healthy for her, um, But
Speaker 1: for me, for the fans, I think it's a sad
Speaker 1: thing because we still have it in us too to
Speaker 1: take it around. You know. So are you again in
Speaker 1: communication with Ann? Not really. I kind of put it
Speaker 1: out there but a few times and it's just not
Speaker 1: coming back. You know. From an outside observer, it would
Speaker 1: seem that it was her husband who was accused of
Speaker 1: bad behavior, so we think that she would be the
Speaker 1: one who wanted to be apologetic. Well, I think she's, Um,
Speaker 1: she wants to apologize for him right and protect him.
Speaker 1: It's her first real relationship since the very beginning, so
Speaker 1: you know, she's I think she's protecting her new found
Speaker 1: relationship and that's more important to her right now than
Speaker 1: any event. You're a menable to getting the sinews, you know,
Speaker 1: building again the first on a personal level, So it's
Speaker 1: more on her end that she's rel I think she's
Speaker 1: reluctant and she's going to have to figure it out
Speaker 1: for a while and maybe be ready maybe not. Well eventually,
Speaker 1: you know, I hate to be so you know, bottom
Speaker 1: line about this. Eventually, the money makes everybody ready, even
Speaker 1: the Eagles, you know, the Eagle said they were going
Speaker 1: to reform. Glynn Fry died and they're out on the
Speaker 1: road right now. And that was even after the hell
Speaker 1: froze over one exactly is better than ever. You would
Speaker 1: like to tell you everybody. Everybody's farewell thing now it's
Speaker 1: it's so great, like Elton John's very well Yellow Brick
Speaker 1: Road tour. It's like three shows love last three years
Speaker 1: or something that's like, you know, George Straight retired from touring, well,
Speaker 1: I retired from touring, not live performing. Saw play in Vegas,
Speaker 1: So I'll set up a yeah, Vegas residency or something.
Speaker 1: My favorite I'm talking a little lot of school. As
Speaker 1: a friend of mine's the agent for the Scorpions. He said,
Speaker 1: you want to go to the Forum tonight if I
Speaker 1: know those guys a little bit whatever anyway, and he says,
Speaker 1: you know, it's a farewell. Says yeah, the new album's
Speaker 1: coming in October. It's like, wait a minute, I thought
Speaker 1: it was a farewell until the new album comes out.
Speaker 1: So but in any of them, how many times did
Speaker 1: the Stones do that right, although at this point in time,
Speaker 1: I think people are literally going to the Stones because
Speaker 1: they think it may be the last time. The irony
Speaker 1: being I've seen the Stones a zillion times, and they
Speaker 1: were kind of like the Grateful Dead. They played for
Speaker 1: an hour and a half. Half hour be terrible, half
Speaker 1: hour would be mediocre, and an half hour be locked
Speaker 1: right on. But I saw them. You know, your Mick
Speaker 1: was the only week link was Keith ironically occasionally hit
Speaker 1: a bad note. Mick was as good as ever. It
Speaker 1: was kind of a stone. He's yeah, he's in. He's
Speaker 1: the energizer. Bunny father was a gym teacher. He's taking
Speaker 1: off on that. So in any event, you have a
Speaker 1: new band. Was that something you always wanted to do?
Speaker 1: Or is that as a result of the discord in
Speaker 1: the camp? Well, it was something that that sort of
Speaker 1: fell together for both of those things, for the reason
Speaker 1: of the discord in the camp, but also for the
Speaker 1: reason of having run into and um met up with
Speaker 1: Liz live Warfield, who from Prince's New Power Generation, who
Speaker 1: opened for us at the Hollywood Bowl a couple of nights,
Speaker 1: and you maintained a relationship with her. Yeah, we we
Speaker 1: hit it off. Her guitar player Ryan waters Um was
Speaker 1: with her and we all started talking about we should
Speaker 1: just do something. She goes, I wanted rod want to
Speaker 1: be relegated in the soul categories quite as much, and
Speaker 1: you know the funk sohul thing. I want to rock.
Speaker 1: You guys rock like we. I should send you some
Speaker 1: of my ideas. And it's like, said, m let's do it.
Speaker 1: Let's be people that that actually do it, not just
Speaker 1: talk about doing it. And we started doing it. And
Speaker 1: then after the heart thing went went sideways, UM started
Speaker 1: before Yeah, we started talking about just something fun to
Speaker 1: do UM And you know, my husband Jeff said, after
Speaker 1: the heart thing kind of went sideways, he said, we
Speaker 1: should do this now right away. Let's get a rehearsal place.
Speaker 1: Let's bring those guys in, fly them in from Seattle
Speaker 1: and in Chicago and have a band meeting and figure
Speaker 1: out what we're doing and do it recorded and we did,
Speaker 1: and we made an album and it's it's a really
Speaker 1: good one. Now you're going out on tour opening for
Speaker 1: see Yeah. We started the tour with opening for Seegar
Speaker 1: Well a few months ago and we uh, we had
Speaker 1: to postpone it. Well, it was offered to heartidentally and
Speaker 1: um and just said no, I don't want to do
Speaker 1: the same thing in anymore. And I said, well, so
Speaker 1: we talked abo above Seeger's people and said, what about
Speaker 1: my new band road Case Royal, and uh, it's actually
Speaker 1: called Nancy Wilson of Heart with roatcase roil has to
Speaker 1: be Yeah, but um, that's cool though, and they said no,
Speaker 1: we just really need to sell tickets, but send us
Speaker 1: your stuff anyway. They when they checked out our our
Speaker 1: album and our videos, they said, wait a sec. We
Speaker 1: wanted we want you to come and do this, you know,
Speaker 1: for next to nothing, which Heart was going to get
Speaker 1: a lot to do, but but for next to nothing.
Speaker 1: It was our our chance to get big exposure and
Speaker 1: start with that. So we did about seven shows with Seeger,
Speaker 1: but then he got his injury into one of his
Speaker 1: neck vertebrae and I had to postpone everything. So it's
Speaker 1: not canceled. We're going back out like in the fall
Speaker 1: after Labor Day. How many probably at least eight and
Speaker 1: it's all like the tour before was going to be sixty. Um,
Speaker 1: is your book for all of those Well, we don't
Speaker 1: have the dates yet, but I mean but the committee
Speaker 1: is the commitment is for everything that they can get us,
Speaker 1: and it's all Arenas. The last leg we were going
Speaker 1: to do was completely sold out Arenas. I'm sure it's
Speaker 1: set will sell out Arenas. He's so good, right, So
Speaker 1: when you go out with your new band, to what
Speaker 1: degree do you play heart songs? We play um like,
Speaker 1: we play crazy on you to finish up the set,
Speaker 1: and I seeing even it up to start the set,
Speaker 1: and then we do these dreams, a new version of
Speaker 1: these dreams um and straight on that other than crazy
Speaker 1: an magic man. Straight on is my favorite Heart that's
Speaker 1: a good one, and we do a cool version. It's
Speaker 1: a little bit, you know, we switched it up. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And so what's reception like? It's been amazing, I think
Speaker 1: because of the stricter security rules nowadays for for you know,
Speaker 1: people coming into the shows, they opened the doors earlier,
Speaker 1: and so by the time we started the show, our
Speaker 1: forty five minutes set, everybody was mostly in the building.
Speaker 1: They were getting their beers and their shirts or whatever,
Speaker 1: and they started hearing a Heart song and they all
Speaker 1: came down. So by the end of our forty five
Speaker 1: minutes set, the whole place was full and they were
Speaker 1: standing up for crazy on you. So it was like, Wow,
Speaker 1: that was good. I can't wait to get back out there. Okay,
Speaker 1: So we live in a world where all the money
Speaker 1: is on the road and it's a road driven business.
Speaker 1: But with your new act, are you doing any of
Speaker 1: the traditional things I e. Radio, etcetera. Yeah, we went
Speaker 1: to a record store and we played an acoustic set
Speaker 1: and went to some radio stations and UM interviewed and
Speaker 1: did some acoustic stuff and you know, we just we
Speaker 1: try to um you know, plant the seas wherever we
Speaker 1: are in the towns, just to get our word out there.
Speaker 1: It's just like starting over. Is that depressing or exciting?
Speaker 1: It's very exciting. Um. These these people in my band
Speaker 1: are just I love them, and we have a thing
Speaker 1: that's just so tied and everybody's experienced. Everybody knows, like
Speaker 1: I said earlier about the language of musicians. You know,
Speaker 1: every we all have the same not only the language,
Speaker 1: but the dialect and the accent everything. And we were
Speaker 1: already you know, each other's besties. And it's so fun
Speaker 1: to play with those guys. Talking about new music, I
Speaker 1: mean just music in general, not your new music. I'll
Speaker 1: leave this person. I'm a very famous guitarist. I was
Speaker 1: talking to him, legendary person, and I asked him about
Speaker 1: new music, and he said, how would I know? I'm
Speaker 1: sixty two. So the question, although you have relatively young children,
Speaker 1: do you keep up with new music? Yeah, I to
Speaker 1: listen to St. Vincent and kind of college station stuff,
Speaker 1: you know, the good song writers that are coming out now.
Speaker 1: But you have younger children, what are they listening to.
Speaker 1: They're listening to classic rock real interestingly. No hip hop, No,
Speaker 1: they don't. They don't go for that. Um. They're eighteen
Speaker 1: two twin boys and one of them just took up
Speaker 1: on his own without by prompting him, took up guitar recently,
Speaker 1: and he's getting good. He's taking some lessons. He's listening
Speaker 1: to Credence, He's listening to you know Zeppelin. Um, oh,
Speaker 1: it's the band that sounds like Zeppelin. Now, great band.
Speaker 1: And you know just all that stuff. I mean, uh
Speaker 1: zz Top and Pig Floyd and just you know everything
Speaker 1: that we would find yummy. And if we're in your houses,
Speaker 1: there music playing in your house. Yeah, I usually have
Speaker 1: a like a Pandora thing going on. Um. I try
Speaker 1: to mix it up. But I do um like the
Speaker 1: Jim James kind of station, and you know, my Morning
Speaker 1: Jackets type station. And then I do actually a classical
Speaker 1: station for Sunday afternoons, Sunday brunch. I mean, our family
Speaker 1: we used to listen to opera on Sundays with pancakes
Speaker 1: and bacon and all that stuff. Could you talk or
Speaker 1: did you have to listen? No? We we talked to me,
Speaker 1: sang along. We learned an really know all the opera.
Speaker 1: We do some of it. Yeah, we used this listen
Speaker 1: to the Makado and some of the same ones. You know,
Speaker 1: that's a big thing for my mother because you know,
Speaker 1: they broadcast the Metropolitan Opera in the theaters. She'll go,
Speaker 1: you know, on Saturdays. But growing up close to New
Speaker 1: York in school, we would go to the opera, which
Speaker 1: was always a cool experience. It was cool even if
Speaker 1: even if it was really boring, right, yeah, exactly what
Speaker 1: was really what? It was cool? Exactly? It was still cool. Said,
Speaker 1: having been a woman who's been very success one in
Speaker 1: the music business, what advice would you give to women
Speaker 1: starting out today? Well, here's my stock answer. I'd turned
Speaker 1: back if I were you. The music. The first thing
Speaker 1: get out, get out of there quick, run like hell
Speaker 1: in the opposite direction. Now, I'd say, um, get proficient,
Speaker 1: be good. If you really want to do it, be
Speaker 1: ready to suffer for it. You know. Fail sound like
Speaker 1: you had a lot of failure. Well, there's been a
Speaker 1: lot of hits and mrs. But when you think of
Speaker 1: the arc of the entire career since seventy six, basically,
Speaker 1: you know that's a long career. But your first album
Speaker 1: was very successful. In an addition, something you could be
Speaker 1: proud of. You put out and you go, oh, man,
Speaker 1: yeah I was a hip but I didn't really want
Speaker 1: so proud of that one. Yeah, I mean, but the
Speaker 1: fact it was hit almost immediately came out of nowhere.
Speaker 1: I know. It was really like a fu in a
Speaker 1: certain way because it was like an indie thing exactly.
Speaker 1: People people are too young now, they said an indie
Speaker 1: record in the seventies just didn't happen, and every major
Speaker 1: was like just a big no way, no way, Jose,
Speaker 1: But they don't really know. I mean John Cougar, Mellencamp
Speaker 1: or whatever he's calling himself this week. You know, he
Speaker 1: had with his breakthrough album they didn't want to put out,
Speaker 1: which was American fool. Right right right, he said, no,
Speaker 1: you gotta put it on. I don't care. The label
Speaker 1: really doesn't know. Having said that, I've dealt with a
Speaker 1: lot of musicians who don't know what a hit single
Speaker 1: is either. But right right. But the woman, well, the
Speaker 1: en in suits, you know, the joke was always that
Speaker 1: they just got their ears painted on. You know, the
Speaker 1: men in the suits in those office it had their ears.
Speaker 1: They just have their ears painted on. They don't have ears, right,
Speaker 1: I think you know, it's always funny to learn something. Listen,
Speaker 1: this has been wonderful. Thanks so much for coming giving
Speaker 1: us perspective. So glad you had me here. Thank you.
Speaker 1: It was great. That's Nancy Wilson of Heart and her
Speaker 1: new band Build with her name and also with The
Speaker 1: road Case, and that's all available on Spotify now right, yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: sure is the road Case right now? Until next time,
Speaker 1: Thank you so much. That wraps up another episode of
Speaker 1: the Bob Left Sets podcast. I know there are a
Speaker 1: ton of podcasts out there, so thank you so much
Speaker 1: for joining me for this conversation with the great Nancy Wilson.
Speaker 1: Until next time, It's Bob Left Sets