Speaker 1: Pushkin. Guitarist and songwriter Nancy Wilson is one half of
Speaker 1: the rock band Heart, along with her older sister Anne Wilson.
Speaker 1: Nancy and Ann have been the face of the band
Speaker 1: since the mid seventies, when they started playing gigs around
Speaker 1: their home base in Vancouver, British Columbia. The Wilson sisters
Speaker 1: both migrated to Canada from Seattle, Washington to join a
Speaker 1: band member who was dodging the Vietnam draft. Heart's first album,
Speaker 1: Dreamboat Annie, was released in nineteen seventy six, right as
Speaker 1: a band was making traction opening for big acts like
Speaker 1: Rod Stewart and the Bee Gees. Soon, their songs like
Speaker 1: Magic Man and Crazy On You started to take off
Speaker 1: in the States, and Heart quickly became a headlining act.
Speaker 1: Nearly fifty years since the debut album, Heart has experienced
Speaker 1: career highs like a string of chart topping hits and
Speaker 1: an induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame,
Speaker 1: as well as their fair share of personal and professional adversity. Today,
Speaker 1: Ann and Nancy remain steadfast in continuing Heart's legacy. This month,
Speaker 1: they are embarking on a world tour, their first in
Speaker 1: five years, to celebrate Anna and Nancy Wilson's massive contribution
Speaker 1: to rock and roll history. Will feature conversations with both
Speaker 1: sisters over the next two weeks. Today, we'll hear Leo
Speaker 1: Rose talk to Nancy about how the popular drugs of
Speaker 1: the seventies and eighties influenced Heart's sound. She also describes
Speaker 1: how being accepted by the musicians of Seattle's grunge scene
Speaker 1: helped her overcome Heart's fraud experience recording power ballads in
Speaker 1: the eighties, and she describes the lo fi setup she
Speaker 1: used to score the soundtracks of her ex husband Cameron
Speaker 1: Crowe's hit movies Almost Famous, Vanilla Sky, and Jerry Maguire.
Speaker 1: This is broken record liner notes for the digital age.
Speaker 2: I'm justin Ritchman.
Speaker 1: Here's Lea Rose's conversation with Heart's Nancy Wilson.
Speaker 3: I was looking at your upcoming tour dates and I
Speaker 3: know this is you know, probably nothing new to you,
Speaker 3: but it has been five years since you've been on
Speaker 3: the road. Yeah, I guess with this sort of like
Speaker 3: an arena tour. Yes, I didn't realize it was five
Speaker 3: months long.
Speaker 2: Well yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3: Does that sound like a long time to you or
Speaker 3: is that just part of life and you readjust.
Speaker 2: Right now what I've heard. The last I heard the
Speaker 2: last Heart show is December fifteenth, so it's been extended.
Speaker 2: I think it's been extended through another running through Canada.
Speaker 2: I love Canada.
Speaker 3: Though, good old Canada for heart.
Speaker 2: Good Old Canada for Heart. I know it's our other home,
Speaker 2: you know, but there's breaks between. Do you do about
Speaker 2: twenty shows or thirty shows? Then you go home for
Speaker 2: maybe two weeks, so you can, you know, answer you're mail.
Speaker 3: You know, what sort of comforts do you set up
Speaker 3: for yourself at this point when you're going out for
Speaker 3: that long?
Speaker 2: I think I could write a book about it. There's
Speaker 2: a whole survival kit really of like comfort zone things
Speaker 2: and practical survival things that you need to kind of
Speaker 2: have with you, and skills that you develop when you're
Speaker 2: not at home. So like you take one container that
Speaker 2: has sharpies, scissors, gaffer's tape, some kind of string, and
Speaker 2: then you know, some of those alligator clips and a
Speaker 2: pillowcase so if the vent in the hotel room is
Speaker 2: blasting cold air on you, you can clip the pillowcase
Speaker 2: to the vent, take a call. There's stuff like that,
Speaker 2: and an alligator clip also will close the curtains when
Speaker 2: its broad daylight comes away too early in your room. Oh,
Speaker 2: hair clamps also suffice. And then you if you have
Speaker 2: a stinky room, you run the shower with the tub
Speaker 2: closed so the water gathers the hot water with this
Speaker 2: complimentary shampoo who were on in the bath with the
Speaker 2: shower moist in the air and scent the room at
Speaker 2: the same time.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 2: And if you get an extra pile of towels, you
Speaker 2: can do all your laundry in cold water in the tub,
Speaker 2: bring them out, rinse them in the tub, ring them
Speaker 2: out again, and do the towel dance is what I
Speaker 2: call when you lay the clothes and fold the towels
Speaker 2: and do the dance on the towels, and then hang
Speaker 2: the clothes in the room. And if you have a balcony,
Speaker 2: even better because then they'll go fast. They'll drive faster.
Speaker 2: Like college stuff, all the college stuff all works. You know,
Speaker 2: if you ever went to university, which I did, all
Speaker 2: of that stuff, like one little hot pot is pretty
Speaker 2: much all. You had no refrigerator, you know, Yeah, you
Speaker 2: had the window that kept things cooled outside, you know,
Speaker 2: stuff like that.
Speaker 3: I listened to your audio book Kicking and dreaming And
Speaker 3: it was so great because you read the book. You
Speaker 3: and Anne read the book. There was one section where
Speaker 3: you were talking about meeting Paul McCartney. Uh huh, and
Speaker 3: he was on stage talking to somebody else, and then
Speaker 3: I guess you and Anne went up and started talking
Speaker 3: to him, and he had this glazed over look in
Speaker 3: his eye that I think Anne said reminded her of
Speaker 3: just what happens when you're on the road for a
Speaker 3: long period of time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh yeah.
Speaker 3: How do you get past that feeling?
Speaker 2: How do you deglaze yourself? Yeah?
Speaker 3: How do you manage that when you're just in the
Speaker 3: middle of a long tour?
Speaker 2: Well, you know, sleep is the key to the universe,
Speaker 2: for one thing. You try to find quiet places and
Speaker 2: moments to regroup and re gather because there's there can
Speaker 2: be a lot of momentum and dramatic political drama inside
Speaker 2: of the power structures that are traveling with you. You
Speaker 2: know what usually happens on a big rock tour with
Speaker 2: a lot of travel, a lot of finance involved, is
Speaker 2: me and Anne are like in the eye of the hurricane,
Speaker 2: where it's quiet and calm and peaceful together and our
Speaker 2: humors intact and our initial relationship just it's just like
Speaker 2: completely safe, but everything else is swirwing like the Dickens.
Speaker 2: It's like the Twister movie where you see cows go
Speaker 2: by and you know, there's go, there's the kitchen sing,
Speaker 2: there's a house over there. You know, just the emotional
Speaker 2: luggage that you kind of have to navigate through the
Speaker 2: baggage and the chaos that can surround you. But we
Speaker 2: do like to have a wellness room because we're gonna
Speaker 2: be in lots of arenas which are basically locker rooms, yeah,
Speaker 2: which you know, so you're gonna need something that smells
Speaker 2: good in there, like some lavender spray or lavender spray,
Speaker 2: some incense, and some good thick yoga mats and some
Speaker 2: music and turning the fluorescence off and some put some
Speaker 2: candles on and have a massage table in one room
Speaker 2: and then have the workout stuff like the TRX and
Speaker 2: the free weights and the pilates machine in the other
Speaker 2: room so you can strengthen or you can you know,
Speaker 2: go get bodywork, even if it's once in a while,
Speaker 2: you know, just try to keep strong and keep centered
Speaker 2: with it.
Speaker 3: Last time you went out, I saw there's a couple
Speaker 3: of dates on this tour with Deaf Leopard in Journey
Speaker 3: and last time you went out with them, it sounds
Speaker 3: like Deaf Leopard were just like party animals to an
Speaker 3: extent that you weren't expecting because at that point they
Speaker 3: were in their fifties and it sort of took you
Speaker 3: a bash. Are you expecting more of that this tour?
Speaker 2: They're older guys now, Like everybody has to slow down
Speaker 2: their party activity, you know at a certain point. I mean,
Speaker 2: for instance, you too have really slowed down because I've
Speaker 2: partied with you too. One time it was like whoa,
Speaker 2: where are what cities we land in on the private jet?
Speaker 2: Oh wait, you thought it was Paris, No, it's Vegas.
Speaker 2: You know, like stuff was going on. Everybody was drinking
Speaker 2: like fish and smoking like sex. But you know, you
Speaker 2: can't live like that when you're especially if you're a
Speaker 2: little bit older. So you know, those dance cards have
Speaker 2: been full for a while, so we I think even
Speaker 2: I don't know, even def Lepper, I mean, you can't
Speaker 2: actually go out and play and do it well if
Speaker 2: you're just destructed from a party, right. I mean, art
Speaker 2: actually plays everything live. We don't run tapes, as they say.
Speaker 2: Our show doesn't come out out of a box like
Speaker 2: most people do these days, which is not a just
Speaker 2: mental comment on my part, but I guess we're just
Speaker 2: kind of old school that way. We just really want
Speaker 2: to feel the authenticity of the moment that only happens
Speaker 2: that one particular time and there's nothing sort of canned
Speaker 2: going on around it, you know, And even at the
Speaker 2: expense of coming off really fallible and really human at
Speaker 2: times where your voice doesn't exactly work right or you squeak,
Speaker 2: you know, or you can't quite hit that note, or
Speaker 2: or your fingers don't work too well or your finger's
Speaker 2: hurt or whatever it is. You know, we just do
Speaker 2: it like that because that's how we know how to
Speaker 2: do it, you know. Like as a rock fan, if
Speaker 2: I go see the Eagles, for example, and you could
Speaker 2: tell some of the background vocal are sweetened, you know,
Speaker 2: or if you go see Paul McCartney and some of
Speaker 2: it's a little bit extra, you know, like the album
Speaker 2: sounding and stuff like that, it doesn't really matter, you know,
Speaker 2: there's no like shame in that. I think all that
Speaker 2: really matters is how beloved these songs are and the
Speaker 2: experience that people get from going all the way out
Speaker 2: of their way to go and see you play those
Speaker 2: songs that they love.
Speaker 3: Are you the type of fan if you go see
Speaker 3: someone like Paul McCartney, since you've loved the Beatles for
Speaker 3: so long, do you want to hear him play all
Speaker 3: the hits, all the early Beatles stuff, Wing stuff. Do
Speaker 3: you kind of get a little bit disgruntled if he
Speaker 3: starts to play a new song? Or because you're also
Speaker 3: an artist and a performer, do you totally get that
Speaker 3: and are you over supportive of that that new music moment?
Speaker 2: I tend that's a good question. I tend to be
Speaker 2: really overly supportive of anyone that you know, puts a
Speaker 2: toe into the new material column, you know, in a
Speaker 2: live show setting, especially when they have so many beloved
Speaker 2: songs to do. And I went and saw Paul on
Speaker 2: his eightieth roofday in San Francisco, and it was an
Speaker 2: incredibly good show. And you know, he's ever the Paul.
Speaker 2: He's dependable as the sun will rise. He's a genius songwriter.
Speaker 2: But there's so many songs that over a very actually
Speaker 2: pretty short period of time that became such landmark songs,
Speaker 2: and even with Wings as well as with the Beatles,
Speaker 2: but when he does something like Molofkin Tire or something
Speaker 2: more rare like Happiness in the Homeland or you know,
Speaker 2: love in Song or you know Tug of War. I mean,
Speaker 2: I know all all of its songs deep cuts. So
Speaker 2: that's kind of what I'm concentrating a little bit on
Speaker 2: with this new lineup of players in this band. We
Speaker 2: call Heart a couple of deep cuts, you know, to
Speaker 2: put in our back pocket to keep the set list
Speaker 2: from being always predictably the same, right, even for ourselves,
Speaker 2: you know. Yeah, living on the edge, it's like, okay,
Speaker 2: let's pull this one out. Oh my god, how does
Speaker 2: that go? Again? Let's see how does that go?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: You know, if you're worth your salt as a player,
Speaker 2: a singer, songwriter, player, I think you can pretty much
Speaker 2: get through even if you mess up a little bit.
Speaker 2: You can have fun with it and make it work.
Speaker 2: And people kind of appreciate the imperfections, even maybe a
Speaker 2: little bit more than they appreciate something that's absolutely perfect.
Speaker 3: I was curious about your decision to play rhythm guitar
Speaker 3: rather than lead guitar, and if gender had anything to
Speaker 3: do with that decision early on, and if you still
Speaker 3: feel like, yeah, I'm a rhythm guitar player to the death.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean I've been known to step out play
Speaker 2: little bit of lead here and there on records and
Speaker 2: in live settings, and I toss in little I don't know,
Speaker 2: shred moments here and there. But I'm more like a
Speaker 2: Pete Townsend at my center. I'm an accompanist as a songwriter,
Speaker 2: so I approached my playing like a songwriter. So I'm
Speaker 2: accompanying the lyrics and the melody for the song. So
Speaker 2: it's the structure of the song that interests me more
Speaker 2: than the embellishing and kind of the frosting on top,
Speaker 2: you know. So for me, that's the meat and potatoes.
Speaker 2: That's the real, you know, essence. And you can add
Speaker 2: all the extra stuff, which is fun to do. And
Speaker 2: I'm not a horrible league player. I just don't do
Speaker 2: it that often because I'm more a building block song
Speaker 2: person in the way of play. But yeah, but I've
Speaker 2: always thought as a woman playing guitar, there's so many
Speaker 2: women right now that are younger women coming out that
Speaker 2: are just shredders, like Grace Bauers for example. I don't
Speaker 2: know if you've seen her on like Instagram or whatever,
Speaker 2: but She is kind of a Clapton type shredder. She's
Speaker 2: a blues player who plays instead of for the quantity
Speaker 2: of notes, she plays for the quality of the expression
Speaker 2: of the notes that she chooses that sound more like
Speaker 2: sentences than you know, show off stuff.
Speaker 3: I was surprised when I listened back to Dreamboat Annie,
Speaker 3: which is turning fifty.
Speaker 2: Next year next year.
Speaker 3: There's so much musical interplay on the songs. It's not
Speaker 3: just straightforward at all, and there's a lot of communication
Speaker 3: between the two guitars.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: Was that something that was intentional from the beginning or
Speaker 3: did that just happen in jams?
Speaker 2: Well, I guess I would say both. I mean all
Speaker 2: of the above. It's intentional to try to have a
Speaker 2: dialogue with another guitar player, a rhythm and a lead player,
Speaker 2: which you hear a lot of that on Dreambani the album.
Speaker 2: And at that point it was Howard Lease and Roger Fisher,
Speaker 2: two really great players that I got to sort of
Speaker 2: cut my teeth, you know, my rock and roll live
Speaker 2: club band kind of recording first recording session teeth with
Speaker 2: the era we came from to the late sixties. By
Speaker 2: this point, we're releasing our first album in the mid
Speaker 2: seventies and seventy five, so we had all of that
Speaker 2: imprint From the late sixties, the Mind expanded sort of
Speaker 2: epic length songs and you know, tales of great Ulysses
Speaker 2: kind of stuff out there, and you know, like sticks
Speaker 2: and Rush and yes, you know and Heart. A lot
Speaker 2: of conceptualizing going on and yeah, you know, significance and
Speaker 2: depthy symbolism and stuff like that before cocaine, you know,
Speaker 2: before it cut all ego driven later.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was going to say that feels very LSD esque.
Speaker 2: Very mind expanded from that era. So we were really
Speaker 2: starting out with the first album, I think.
Speaker 4: Really naive and doggedly determined, workmanlike about getting something very
Speaker 4: important recorded onto a vinyl disc, you know, and this
Speaker 4: might be our only chance to be heard.
Speaker 2: And it was really cool because it worked. I mean,
Speaker 2: just over my last weekend, I was having a birthday
Speaker 2: weekend at this beautiful beach in Oregon on the Oregon
Speaker 2: coast with my friend Sue Ennis that we did a
Speaker 2: whole bunch of songwriting with. And we have a project
Speaker 2: We've been digging through old cassettes for an old CDs
Speaker 2: for like a rarity project that We're just digging out
Speaker 2: with gems and morsels and hysterical little bits and song
Speaker 2: pieces and songwriting jams that turned into other songs that
Speaker 2: would be familiar someday. Stuff like that, and we had
Speaker 2: the blast of all blasts. But listening to a lot
Speaker 2: of those cassette tapes, you could hear Soul of the
Speaker 2: Sea forming, You could hear you know, even It Up,
Speaker 2: the beginnings of Even It Up coming together. And also
Speaker 2: we found the mother load of like Heart when they
Speaker 2: were called before I joined Heart, when they were called
Speaker 2: hocus Pocus in a club called oil Can Harry's in Vancouver.
Speaker 2: Received there's these real surreal tapes that the sound man
Speaker 2: used to get of the live performance to listen back
Speaker 2: and critique from like a ball team, you know. So yeah,
Speaker 2: so there's like a bunch of covers that we used
Speaker 2: to do, you know, a bunch of David Bowie's songs,
Speaker 2: a bunch of deep purple. It's like, oh my god.
Speaker 2: It reminded me how hard those club days were because
Speaker 2: you really had a lot of time to fill and
Speaker 2: probably close to you know, I don't know, five hours
Speaker 2: of music and banter. You really had a lot of
Speaker 2: time to fill and entertainment to provide.
Speaker 1: We have to take a quick break and then we
Speaker 1: back with more from Nancy Wilson and Leah Rose. We're
Speaker 1: back with Lea Rose and Nancy Wilson.
Speaker 3: I was asking Anne about the time in the book
Speaker 3: you talked about there's a period of time where you
Speaker 3: both would hang out with Stevie Nicks. Yeah, especially in
Speaker 3: the seventies when the big Fleetwood Mac albums were coming out.
Speaker 3: I was just curious about the relationship between Heart and
Speaker 3: Fleetwood Mac, and it sounds like you came together more
Speaker 3: in the eighties to hang out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they were kind of happening right before us, kind
Speaker 2: of as Hart was just starting to tiptoe into the scene,
Speaker 2: and they already had rumors out there, and we were
Speaker 2: just trying so hard to make an album and get
Speaker 2: out there and get a tour or whatever, and they
Speaker 2: were all over the radio, and you know, I felt
Speaker 2: so jealous of that band because there were two women
Speaker 2: in it. It sounded so good together, and they had
Speaker 2: the acoustic guitar kind of thing that I felt like
Speaker 2: I was bringing a lot of into our band. They
Speaker 2: kind of had it already, you know, like something we
Speaker 2: were trying to capture. They had already captured it. So
Speaker 2: I was really like, damn it, what makes us so
Speaker 2: different now? You know? But we did sound very different.
Speaker 2: I mean a lot of it's Anne's voice, you know,
Speaker 2: very signature. You know, the muscle and the power that
Speaker 2: she possesses and the way she sings is completely its
Speaker 2: own things. So lucky for us we had Anne, not
Speaker 2: just it know was soft rock. We had hard rock,
Speaker 2: so we could rock very hard and as quietly as well.
Speaker 2: So we probably had a lot more maybe versatility or something.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was surprised. I asked Anne about her voice
Speaker 3: and she I asked her when she first realized that
Speaker 3: her voice was so powerful, and she said that she
Speaker 3: didn't think voice was very powerful.
Speaker 2: Yeah, her confidence is hard for her to she's she's
Speaker 2: hard on herself. But when she was a kid, a
Speaker 2: kid kid, and I was maybe nine or eight, we
Speaker 2: were all bunch of Hams, always singing harmonies into the
Speaker 2: family and you know, she would do ethel mermon. She
Speaker 2: would do this no business like show and she could
Speaker 2: just build it like this little kid and our parents
Speaker 2: would be like girls, girls, come on down the stairs,
Speaker 2: you know, and your ethel murmon. So She would just
Speaker 2: you know, blow the people's minds in the living room,
Speaker 2: and she just had this facility, you know, she just
Speaker 2: had these has these pipes that a few people have.
Speaker 2: It's God given.
Speaker 3: Do you think of both your gift as a songwriter,
Speaker 3: a player, a writer AND's voice and gift as a writer.
Speaker 3: Where does that come from in your mind?
Speaker 2: Oh? Well, I think the gift, the music gift comes
Speaker 2: from our parents and our grandparents and our aunts and
Speaker 2: our uncles. Our grandpa was the Irish tenor in the
Speaker 2: local church choir, and both of our mom and dad
Speaker 2: were met in choir when they decided they loved each other.
Speaker 2: And my dad was a singer in a barbershop quartet,
Speaker 2: and my mom was in various ensemble choirs and big choirs,
Speaker 2: and all of us grew up with choirs and choirs
Speaker 2: and harmony, singing in the car on the way to grandma's.
Speaker 2: You know, I think it's generational in our family and
Speaker 2: the love of music and listening to music and Ray
Speaker 2: Charles and Aretha Franklin. We always had a record player,
Speaker 2: you know, and we learned a lot of albums by
Speaker 2: Heart and Harry Bellefonte, Peggy Lee and Judy Garland and
Speaker 2: all of those great singers from that era. We were
Speaker 2: always singing along. Every Christmas. We had the same like
Speaker 2: Big Benjamin Britain Corral going on, and we'd sing in
Speaker 2: the house and decorate the tree singing in the house,
Speaker 2: you know. And you hear about those families, I guess
Speaker 2: we were one of them. Like the Beg's family. They
Speaker 2: were all singing the Jacksons. So it comes really naturally.
Speaker 2: It comes very honestly to both of us, you know,
Speaker 2: from the inside out.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, and you can feel that too.
Speaker 2: No, it's true. I feel driven by it still, whether
Speaker 2: or not something's happening or going on, or successful or
Speaker 2: not successful. I feel driven to do music and create music,
Speaker 2: write music, play music. And it's like a destiny, you know,
Speaker 2: feeling of destiny because it's what your cellular memory knows.
Speaker 3: When you talk about the eighties now, or when you
Speaker 3: think about the eighties and the first formation of Heart
Speaker 3: started to sort of disintegrate and new players came in.
Speaker 3: You were signed to Capitol Records. They started bringing songwriters in.
Speaker 3: How devastating was that to you and Anne at the time.
Speaker 2: Well, we were kind of victims of longevity in a
Speaker 2: certain way because the styles changes and you wanted to
Speaker 2: not change that much. The mind expanded perspective was turning
Speaker 2: into a cocaine perspective, which was a little more money
Speaker 2: ego sort of driven. Therefore, you know, a stable of
Speaker 2: LA's hit songwriters were employed in tandem with these record
Speaker 2: companies to create the formulaa hits that were expected of
Speaker 2: the time and those big power ballads and you know,
Speaker 2: hairband music and so so we were like reluctantly kind
Speaker 2: of going along for survivals reasons and writing our own
Speaker 2: stuff meanwhile, you know, but we were kind of irritated
Speaker 2: with the whole atmosphere of that. The weather system just
Speaker 2: felt wrong to us, you know, around all of that
Speaker 2: image making type of stuff, because we were cool, kind
Speaker 2: of apple cheek girls from Seattle without makeup when we
Speaker 2: first started, and then it was all about the artifice
Speaker 2: and what you can wear and how much your jacket's
Speaker 2: going it's going to cost as much as a car.
Speaker 2: You know, like that's not important. It was never important
Speaker 2: to us, and so we muddled through pretty good in
Speaker 2: the eighties because we got a couple of really gorgeous
Speaker 2: songs out of that time, like like these Dreams and Alone,
Speaker 2: What About Love, and a few more. They're just gorgeous,
Speaker 2: well written, structured pieces of music that we still enjoy
Speaker 2: doing today, you know. So if that's the booty that
Speaker 2: we snuck out of the eighties, then it's well worth it.
Speaker 3: How have you changed the arrangements on some of those songs?
Speaker 3: Have you tried to take them away from their power
Speaker 3: ballad beginnings?
Speaker 2: Oh? Yeah, A good song you could do almost any way.
Speaker 2: I mean you could do Alone on a ukulele, you know,
Speaker 2: because it's a good song and it has a good
Speaker 2: shape to it, whether or not it's in a big format,
Speaker 2: a bombastic sounding format, or if it's just an acoustic
Speaker 2: guitar or piano. With these Dreams in particular, it's an
Speaker 2: oddball song. This changed different keys. I played it on mandolin,
Speaker 2: we do it with keyboards and percussion, and then we
Speaker 2: do it just acoustic on it, different keys, different arrangements.
Speaker 2: You know. The song's really flexible that way. And Alone
Speaker 2: we've sort of we merged Alone into what About Love
Speaker 2: at the guitar solo, which really worked well. So there's
Speaker 2: just ways to yeah, just try new versions out so
Speaker 2: that you're not so it's not just the album, you know.
Speaker 3: Was These Dreams originally written for Stevie Nicks.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Verdie Topin told me that once. He said, actually,
Speaker 2: Stevie Nicks rejected this song first, and they thought about
Speaker 2: it for her because if it's very diatheanous and mysterious,
Speaker 2: and you know, it's very gauzy sounding, and she rejected
Speaker 2: it because she was not taking outside material, thank you
Speaker 2: very much. And a lot of people were at the
Speaker 2: time and she wasn't. And I respect that a lot
Speaker 2: that she wasn't doing that. And it's not easy to
Speaker 2: write a song that fits the fashion of the current
Speaker 2: radio program either. So we gave, you know, we gave
Speaker 2: a lot of songs a good try. When we were
Speaker 2: I was at the beach with Sue listening to cassettes.
Speaker 2: There were some real turkeys, I mean, a lot of
Speaker 2: really bombastic ballad stranges of the Wold. You know. It's like,
Speaker 2: you know, like a bunch of very righteous sounding marching songs,
Speaker 2: kind of either marching rock songs or bombastic ballads with
Speaker 2: a lot of gated echo on the snare trum.
Speaker 5: We were like, oh, we us I think are head
Speaker 5: and shite because we were we were obviously trying really
Speaker 5: hard to keep up with the stable of la songwriter.
Speaker 2: Like the formulaic stuff is what we never could get right,
Speaker 2: you know. So the biggest global hit song was All
Speaker 2: I Want to Do Is make Love to You by
Speaker 2: Mutt Lang. Right. We recorded it and it was a
Speaker 2: huge smash and it was all over the world. Oh,
Speaker 2: I remember it was banned in Ireland, you know, because
Speaker 2: of the reverse sexism of it. But we were kind
Speaker 2: of proud of the fact that it was banned in Ireland.
Speaker 2: That's just the one that just never felt like a
Speaker 2: heart song exactly. It's a great track. It sounds genius
Speaker 2: on the radio, but it was never for Anne as
Speaker 2: a lead singer too, who has to sell what she's
Speaker 2: talking about in those lyrics of the song. It's really
Speaker 2: kind of more like a country story song. It's more
Speaker 2: like that. Yeah, it's not a real rock song per se.
Speaker 3: And I know Hart used to jam with a lot
Speaker 3: of musicians off stage and you can together have parties
Speaker 3: and sometimes at Ann's house later in Seattle, and it
Speaker 3: really reminded me of the stories of your family early
Speaker 3: on when you would have the hoot Nannies together, right,
Speaker 3: you know, totally were there any jams from that early
Speaker 3: era or any musicians that you've played with that really
Speaker 3: stand out.
Speaker 2: Definitely one of my favorite moments of coming back out
Speaker 2: of the eighties back to Seattle in the early nineties
Speaker 2: with our tail between our legs basically, you know, having
Speaker 2: been kind of gristed for the MTV mill there and
Speaker 2: the Seattle explosion was really cool. Suddenly it was really
Speaker 2: good music and guitars were back again, and all the
Speaker 2: layer cake production was blasted out of the water, like
Speaker 2: you know, smells like teen Spirit was like it. That
Speaker 2: was the flash mob moment in the culture where the
Speaker 2: eighties was definitely over, just instantly over, and you know,
Speaker 2: like eighties kind of power ballot bands that had a
Speaker 2: number one hit the week before were dropped from their
Speaker 2: label that day. You know, it was just that that
Speaker 2: exact like it was a surgical strike of rock and
Speaker 2: roll into the culture that made that happen. It was
Speaker 2: so so such a relief to us after coming out
Speaker 2: of that. And we had a party at Ann's house
Speaker 2: after we all kind of met each other because one
Speaker 2: of my oldest friends was managing Pearl Jam. He managed
Speaker 2: them forever. My friend Kelly Curtis still my best friend,
Speaker 2: and they all got together at some of the house
Speaker 2: around Andy Woods, who had just had odd from Mother
Speaker 2: Love Pone, who are then going to find Eddie Vedder
Speaker 2: and become pro jam So the whole community came together
Speaker 2: and we showed up to meet everyone kind of at
Speaker 2: this one big party, and we brought all of our
Speaker 2: dogs and everybody was crying and laughing and petting dogs
Speaker 2: and playing guitars. And then the next time we got
Speaker 2: together was at Ann's house and I ended up jamming
Speaker 2: with Jerry Cantrell, like cross legged in a corner and
Speaker 2: She's like, how I play the beginning of Mister all Wind?
Speaker 2: And I'm like, okay, that was like the best words
Speaker 2: I could have heard out of somebody that cool asking
Speaker 2: me that at that moment, because I got to feel
Speaker 2: cool again, like yeah, as like a musician should be
Speaker 2: able to feel in their hometown and not shamed by
Speaker 2: the new generation of people pushing back against the hair
Speaker 2: bands of the eighties and so so you know, that
Speaker 2: meant everything met the world to me and we're still tight.
Speaker 2: As a matter of fact, Stone Gossard in Petal Time
Speaker 2: he actually ended up buying a house from Anne at
Speaker 2: the beach in Oregon that I was just at last weekend,
Speaker 2: and the and Sue Mines were blown like we were
Speaker 2: here in our twenties writing Barracuda stuff, you know, and
Speaker 2: listening through the history of us doing that there in
Speaker 2: this beautiful location where we always used to go for
Speaker 2: ultimate hideout. So it was really an amazing time to
Speaker 2: come back to Seattle in the nineties and then be
Speaker 2: so well brought into the fold like that. It meant
Speaker 2: the world.
Speaker 3: I loved in the book. You were saying that Seattle
Speaker 3: musicians they won't bullshit you. If they don't like something,
Speaker 3: they'll tell you. They're not just going to kind of
Speaker 3: kiss up to you because you're already established. They'll say like, no,
Speaker 3: actually that kind of sucked.
Speaker 2: No, that's really true. They're not looking to be anti
Speaker 2: everything either. They're being honest. And it's a great thing
Speaker 2: about that community. That missed community in Seattle. I mean,
Speaker 2: people in program are really truly friends. They are there
Speaker 2: for each other. Kelly would Curtis would take his office
Speaker 2: employees and the band all out on retreats out of
Speaker 2: the Oregon coast, oh and stay at those same places
Speaker 2: where we used go right, and just get in small
Speaker 2: groups and talk about everybody and how things are going,
Speaker 2: and really communicate with each other about what can we
Speaker 2: do better? How can I make you feel better? I
Speaker 2: don't know. I just still feel really close to the
Speaker 2: people from Seattle in that particular way, because you can
Speaker 2: really tell the truth to each other other and you're
Speaker 2: not just smiling whatever.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: After this last break, we'll be back with more from
Speaker 1: Nancy Wilson. We're back with the rest of Lea Rose's
Speaker 1: conversation with Nancy Wilson.
Speaker 3: When you started to pivot and work on film scores
Speaker 3: with Cameron Crowe and you worked on Almost Famous, how
Speaker 3: much of your experience was used in that movie? Was
Speaker 3: a lot of it? Like direct source material for the movie?
Speaker 2: Yeah, most of the Hearts played most of the sound
Speaker 2: of the score. Music for Almost Famous is me playing everything.
Speaker 2: So I played you know, percussion and keyboards, and I
Speaker 2: played hurdy gurdy, a little bit of you know, synthesizer, piano, guitar,
Speaker 2: electric guitar, bass guitar, and vocals, you know as atmosphere,
Speaker 2: and I really had a blast doing that. I actually
Speaker 2: had a couple of musical instrumental pieces i'd recorded along
Speaker 2: the way, one in particular, called the Queue, ended up
Speaker 2: being called Deflower the Kid. So there was a piece
Speaker 2: of music that I'd already recorded just as a piece
Speaker 2: for myself for a different project that fit perfectly into
Speaker 2: the scene where with the William Miller characters being deflowered
Speaker 2: by the band aids in a hotel room in slow motion.
Speaker 2: So it actually worked out very well. It's like they
Speaker 2: cut to the song, so it worked really perfectly for
Speaker 2: that one scene, the whole scene, and I had a
Speaker 2: few little bits and pieces scraps of music sitting around
Speaker 2: it I threw into the mix. But I recorded a
Speaker 2: lot of it just on a little cassette stuffed into
Speaker 2: a tiny Costco TV player with really good like Noyman
Speaker 2: microphones at my friends my friend's house, you know, no
Speaker 2: no soundproofing, nothing, just very low fi but close enough
Speaker 2: so that you couldn't really hear the garbage trucks outside.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: So so Jerry Maguire was done like that. Almost famous
Speaker 2: was done on the pretty much really low fly by
Speaker 2: like that. My first ever movie session, like which scared
Speaker 2: the shit out of me, was for for say anything.
Speaker 2: Anne Dudley was the score artist on that, So she
Speaker 2: was really nice to me. It was like I don't
Speaker 2: know how to read. I mean I learned, but I
Speaker 2: don't remember how to read, and so it's like, just
Speaker 2: show me how it goes my ear and I'll just
Speaker 2: play it. So I played, you know, guitar parts for
Speaker 2: that in a scoring session for my first time ever.
Speaker 2: And then the next thing I did was Jerry Maguire
Speaker 2: by myself. Wow, with the Costco TV.
Speaker 3: What an incredible new experience to have at that point
Speaker 3: in your career, still in music, still making music, but
Speaker 3: now by yourself. Yeah, such a different way to make music.
Speaker 2: So different. Well, I had a really good music editor,
Speaker 2: Carl Caller, that I did a lot of that stuff
Speaker 2: with for years, and he was really a good translator
Speaker 2: for me to know how to approach it, like because
Speaker 2: he would be able to take something I'd done and
Speaker 2: edit it together to fit the screen. So I was
Speaker 2: not encumbered by what was on picture and played a
Speaker 2: picture very often, just took for that those five seconds
Speaker 2: or whatever. But you know, we got really experimental when
Speaker 2: we did Vanilla Sky. There's some really crazy stuff that
Speaker 2: we did in that together. There's one called Elevator Beat
Speaker 2: where the Tom Cruise character is going up the elevator
Speaker 2: at the end before he jumps off the building, relives
Speaker 2: his life as he's falling. I went to a flea market,
Speaker 2: the Pasadena flea Market, and I found these old vinyl
Speaker 2: discs that you could play on home entertainment keyboard machines.
Speaker 2: You would certain a disc and it would play the
Speaker 2: groovy beat that you could play along with on your keyboard,
Speaker 2: your your home entertainment organs. Wow, so the Casio maybe, yes, yes,
Speaker 2: so really analogue, scratchy old albums that people would like.
Speaker 6: D you know, it would have like do you know,
Speaker 6: little little groove beats or like you turn it over,
Speaker 6: would be like.
Speaker 2: A shoff with the flutes right there. And so then
Speaker 2: you could tape it and run the tape backwards and
Speaker 2: have this crazy ass insanity sounding thing that you could
Speaker 2: also play forward stuff too, stuff like that. So I
Speaker 2: thought it was Brian Wilson there for a minute, and
Speaker 2: you know, or the Beatles on drugs, you know, And
Speaker 2: we just tried everything like that On Vanilla Sky. I
Speaker 2: was clearing out my garage, throwing stuff into a garbage
Speaker 2: scan and I recorded the sound of big flanks and
Speaker 2: clunks and planks going into the garbage can and used
Speaker 2: it as a rhythm track for Vanilla Sky where he's
Speaker 2: walking through the streets with his mask.
Speaker 3: On stuff that was so eerie.
Speaker 2: So it's like crazy stuff, you know.
Speaker 3: Did you have a lot of influence over the stories
Speaker 3: of the movies as well?
Speaker 2: Well? With Kevin writing scripts, he was always writing, rewriting
Speaker 2: and rewriting again and reading out loud for dialogue and
Speaker 2: just for the feel of how it sounds and what
Speaker 2: it feels like. So yeah, I did a lot of responding,
Speaker 2: and I made a lot of notes, gave a lot
Speaker 2: of notes, you know, a sentence here, a sentence there
Speaker 2: that might land in a funny, cool way, And so
Speaker 2: I kind of worked a little bit on some of
Speaker 2: the dialogue mainly. And it's a lot like songwriting, especially
Speaker 2: a writer like Camera Crow. He writes with music in
Speaker 2: his head, So he's writing his scenes like songs in
Speaker 2: a lot of ways where he's working toward a song
Speaker 2: that's going to be in the scene or or they're
Speaker 2: going to have, you know, a feeling of a song
Speaker 2: that they're going to act the scene too, that's playing
Speaker 2: on set, even if you don't have it in the
Speaker 2: movie later stuff like that. So it's all steeped in music,
Speaker 2: and the cadence of the dialogue should sound musical. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Did you have any experiences on set with the actors
Speaker 3: once you got to the point where the movie was
Speaker 3: actually being filmed.
Speaker 2: My most memorable wildest one was on Almost Famous when
Speaker 2: Billy Krudip was playing the rock star on Acid of
Speaker 2: the scene where he goes to the kids party and
Speaker 2: it's a really funny part, and they were about to
Speaker 2: film the part where he's up on the roof going
Speaker 2: I'm a golden God, you know, and he said, so, Nancy,
Speaker 2: did you ever take LSD? And I was like, yes,
Speaker 2: I did. He does tell me what it's like, because
Speaker 2: he was about to go do this scene like right
Speaker 2: after that, and I said, well, it's kind of like
Speaker 2: you're like your nerves are all kind of sparks coming
Speaker 2: out at the ends of your fingers, and your head
Speaker 2: feels like an opening observatory where you're starting to see
Speaker 2: the universe and the stars and you feel kind of elevated,
Speaker 2: like you're part of everything and you're part of God
Speaker 2: and love all of the same time. So so he
Speaker 2: kind of went up. He kind of went out there
Speaker 2: and he sort of exactly did what I just said said.
Speaker 2: If you look at it today, you'll see like you
Speaker 2: can almost see sparks coming out of his fingertips. It's electrified.
Speaker 3: Yes, that must be so interesting to have the opportunity
Speaker 3: to talk to an actor and see them just turn
Speaker 3: it on.
Speaker 2: I know, I have so much respect for that. I
Speaker 2: tried to act a couple of times. It really did
Speaker 2: not go well for me because, you know, I know
Speaker 2: how to put myself in another like musical persona kind
Speaker 2: of way, but like just walking and talking is that
Speaker 2: to me is so foreign. I don't know how to
Speaker 2: not be who I am, you know, right to be
Speaker 2: someone else.
Speaker 3: Did you ever see Tom Cruise on set acting? I
Speaker 3: imagine he then he should be really fantastic to watch.
Speaker 2: He was fantastic. He's a fantastic human being. I mean,
Speaker 2: his eyes are kind of like headlights. You know, He's
Speaker 2: just full of this light that comes out of him.
Speaker 2: And I don't know what it is. I mean, maybe
Speaker 2: it's scientology. I don't know, but it's it's positive if
Speaker 2: it works for him. Obviously it really does. And he's
Speaker 2: a sweetheart, and you know he kisses your mom when
Speaker 2: he meets your mom, and she's like, you know, she's
Speaker 2: a flutter and he's just the nicest human being.
Speaker 3: I wanted to hear about your experience around the time
Speaker 3: you started working on film scores and you Heart for
Speaker 3: a small amount of time, and then you had the
Speaker 3: experience of going and seeing Heart play and being in
Speaker 3: the audience and seeing and perform. What was that like
Speaker 3: for you to witness her as an audience member?
Speaker 2: That was really actually amazing for me to see that.
Speaker 2: I mean, I never left the band. I was taking
Speaker 2: a sabbatical, you know, kind of trying to start my
Speaker 2: family period of time that I was always going to
Speaker 2: come back to the band, just so that's real clear.
Speaker 2: So when Anne came to LA, I went and saw
Speaker 2: her at a cool club somewhere in town, and I
Speaker 2: was like, I don't want to, oh, you know, I
Speaker 2: don't want to go try to go up on stage
Speaker 2: or do anything with you, because I just I've never
Speaker 2: got to be a spectator and not stand next to
Speaker 2: you on the stage. So I sat up in the audience,
Speaker 2: you know, trying to disappear as hard as I could
Speaker 2: not be there and just be the lie on the
Speaker 2: wall and see this amazing singer. It's like she good.
Speaker 2: You know, she's such a good singer. Like I never
Speaker 2: I'm so usually standing there concentrating on the part I'm
Speaker 2: playing in a harmony that's coming up, or the other
Speaker 2: thing that's gonna happen next to just watch her sing.
Speaker 2: It's like Jesus, she's like one of the greats. This
Speaker 2: all done.
Speaker 3: What was the deciding factor this time to go back
Speaker 3: on tour now.
Speaker 2: Well, there was kind of a natural break over the
Speaker 2: last since twenty nineteen was our last big tour. You know,
Speaker 2: there was a lot of political shuffle and bustle and
Speaker 2: scuffle and it was hard to get or putting back
Speaker 2: together as far as like who owns what and who
Speaker 2: makes what decisions and what is hard exactly and yeah,
Speaker 2: you know who's in it, and so a bunch of
Speaker 2: really boring, unnecessary logistical flex kind of stuff. And you know,
Speaker 2: after twenty sixteen there was that break happened too because
Speaker 2: you know, obvious things that we thank god it's a
Speaker 2: long time ago now, but just stupid stuff that's inside
Speaker 2: the family. It was unnecessary, a negative stuff. We had
Speaker 2: to try to get over that first and then Once
Speaker 2: we got over that, we went out on to the
Speaker 2: twenty nineteen tour and that was a really hugely successful tour,
Speaker 2: but there were still more I don't know, drama.
Speaker 3: To work out.
Speaker 2: So we're back again five years later. Unfortunately it's a
Speaker 2: lot late later. I mean, we'd kind of ready to
Speaker 2: go out for quite a while. But you know, I've
Speaker 2: got a trainer, I'm getting strong, I keep my strength up,
Speaker 2: and I think it's going to be a good one.
Speaker 2: I think it's going to be fun and really really
Speaker 2: and I love playing with my sister. I really like
Speaker 2: being next to her on a rock stage, and you know,
Speaker 2: while we can, it's a good time to do it.
Speaker 3: So do you think you'll do another album?
Speaker 2: Well, I've been writing songs with Sue and one of
Speaker 2: them we're doing in Heart now called roll the Dice.
Speaker 2: It's a new Heart song. So you know, there's a
Speaker 2: couple of other songs that might kind of come out
Speaker 2: of it. But right now, these days, it's more about
Speaker 2: one song at a time than an albums. But I
Speaker 2: would love to do more songs with Art for art,
Speaker 2: but first the tour.
Speaker 3: You know, yeah, I have such a great time on
Speaker 3: the tour. I hope all goes well. People are going
Speaker 3: to go crazy and be so happy to see you
Speaker 3: both so well.
Speaker 2: I'm going to have my stash of Gaffer's tape and
Speaker 2: my scissors stuff and the clips.
Speaker 3: Yeah, your whole kid, the kit.
Speaker 2: I've got the kit ready to go.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much for talking today. It's been so
Speaker 3: much fun.
Speaker 2: Thank you. Really great to talk to you two, and
Speaker 2: very thorough.
Speaker 1: Thanks to Nancy Wilson of Heart. Stay tuned next week
Speaker 1: to hear from our sister and We'll see You. Can
Speaker 1: hear all of our favorite Heart songs on a playlist
Speaker 1: at broken record podcast dot com. Subscribe to our YouTube
Speaker 1: channel at YouTube dot com slash broken Record Podcast, where
Speaker 1: you can find all of our new episodes. You can
Speaker 1: follow us on Twitter at broken Record. Broken Record is
Speaker 1: produced and edited by Leah Rose, with marketing help from
Speaker 1: Eric Sandler and Jordan McMillan. Our engineer is Ben Tollery.
Speaker 1: Broken Record is a production of Pushkin Industries. If you
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Speaker 1: by any Eats. I'm justin Richmond.