Latest / Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond / Heart's Ann Wilson

Transcript

Heart's Ann Wilson · Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond

0:15
Speaker 1: Pushkin. Ann Wilson is the powerhouse lead singer of the
0:22
Speaker 1: band Heart, who celebrated classic debut album Dreamboat. Annie came
0:26
Speaker 1: out nearly fifty years ago. Last week, we featured an
0:30
Speaker 1: interview with her sister and longtime bandmatee Nancy Wilson, so
0:33
Speaker 1: make sure to check that out if you haven't already. Today,
0:36
Speaker 1: we'll hear from Anne, who's responsible for belting out and
0:39
Speaker 1: co writing some of Heart's most iconic early hits like
0:42
Speaker 1: Magic Man, Barracuda, and Crazy On You. Four years older
0:46
Speaker 1: than Nancy, Anne was the first Wilson's sister to join Heart,
0:49
Speaker 1: a band that started out as a cabaret cover band.
0:52
Speaker 1: Despite undergoing multiple lineup changes since the seventies, Heart has
0:56
Speaker 1: released top ten albums in nearly every decade in the
0:59
Speaker 1: last fifty years and sold over twenty million albums worldwide.
1:04
Speaker 1: Outside of Heart, Ann has also released solo material, including
1:08
Speaker 1: an album in twenty two three with her band Tripsitter.
1:11
Speaker 1: On today's episode, Lea Rose talks to Ann Wilson about
1:13
Speaker 1: Heart's current world tour and the Elton John albums she
1:16
Speaker 1: sings before every show to warm up her voice. Anne
1:20
Speaker 1: also explains how she would strategically play guitars around her
1:23
Speaker 1: house when having parties at her Seattle home in the
1:25
Speaker 1: nineties to encourage jam sessions with guests like Lane Staley
1:29
Speaker 1: and Chris Cornell, and she remembers singing on stage with
1:32
Speaker 1: Grace Slick and Stevie Nicks, who Anne says really is
1:35
Speaker 1: a witch, but a good one. This is broken record
1:41
Speaker 1: liner notes for the digital age. I'm justin Mitchman. Here's
1:45
Speaker 1: Lea Rose's conversation with Ann Wilson of Heart.
1:49
Speaker 2: Have you reimagined the band at all this time going out?
1:52
Speaker 2: I know it's been five years since Hart has toured.
1:56
Speaker 2: How has the band changed?
1:58
Speaker 3: Will the band has changed completely? Because nothing about it
2:03
Speaker 3: is the same except me and Nancy. Well, Ryan Waters
2:07
Speaker 3: was out in twenty nineteen, and this time we have
2:12
Speaker 3: the Tripsitter Band, which is my solo band as part
2:17
Speaker 3: with Ryan Waters and Nancy and I and it is
2:21
Speaker 3: a fantastic group. It's just wow. Blows me away every
2:25
Speaker 3: time we go and play some of these old Heart songs.
2:29
Speaker 3: You know, with this group of people, they just they
2:34
Speaker 3: understand the music and they just totally explode into it.
2:39
Speaker 3: It's amazing.
2:40
Speaker 2: And the trips that our guys are. From my understanding,
2:44
Speaker 2: they originally were session players in Nashville.
2:47
Speaker 3: They were, and they have reached a point in their careers,
2:52
Speaker 3: all of them where they don't want to do that anymore.
2:55
Speaker 3: Is a way of life. They want their own band.
2:59
Speaker 3: They don't want to just be working, you know, working
3:01
Speaker 3: for other people, doing what other people tell them to do.
3:04
Speaker 3: They want to be in a band where they have
3:06
Speaker 3: a say and they have ideas that get used and
3:10
Speaker 3: you know, it's a real band. And that's what we
3:13
Speaker 3: have with Heart at this point. You know, Heart's had
3:17
Speaker 3: many many iterations over the decades, different lineups and different
3:24
Speaker 3: kinds of things. Sometimes it's more acoustics. Sometimes it's way
3:28
Speaker 3: rock and grungy, almost like in the early two thousands,
3:33
Speaker 3: and sometimes it's pretty traditional a classic art. This is
3:39
Speaker 3: something completely new. I mean, it's huge in some points,
3:44
Speaker 3: really passionate. The dynamics are incredible. I mean, I can't
3:48
Speaker 3: say enough good stuff. I guess I'm just waxing.
3:52
Speaker 2: How do you practice when you're in a rehearsal space
3:54
Speaker 2: before you go out on tour? How can you practice
3:58
Speaker 2: to play arenas since the physical space is so different.
4:02
Speaker 3: Well, what we hear is what we have in our heads.
4:06
Speaker 3: So that's what we practice, not trying to go out
4:09
Speaker 3: and address every foot of airspace in those places because
4:14
Speaker 3: that's impossible. And all the different minds, I mean, if
4:19
Speaker 3: it's a full house in a big place, it's it
4:23
Speaker 3: can be up to twenty thousand different minds you know
4:26
Speaker 3: that are out there. Yeah, and how do you talk
4:29
Speaker 3: to that? So you can't. You just have to get
4:31
Speaker 3: out there and be completely inside the music and inside
4:35
Speaker 3: the lyrics and be there, really mean what you say,
4:41
Speaker 3: be present, be authentic, be all the way there. You know,
4:45
Speaker 3: that's the only thing you can do.
4:47
Speaker 2: When you're performing. Do you tend to lock eyes with
4:50
Speaker 2: certain people in the crowd or do you find yourself
4:55
Speaker 2: just looking past the audience?
4:58
Speaker 3: Well, I don't make an effort to lock eyes with
5:01
Speaker 3: any one person because they think that you mean something
5:04
Speaker 3: by it. You know, maybe you do, maybe you do
5:08
Speaker 3: mean so thing by it. But I tend to be
5:11
Speaker 3: in my head sort of and fluid inside of this
5:15
Speaker 3: big sound pool that we're creating.
5:19
Speaker 2: It sounds awesome.
5:21
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I'll look out and I'll look at the
5:25
Speaker 3: whole panorama. Yeah, if they've got things lit or if
5:29
Speaker 3: it's all twinkle here or something that's pretty amazing to
5:32
Speaker 3: see from the stage.
5:34
Speaker 2: Heart's getting ready to celebrate your fiftieth anniversary. You've seen
5:38
Speaker 2: the crowds change so much over the years, and now
5:41
Speaker 2: everybody has the cell phone. Yeah, does that change the
5:45
Speaker 2: performance for you? The energy of the crowd?
5:48
Speaker 3: It does change things, I gotta say, especially when they
5:52
Speaker 3: come up to the front of the stage and they
5:55
Speaker 3: turn around so that you're in the backdrop and they
5:58
Speaker 3: want to take a selfie with you as a background,
6:01
Speaker 3: you know. I mean, that's that's really distracting, you know,
6:05
Speaker 3: because you just want to sort of jump out of
6:07
Speaker 3: the way, you know, because it's it's yeah, I'm not
6:09
Speaker 3: a backdrop, you know. But I mean, to be fair,
6:15
Speaker 3: it's a big night for them and they want to
6:18
Speaker 3: preserve some little memory of it, so right, why not
6:21
Speaker 3: let them have it.
6:22
Speaker 2: I think I've read that you have an extensive vocal
6:24
Speaker 2: warm up before you go on stage. Can you share
6:27
Speaker 2: some of that with us? What you do to get ready?
6:30
Speaker 3: Yeah, I warm up for about forty five minutes to
6:34
Speaker 3: an hour, and I used to try and do classical
6:39
Speaker 3: like ruin scales and stuff like the vocal coaches teach
6:42
Speaker 3: you to do. But I couldn't sustain that. It's just
6:45
Speaker 3: too boring. So I finally found out that my throat
6:50
Speaker 3: and soul are just as warmed up if I find
6:54
Speaker 3: a couple of records that I love and just sing
6:59
Speaker 3: along with the whole thing. Like for a while last
7:02
Speaker 3: year I was doing Elton John Captain Fantastic in the
7:05
Speaker 3: Brown Dirt Cowboy, just sing along with the whole record
7:08
Speaker 3: every song, and then if there's still some more time,
7:12
Speaker 3: find another one. Sing along with that. Wow and lo
7:16
Speaker 3: and behold, your throat is warmed up. It's not just
7:19
Speaker 3: your throat, it's your whole ability to just be open,
7:23
Speaker 3: you know, your soul.
7:26
Speaker 2: When did you realize that you had such a powerful voice.
7:30
Speaker 3: I've never thought it was that powerful myself, except for
7:34
Speaker 3: a few moments in a few of the songs like
7:37
Speaker 3: Crazy and You that are high and sustained notes. And
7:41
Speaker 3: it's different when you hit a note and just hold it,
7:45
Speaker 3: then if you hit a high note and just go
7:47
Speaker 3: all squirrely all over the place. And I've never been
7:51
Speaker 3: much one for vocal gymnastics.
7:55
Speaker 2: They're like Mariah Carey runs right.
7:58
Speaker 3: Yeah. I like to sing them just simple. So when
8:02
Speaker 3: I realized I could do that I thought, most people
8:04
Speaker 3: don't do this this way, so I must have something.
8:09
Speaker 3: But I don't sit around on my some kind of
8:12
Speaker 3: laurels going wow, you sure have a strong voice. I
8:15
Speaker 3: think my kids would tell you that I have a
8:17
Speaker 3: strong voice. Or people at a birthday party when I
8:25
Speaker 3: sing Happy Birthday along with the crowd.
8:28
Speaker 2: Oh, I would love to hear that. Wow, So that's fascinating.
8:32
Speaker 2: You don't think you have a strong voice.
8:34
Speaker 3: Well, I mean there's some mighty fine singers out there. Yeah.
8:38
Speaker 2: Who are some of your favorite singers right now?
8:41
Speaker 3: Well, I always loved Uton. I think he in the
8:45
Speaker 3: early days. He was one of the people who influenced
8:48
Speaker 3: me the most. Right now, I would think that Billie Eilish.
8:54
Speaker 3: I love the way she sings. I mean it's so
8:58
Speaker 3: refined and so restrained and just calm, you know, beautiful. Yeah,
9:05
Speaker 3: so that I admire that, I really do.
9:08
Speaker 2: Have you tried to do something like that just to
9:10
Speaker 2: play around and see how it would sound.
9:13
Speaker 3: It's all in the song. Yeah, if you hit the
9:16
Speaker 3: right song that has that in it, then you can
9:18
Speaker 3: do it. I think. Yeah. And she and her brother,
9:21
Speaker 3: I mean the stuff they write kill her stuff. I
9:25
Speaker 3: love to see them at these big awards shows, just
9:28
Speaker 3: cleaning up, you know, because it's so you know, anti establishment,
9:33
Speaker 3: you think so. Yeah, I mean, here she comes wearing
9:38
Speaker 3: this total alternative outfit whatever it is, whichever thing she's at,
9:45
Speaker 3: and she looks beautiful. Her brother is just there to
9:49
Speaker 3: support her. They're just you can tell that they're friends, yeah,
9:52
Speaker 3: and that they're they're really tight, you know. I love that.
9:58
Speaker 2: I listen to you and Nancy's audiobook Kicking and Dreaming
10:03
Speaker 2: and was just sort of amazed at how strong the
10:09
Speaker 2: family mythology is in your family, and it really seems
10:14
Speaker 2: like you kept going back to the early days of
10:18
Speaker 2: your family and the stories that were shared in your
10:21
Speaker 2: families when it came to songwriting and decisions you made
10:25
Speaker 2: in your life. And at one point you were talking
10:27
Speaker 2: about this letter that your dad wrote to your mom
10:30
Speaker 2: where he was basically proposing to her, and how that
10:34
Speaker 2: was like the single most foundational work that sort of
10:37
Speaker 2: kept inspiring your songwriting.
10:40
Speaker 3: Yeah.
10:40
Speaker 2: Do you still feel that influence now?
10:44
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'll always feel influenced by both my parents because
10:47
Speaker 3: they were liberal, they were bohemian, they were romantic, and
10:53
Speaker 3: they were smart. You know, they were both intellectuals and
10:57
Speaker 3: they managed to find each other, you know, and their
11:00
Speaker 3: love of poetry and literature really inspires all my songwriting,
11:06
Speaker 3: and I think Nancy's too. Were both we're both pretty romantic.
11:11
Speaker 2: Yeah, when you left home, when you left the Seattle area,
11:16
Speaker 2: you moved to Canada, right when Heart was hocus focused,
11:19
Speaker 2: before the band was even called Heart, and you were
11:23
Speaker 2: living with your first boyfriend, your first love. Did that
11:28
Speaker 2: live up to this mythology in your mind of your parents'
11:33
Speaker 2: bond and their romantic love.
11:36
Speaker 3: Boy, Yeah, it sure did at the beginning. Yeah, it's
11:39
Speaker 3: just like all love affairs, you know, at the very start,
11:43
Speaker 3: it's so as Joni Mitchell says, it's so righteous at
11:47
Speaker 3: the start, you know, yeah, and just powerful and beautiful.
11:52
Speaker 3: But you're young, and your expectation makes it be just
11:57
Speaker 3: that makes it be mythology. It can't survive in the
12:02
Speaker 3: real world, you know, it has to. It has to
12:04
Speaker 3: break down because it's too perfect and that's not what
12:08
Speaker 3: this world is like and what people are like. Especially
12:11
Speaker 3: when you fall in love with somebody, you idealize them
12:14
Speaker 3: to the point where they're just gonna do everything for you,
12:18
Speaker 3: They're going to be your everything. And the minute you
12:21
Speaker 3: do that that's when it starts to break down. I think, Yeah,
12:25
Speaker 3: you got to let people have space, give them the
12:30
Speaker 3: right to be human and the right to be imperfect
12:32
Speaker 3: and not do everything for you.
12:35
Speaker 2: When you wrote Magic Man about that relationship, were you
12:40
Speaker 2: ever embarrassed or did you find yourself holding back because
12:44
Speaker 2: you didn't want your mom to see things that might
12:47
Speaker 2: have been a little bit scandalous at the time.
12:50
Speaker 3: Well, holding back. I think that leaving home and running
12:56
Speaker 3: off to another country with a man was about was
13:02
Speaker 3: not holding back. But yeah, you know, like I didn't
13:07
Speaker 3: rub it in her face that suddenly I was just
13:09
Speaker 3: off sleeping with somebody, right, And she was, for all
13:15
Speaker 3: her romanticism and love she had for our father, she
13:19
Speaker 3: was pretty victorian when it came to sex and stuff.
13:23
Speaker 3: So that was not something that went down easy between us.
13:27
Speaker 3: She just didn't want to think that I was up
13:29
Speaker 3: there blowing it. And that was in the pre Roe v.
13:33
Speaker 3: Wade days before it was legalized. We're back there now.
13:38
Speaker 3: But so mothers were extremely fearful of their daughter's running
13:44
Speaker 3: off and getting into wild sexual relationships and ending up pregnant,
13:50
Speaker 3: not knowing what to do about it, and you know,
13:52
Speaker 3: basically their lives being ruled by that fact from then on.
13:57
Speaker 2: Do you remember having conversations with your mom about that
14:01
Speaker 2: where she was warning you, like, look, this is what
14:03
Speaker 2: could happen to your life.
14:06
Speaker 3: Yeah, she put it differently, though she couched it more
14:10
Speaker 3: in h well, this is not dignified. You know. She
14:17
Speaker 3: didn't want to have the talk and get all clinical
14:20
Speaker 3: and everything. She didn't really want to do that, but
14:24
Speaker 3: she found a way to do it. And it was well,
14:27
Speaker 3: if you just go up there and become barefoot and pregnant,
14:30
Speaker 3: you know, that's like pretty trailer park trash. Oh and
14:36
Speaker 3: I guess that wasn't enough to scare me off.
14:40
Speaker 1: Yeah.
14:40
Speaker 2: I thought it was interesting because some of the lyrics
14:42
Speaker 2: and magic Man you it's almost like you're trying to
14:45
Speaker 2: convince your mom about how wonderful this guy is. You know,
14:49
Speaker 2: he's a magic man Mama.
14:50
Speaker 3: Yeah, Well we had many phone calls where she I
14:55
Speaker 3: was up in Canada in the cottage with him, and
14:58
Speaker 3: she wanted me to come home. She's, yeah, you got
15:01
Speaker 3: to come home. You're too young for this. You know.
15:04
Speaker 3: I was at nineteen, so I was old enough.
15:07
Speaker 2: Yeah. I was so surprised to too. And maybe it's
15:10
Speaker 2: not surprising for the time. But while you were in
15:12
Speaker 2: Hocus Pocus, you were the front person in the band.
15:16
Speaker 2: After gigs, you would come home the band was all
15:18
Speaker 2: living together. You would come home and cook everybody dinner
15:22
Speaker 2: and do all the laundry and do all the like
15:26
Speaker 2: homemaking duties.
15:29
Speaker 3: Yeah, that didn't last that long. I mean, at first
15:33
Speaker 3: I thought how how sweet it was to wash the
15:37
Speaker 3: sheets and hang them outside in the fresh air so
15:41
Speaker 3: that and then put them back on the bed, you know,
15:43
Speaker 3: and try and make a dinner out of some brown
15:46
Speaker 3: rice and a couple of onions, you know. But and
15:53
Speaker 3: for a while we lived up there in a cabin,
15:57
Speaker 3: a cottage thing with Roger Fisher and his wife who
16:01
Speaker 3: had just gotten married and received for a wedding gift
16:05
Speaker 3: of fifty pounds sack of brown rice, which we all
16:10
Speaker 3: ended up living on because we didn't have any money
16:13
Speaker 3: when we were putting the band together. So we just
16:15
Speaker 3: date brown rice and drank water and called it the
16:18
Speaker 3: Georgia Shawa brown rice diet, you know.
16:22
Speaker 2: And you can do that back then when you're twenty, yeah,
16:25
Speaker 2: and everybody's fine with it, that's right. And that was
16:29
Speaker 2: before Nancy joined the band, Yes.
16:32
Speaker 3: She joined later in nineteen about seventy three.
16:37
Speaker 1: We have to take a quick break, and then we're
16:39
Speaker 1: back with more from Anne Wilson and Lea Rose. We're
16:46
Speaker 1: back with Lea Rose and Anne Wilson.
16:49
Speaker 2: How did the band change for you when Nancy joined?
16:53
Speaker 3: Well, I was really glad because I felt that art
16:57
Speaker 3: had gone about as far as it could go. We
17:00
Speaker 3: didn't have a very good vocal section. I mean, we
17:04
Speaker 3: didn't have a very good ability at harmony singing, and
17:08
Speaker 3: we did have an acoustic guitar player, so we were
17:12
Speaker 3: stuck doing rock and roll songs, you know, like Johnny
17:16
Speaker 3: be Good and Walking the Dog and all that kind
17:19
Speaker 3: of stuff that the guys did, and there was kind
17:23
Speaker 3: of almost a whole part of the soul of the band.
17:28
Speaker 3: It was missing for me because I had come from
17:33
Speaker 3: doing folk groups with Nancy, where we did heavy harmonies
17:36
Speaker 3: and we both played acoustic guitars, and that's so when
17:39
Speaker 3: she joined, she brought that element. She's a fantastic harmony
17:43
Speaker 3: singer and a great acoustic player. So all of a sudden,
17:47
Speaker 3: heart had a heart, you know, and we just got
17:52
Speaker 3: kind of what Led Zeppelin had, which was it can
17:55
Speaker 3: go as rock as you want, but it can also
17:57
Speaker 3: go as tender as you want down at the very center. Yes,
18:01
Speaker 3: and that was really satisfying to me.
18:06
Speaker 2: Early on you talked about doing you have sort of
18:09
Speaker 2: like a mini led Zeppelin cover section in your shows,
18:14
Speaker 2: and one night led Zeppelin actually came and saw you play.
18:18
Speaker 3: Well, they didn't stop and watch us, They just walked
18:20
Speaker 3: through the room.
18:22
Speaker 2: Did you see them walking through?
18:24
Speaker 3: Yeah? It was a club in Vancouver called oil Can
18:28
Speaker 3: Harry's and they had a big showroom and then they
18:33
Speaker 3: had a big party room upstairs, and so we saw
18:37
Speaker 3: them kind of trooping through after their concert at the arena.
18:41
Speaker 3: You know, when they're done with the Glory gig, they
18:44
Speaker 3: come and have a party upstairs and oil Cans and yeah,
18:47
Speaker 3: we saw them and we all just about lost it.
18:50
Speaker 2: I mean, I imagine they just looked like the sexiest
18:52
Speaker 2: rock stars on the planet. Oh yeah, yeah. And then
18:56
Speaker 2: the full circle moment of having performed at the Kennedy
19:00
Speaker 2: Center for when led Zeppelin was getting honored. How did
19:05
Speaker 2: you prepare for that show mentally? Was that completely intimidating
19:11
Speaker 2: to you or are you able to just sort of
19:13
Speaker 2: switch into show mode and go out there and do
19:15
Speaker 2: your thing with full confidence.
19:18
Speaker 3: I think that that night I needed an extra measure
19:22
Speaker 3: of meditative calmness because I didn't want to go out
19:27
Speaker 3: there and start to think about it. You know, that's
19:30
Speaker 3: what you really don't want to do. Not only was
19:33
Speaker 3: led Zeppelin in the audience, but the you know, the
19:35
Speaker 3: President and first Lady, and the audience was just packed
19:39
Speaker 3: with all these different luminaries and famous people of all ILKs.
19:46
Speaker 3: So I just remember saying to Nancy, let's just pretend
19:50
Speaker 3: like we have bowls of water in our heads and
19:54
Speaker 3: we have to walk out there without spilling a drop
19:57
Speaker 3: and just concentrate on the water on the song, right,
20:01
Speaker 3: and nothing else, just be in the song. And so
20:05
Speaker 3: we did, and it turned out to be a fun
20:08
Speaker 3: experience and one that went really smooth, and nothing went wrong,
20:14
Speaker 3: and it was great because you know, after all, what
20:17
Speaker 3: could possibly go wrong in a situation like that.
20:22
Speaker 2: It's such an emotional performance, and the footage after where
20:28
Speaker 2: you see you know, Robert Plant and the band, they're
20:31
Speaker 2: sitting there with tears streaming down their face, and then
20:34
Speaker 2: you see Barack and Michelle Obama sitting there and John
20:38
Speaker 2: Bonham's son is playing with you all on drums. It's
20:41
Speaker 2: just so incredibly moving. Yeah, what a feat. It's beautiful,
20:46
Speaker 2: beautiful performance. You sounded incredible.
20:49
Speaker 3: Oh, thank you. Yeah, it was. It was quite an experience,
20:53
Speaker 3: never to be forgotten.
20:54
Speaker 2: I read at one point that you opened for the
20:57
Speaker 2: bee Gees.
20:58
Speaker 3: Yeah, that was real early.
21:00
Speaker 2: Did you have any sort of interaction with them another
21:04
Speaker 2: family band?
21:05
Speaker 3: I don't think at that point we got to interact
21:08
Speaker 3: with them. At that point we were pretty much a
21:11
Speaker 3: little cabaret band in Canada, and the Begs were doing
21:18
Speaker 3: across Canada tour and they needed an opener and we'd
21:25
Speaker 3: only done one opening show before that for Rod Stewart,
21:29
Speaker 3: so we were by no means ready for that kind
21:33
Speaker 3: of exposure, but we got up and did it. You know.
21:36
Speaker 3: I was always a huge Beg's fan. All their different
21:40
Speaker 3: eras and their psychedelic era and even the disco time
21:47
Speaker 3: and all that. I just thought it was all great.
21:50
Speaker 3: So yeah, it was really fun standing on this side
21:53
Speaker 3: of the stage and listening to them live after we
21:56
Speaker 3: were done, you know.
21:58
Speaker 2: And so that was already after the first album was.
22:00
Speaker 3: Out, Yes, pretty soon after the first album was out.
22:05
Speaker 2: What do you remember about recording that first album? Do
22:08
Speaker 2: any of the session and stand out in your memory.
22:11
Speaker 3: Yeah, I just remember going from zero, from knowing nothing,
22:14
Speaker 3: absolutely nothing about being in the studio, to Mike Flicker,
22:20
Speaker 3: who was our first producer, mentoring me to be able
22:24
Speaker 3: to sing a lead vocal on the songs, Like the
22:29
Speaker 3: first one I ever sang was Crazy on You, and
22:32
Speaker 3: we were actually doing Crazy on You in clubs at
22:36
Speaker 3: that point, and Magic Man. We hadn't written Barracoutie yet,
22:40
Speaker 3: but those two other songs we would, you know, we'd
22:44
Speaker 3: play our normal club set and then we'd sneak Crazy
22:48
Speaker 3: on You in and we'd sneak Magic Men in and
22:51
Speaker 3: see what the audience did. And at first they were
22:54
Speaker 3: kind of like what, And then they never heard that
22:59
Speaker 3: song before, so they were used to let Zeppelin and
23:03
Speaker 3: Elton John and the other stuff.
23:04
Speaker 2: We were playing the stuff they know.
23:07
Speaker 3: Yeah, and then by bit they started to respond to
23:11
Speaker 3: those two songs live till it happened that they were
23:16
Speaker 3: actually coming unglued. They were applauding and standing up and
23:20
Speaker 3: liking those. So we pulled him out to when we
23:24
Speaker 3: went and opened for the Bechis and Rod Stewart, we
23:26
Speaker 3: actually dared to play our original.
23:29
Speaker 2: Stuff, and didn't you get a huge reaction when you
23:31
Speaker 2: opened for Rod Stuart because it had been on the
23:33
Speaker 2: radio at that point.
23:34
Speaker 3: Yeah, we didn't really know it. The communications in those
23:40
Speaker 3: days were not like they are now, where you know
23:42
Speaker 3: everything that goes on with your record every minute, you know,
23:47
Speaker 3: and we didn't really understand that dreamboat And he was
23:50
Speaker 3: being played in Montreal by this disc jockey named Doug Pringle.
23:57
Speaker 3: He believed in us and he played the record. So
24:00
Speaker 3: when we got to Montreal opening for Rod Stewart, we
24:04
Speaker 3: walked out on stage to a house full of lip
24:06
Speaker 3: matches because they knew our recorda we were just this
24:10
Speaker 3: little opener. But wow, you know. So that was just
24:14
Speaker 3: a way that we started out in Canada.
24:17
Speaker 2: Did that motivate you to want to go in and
24:19
Speaker 2: immediately start writing more songs and continue with that specific
24:25
Speaker 2: sound of the songs that were doing well at the time.
24:29
Speaker 3: Yeah, we wanted to just go ahead and keep on writing,
24:32
Speaker 3: you know. And just the experience of writing the first
24:36
Speaker 3: two songs was so great and just so much fun
24:41
Speaker 3: that we just wanted to keep going. And some of
24:44
Speaker 3: the songs we wrote were more rock, but then there
24:48
Speaker 3: were a whole bunch of songs on Dreabo Eddie like
24:50
Speaker 3: Dreamboat Eddie and love Me Like Music, I'll be your song,
24:54
Speaker 3: how deep it goes, Soul of the Sea, ones that
24:57
Speaker 3: are really soft at the middle. So it's a mixed
25:00
Speaker 3: bag on that record. Nobody could really put their finger
25:04
Speaker 3: on what we were going to be, whether it was
25:06
Speaker 3: going to be a rock band or what.
25:08
Speaker 2: Did you like that sort of keeping people guessing or
25:12
Speaker 2: was that more like you didn't know what you guys were.
25:16
Speaker 3: We didn't know. We were just formulating, you know.
25:20
Speaker 2: Yeah, which album would you say, out of your entire
25:23
Speaker 2: discography is the most true to what you think the
25:27
Speaker 2: band does best.
25:29
Speaker 3: Maybe a Little Queen because it has Right of Me,
25:33
Speaker 3: go On Cry and Barracuda, and it's got good ballads
25:38
Speaker 3: and it's got good gas rockers, you know.
25:41
Speaker 2: Yeah. Do you remember where the photograph for the cover
25:44
Speaker 2: of Little Queen was taken?
25:46
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was taken in Elesion Park in LA and
25:52
Speaker 3: they took us to Western Costumers and got the gypsy clothes.
25:58
Speaker 3: In fact, I was wearing my own clothes that day,
26:00
Speaker 3: but everybody else was dressed up like a gypsy and
26:04
Speaker 3: rented a gypsy painted wagon and a goat and a
26:07
Speaker 3: horse and all all this stuff and set up a scene.
26:11
Speaker 2: What were you listening to at that time? So that
26:13
Speaker 2: came out in seventy seven? What was on the radio?
26:16
Speaker 2: What were you into?
26:18
Speaker 3: Wow? Seventy seven, still listening to Elton John, listening to
26:23
Speaker 3: Steely Dan, listening to Moody Blues and Rolling Stones. It's
26:29
Speaker 3: all kinds of cool things. You know.
26:32
Speaker 2: You grew up having hoot Nanny's in your house, playing
26:34
Speaker 2: instruments with family, singing songs, and then later when you
26:39
Speaker 2: lived in Seattle, you would have these big parties and
26:43
Speaker 2: have a lot of the people who became like the
26:46
Speaker 2: all stars of the grunge movement over and just jam
26:49
Speaker 2: and have fun and play. Around that time in the seventies,
26:53
Speaker 2: were you doing anything like that playing with other musicians.
26:56
Speaker 3: We were mostly playing with the members of the band
27:00
Speaker 3: up in Canada. We didn't know a whole lot of
27:03
Speaker 3: other musicians. It was different back then. We were kind
27:07
Speaker 3: of we were the party and we would have more
27:12
Speaker 3: fun just jamming together on stage. Off stage, it really
27:16
Speaker 3: didn't matter. We've jam in the living room and then
27:20
Speaker 3: back up and go out to the club and jam there.
27:23
Speaker 2: You know. Yeah, And at that point, so the late
27:26
Speaker 2: seventies did you foresee a long career for the band
27:30
Speaker 2: or was it sort of you know, day by day?
27:33
Speaker 2: How are you thinking about the band's future.
27:36
Speaker 3: Oh, we definitely had a five year plan. I mean,
27:40
Speaker 3: our manager would not let us get out of bed
27:43
Speaker 3: without a five year plan. But it was good because
27:48
Speaker 3: it made sense. It wasn't just ambition. It was more about, Okay,
27:54
Speaker 3: we've gone this far. Now we've got these songs, what
27:58
Speaker 3: else can we make? You know, We've got Crazy on you,
28:03
Speaker 3: We've got Barracuda, We've got all these songs that are great.
28:07
Speaker 3: Now what you know?
28:08
Speaker 2: What did you do to stir up ideas for inspiration
28:12
Speaker 2: for writing songs once those big hits were out and established?
28:18
Speaker 1: Yeah?
28:18
Speaker 3: I think that many of our songs start from the music,
28:22
Speaker 3: and then once I, Nancy and I are just me
28:26
Speaker 3: hear the music, it suggests something and then we start
28:31
Speaker 3: writing words and then suddenly, lo and behold, you have
28:34
Speaker 3: a song.
28:35
Speaker 2: You know, do you prefer to be by yourself at
28:38
Speaker 2: that point or do you like to be with sitting
28:41
Speaker 2: with the other musicians writing words.
28:44
Speaker 3: I like to be by myself, no doubt about it.
28:47
Speaker 3: But jamming you have to be with other people. You
28:50
Speaker 3: have your ideas and they have their ideas and how
28:53
Speaker 3: they mix and you spark ideas off each other and
28:57
Speaker 3: you can tell when you hit on something and it's great.
29:01
Speaker 2: Would people in the band give you feedback on your lyrics,
29:04
Speaker 2: say like, ah, maybe this line should be tweaked.
29:07
Speaker 3: A little bit occasionally.
29:09
Speaker 2: How would you take that as a writer?
29:11
Speaker 3: Well, if they did that, I would say, and what
29:14
Speaker 3: would you put in its place? And if they had
29:17
Speaker 3: a good suggestion, I go, okay, we'll use that. Maybe.
29:22
Speaker 3: If they didn't have a good suggestion, I'd say shut up,
29:27
Speaker 3: not literally shut up, but just we'll keep it my
29:32
Speaker 3: way until you think it's something better. You know.
29:35
Speaker 2: Yeah, after the first initial band disbanded, people left and
29:41
Speaker 2: there was a new iteration of the group. Was that
29:43
Speaker 2: really heartbreaking for you or did you have hope that
29:47
Speaker 2: we can create something new and move on.
29:51
Speaker 3: It's hard to describe what it was like when that
29:55
Speaker 3: lineup disbanded, other than to say that we couldn't get
30:00
Speaker 3: along anymore and things got really difficult between us. You know.
30:07
Speaker 3: It seemed like the that made heart unusual, which was
30:12
Speaker 3: men and women working together as equals, was breaking down,
30:16
Speaker 3: and that very thing was the thing that was driving
30:20
Speaker 3: us apart from each other. We would just squabble and
30:24
Speaker 3: write down gender lines. It would just be really difficult,
30:29
Speaker 3: the men gossiping about the girls and the girls gossiping
30:31
Speaker 3: about the men. And it didn't help that, you know,
30:35
Speaker 3: Nancy and I never looked that fondly on the whole
30:38
Speaker 3: world of groupies and having to explain to the band wives, no,
30:42
Speaker 3: nothing goes on out there, you know, lie to them
30:45
Speaker 3: all the time, and it just got to be weird.
30:49
Speaker 2: You know, when you reformulated the band and then bring
30:53
Speaker 2: in more men, did it feel like things are going
30:56
Speaker 2: to end up differently this time or did it seem
30:59
Speaker 2: like maybe it'll kind of play out in the same way.
31:02
Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, I always go into every new iteration of
31:06
Speaker 3: the band totally optimist, because the world is full of
31:12
Speaker 3: good people and just because you play out your relationship
31:16
Speaker 3: with some people doesn't mean you don't have one with others.
31:21
Speaker 3: And we've been really fortunate to play with some great
31:25
Speaker 3: musicians over the years, men and women. And it's not
31:29
Speaker 3: really important to us, to me or to Nancy and
31:33
Speaker 3: I which gender it is. It really isn't. It's just
31:37
Speaker 3: who can do the job, who's a great player, who's
31:40
Speaker 3: a great singer, who's a great writer. And we worked
31:43
Speaker 3: with Holly Knight and Debbie Cheer and Denny Carmassi on drums,
31:50
Speaker 3: and it's just some amazing players. But we never again
31:54
Speaker 3: encountered the same kind of emotional hardship we did with
31:58
Speaker 3: that first lineup. I think it was because we all
32:00
Speaker 3: started out we were poor and destitute, and then we
32:04
Speaker 3: had all the success and there was all this money
32:06
Speaker 3: that came in, and money change everything, you know, and
32:10
Speaker 3: everybody gets kind of different.
32:13
Speaker 2: Do you think they start to resent you because you
32:15
Speaker 2: were the front person and getting a lot of attention
32:18
Speaker 2: and Nancy and you are getting a lot of attention.
32:22
Speaker 3: Yeah, there were some of that because they were at
32:25
Speaker 3: the men and the band were out there working just
32:27
Speaker 3: as hard as us and putting their bodies on the
32:32
Speaker 3: line too. But yet whenever we did an interview, Nancy
32:36
Speaker 3: and I were the only ones that got talked to
32:39
Speaker 3: and got all the attention, you know. And there's nothing
32:42
Speaker 3: much that we could do about it. It's just how
32:45
Speaker 3: it was. And it really hurt the men's feelings and
32:50
Speaker 3: made them angry. So I don't blame them at all.
32:52
Speaker 2: Really, Yeah, it's understandable.
32:55
Speaker 3: Yeah.
32:56
Speaker 2: Are you still in touch with the old members from
32:58
Speaker 2: the original line up?
32:59
Speaker 3: Yeah, we saw him just a couple months ago when
33:03
Speaker 3: we played in Seattle. They all showed up super cool. Yeah.
33:08
Speaker 2: And then moving in to the eighties, that was when
33:10
Speaker 2: you started the record label, when you signed to Capitol
33:14
Speaker 2: started bringing in professional songwriters. Yes, how was that for
33:19
Speaker 2: you as a songwriter and as somebody who had been
33:22
Speaker 2: the face of this band for so long?
33:24
Speaker 3: Yeah? I went back and forth on it. It depended
33:27
Speaker 3: on the song. For instance, I thought These Dreams was
33:31
Speaker 3: a really great song, just a beautiful song that fit
33:35
Speaker 3: Nancy's voice just perfect. It was the ideal marriage, you know.
33:40
Speaker 3: But some of the other songs that came our way
33:43
Speaker 3: that we did during the eighties, I thought didn't have
33:46
Speaker 3: much substance and were pretty calculated. They were just different
33:52
Speaker 3: versions of what was being played on the radio right already.
33:57
Speaker 3: And uh, I wasn't that fond of that, because you know,
34:01
Speaker 3: I was there at the beginning when we had all
34:03
Speaker 3: this this beautiful idealism about being poets and all that.
34:09
Speaker 2: Are you glad now looking back that you did it
34:13
Speaker 2: even though you were fundamentally opposed to it at certain times?
34:17
Speaker 2: About what you were singing. Are you glad you tried
34:20
Speaker 2: it and stuck with it?
34:22
Speaker 3: Sure? Yeah. It was a good experience and it did
34:25
Speaker 3: teach me a lot about songwriting, just the basic lesson
34:30
Speaker 3: of you don't tax people's attention span. You just don't
34:35
Speaker 3: get all selfish and just go, well, this is my vision,
34:39
Speaker 3: Like you want to talk directly to them, you know,
34:42
Speaker 3: and connect with them. That's what a lot of those
34:44
Speaker 3: songs in the eighties had. It was a good listen.
34:47
Speaker 2: I love those songs.
34:49
Speaker 3: Yeah, some of them are cool.
34:50
Speaker 2: Super cool, and I bet the crowd loves them when
34:53
Speaker 2: you play them live.
34:54
Speaker 3: Yeah, like we used to do at Lisa del Bello
34:57
Speaker 3: song called Wait for an Answer that moves through five
35:02
Speaker 3: keys and everything, and it's just amazingly powerful song. And
35:09
Speaker 3: that taught me so much about how you can have
35:13
Speaker 3: a very simple idea and just repeat it only take
35:18
Speaker 3: it up a key and then up another key, up
35:21
Speaker 3: another key, and then it just changes. Meaning every time
35:24
Speaker 3: you go up with these dreams.
35:27
Speaker 2: Is that the song that you said you can't sing
35:29
Speaker 2: for whatever reason, there's something about that song that you've
35:32
Speaker 2: tried it in karaoke and you can't sing it.
35:36
Speaker 3: I don't sound that good on these dreams. The times
35:39
Speaker 3: I've tried it at karaoke. Yeah, it's just there's something
35:43
Speaker 3: about it. It's I feel awkward singing it and I
35:46
Speaker 3: sound awkward. That's Nancy's song.
35:50
Speaker 2: Do you still not sing all I want to do?
35:53
Speaker 2: We haven't done that for a long time. Is it
35:55
Speaker 2: going to come back out?
35:57
Speaker 3: I don't think so. There's a lot cooler stuff that
36:00
Speaker 3: we can bring out than that.
36:04
Speaker 2: That song had a big influence on my It was
36:07
Speaker 2: very eye opening as a younger.
36:10
Speaker 3: Yeah, and just not in a very cool way. But
36:16
Speaker 3: now I'm being my mother. You know, that's my mother talking.
36:22
Speaker 1: We have to take another quick break and then we'll
36:24
Speaker 1: be back with more from Leo Rose and Anne Wilson.
36:31
Speaker 1: We're back with the rest of Leo Rose's conversation with
36:34
Speaker 1: Anne Wilson.
36:36
Speaker 2: In your book, you talked about some of the compromises
36:38
Speaker 2: you made in the eighties were a devil's bargain, which
36:41
Speaker 2: you were wearing, the types of songs you were performing.
36:45
Speaker 2: How did you manage to push past that era?
36:49
Speaker 3: Oh? You just live one breath after another, you know,
36:53
Speaker 3: you just keep on going. And I always believed in heart,
36:58
Speaker 3: I always believe that we would emerge from that, and
37:02
Speaker 3: that we would come up again and be writing our
37:06
Speaker 3: own type of music about the things we wanted to
37:09
Speaker 3: write about, and that people would like them, maybe not
37:12
Speaker 3: on the same massive level, but on a level.
37:17
Speaker 2: Does that matter to you if as someone who as
37:19
Speaker 2: a musician has experienced both the massive arena level and
37:24
Speaker 2: then also you do a lot of small shows that
37:26
Speaker 2: are very intimate as a songwriter, as a musician, as
37:30
Speaker 2: a singer, does it matter to you? Or is all
37:33
Speaker 2: that matters is just performing?
37:36
Speaker 3: When I'm doing it, It's all that matters is just
37:39
Speaker 3: the performing. I think other people care more about the
37:43
Speaker 3: level of success than I do. You know, I've been
37:47
Speaker 3: accused of not caring enough about writing commercial songs, and
37:53
Speaker 3: I admit I'm guilty. I just want to write lovely songs.
37:58
Speaker 3: I want to write cool stuffs.
38:00
Speaker 2: Are you writing right now?
38:02
Speaker 3: Yeah? I am, And I'm just about to go down
38:05
Speaker 3: to Nashville and hang out with the Trip Sitters and
38:10
Speaker 3: write some more songs.
38:11
Speaker 2: What about the love Mongers? Are they ever going to
38:13
Speaker 2: get back together?
38:15
Speaker 3: Oh? Love Mongers? Yeah? Now that was a vocal group. Yeah,
38:19
Speaker 3: that was some gorgeous vocals. I don't know, I hope.
38:24
Speaker 3: So that was a fun band. It was really fun.
38:27
Speaker 2: So that was Nancy, yourself and your old friend Sue.
38:31
Speaker 3: Uh huh, and our other friend Frank Cox. Frank has
38:35
Speaker 3: a beautiful tenor voice, and I was playing bass and singing.
38:41
Speaker 3: So we had really a good three part harmonies and
38:45
Speaker 3: we could do whatever we wanted. We didn't do much
38:48
Speaker 3: heart stuff. We used the Love Mongers as an escape
38:52
Speaker 3: from heart for a while. Just after the eighties. We
38:57
Speaker 3: just we went into lovemngerland for a while and just
39:00
Speaker 3: did whatever we wanted.
39:02
Speaker 2: Is that around the time that you were back in
39:04
Speaker 2: Seattle and starting to hang out with some of the
39:07
Speaker 2: musicians that were coming up, And.
39:09
Speaker 3: Yeah, and oddly enough, a lot of those musicians that
39:14
Speaker 3: were part of the Seattle community then loved the Lovemongers
39:20
Speaker 3: and we loved them, and we'd all show up at
39:23
Speaker 3: each other's shows and it didn't matter that it was
39:25
Speaker 3: at this little club that it really didn't matter. Yeah,
39:29
Speaker 3: it was just about the music and about playing camaraderie.
39:33
Speaker 2: You've said that musicians from Seattle aren't just going to
39:37
Speaker 2: be nice about a song because you're sitting there playing it.
39:40
Speaker 2: They're really honest about their feedback yes, they are. Yeah.
39:45
Speaker 2: Can you remember a time where you were had an
39:48
Speaker 2: interaction with a Seattle musician and you're just like, oh yeah.
39:54
Speaker 3: Jerry Cantrell, he told me on a number of occasions
39:57
Speaker 3: it was one of the ballads, the more commercial ballads
40:01
Speaker 3: from the eighties. Maybe it was all I want to do.
40:04
Speaker 3: But he just said to me, that is such bullshit.
40:08
Speaker 3: That is such bullshit now, Barracuda, That's great, that's the shit,
40:13
Speaker 3: you know.
40:15
Speaker 2: And you're like, I agree with you, I agree with you.
40:20
Speaker 2: When everybody would come over to your house and play
40:22
Speaker 2: at those parties, what would you how does that happen?
40:24
Speaker 2: Like people start out drinking and then eventually people pick
40:27
Speaker 2: up instruments and are just playing songs or what was
40:30
Speaker 2: this scene?
40:31
Speaker 1: Like?
40:32
Speaker 3: Well, I was no fool. I would always have in
40:35
Speaker 3: my living room. I'd have guitars laying around casually, you know,
40:39
Speaker 3: laying and a piano and a couple of little amps.
40:44
Speaker 3: Usually it would happen after somebody's concert and everyone would
40:50
Speaker 3: show up for the concert, and then whoever was free
40:54
Speaker 3: afterward would show up at my house and they'd all
40:58
Speaker 3: come in and start drinking beers and smoking Ciggi's and
41:03
Speaker 3: sitting up on my counters and just then, pretty soon
41:08
Speaker 3: somebody had start to blay, what do you remember being
41:12
Speaker 3: played then? And who do you remember being there? I
41:15
Speaker 3: remember one time John Waits was there, Lane Stay the Pearl,
41:22
Speaker 3: Jam guys, the Artist's spoon man, Chris Cornell and Kim
41:27
Speaker 3: Thale and oh them.
41:30
Speaker 2: What was it like singing with Chris Cornell?
41:32
Speaker 3: Beautiful? He's like one of those naturals, like he comes
41:36
Speaker 3: from a musical family too. And not only did I
41:40
Speaker 3: know Chris, I knew his sister Maggie, who's a great
41:44
Speaker 3: singer too, So it was easy as pie to sing
41:48
Speaker 3: with chris beautiful voice.
41:50
Speaker 2: Yeah, was there ever any stories about Jimmy Hendrix, another
41:55
Speaker 2: Seattle musician, Like was he part of the Laura at all?
41:59
Speaker 3: I never met Jimmy myself, but I did go and
42:02
Speaker 3: poke my head into Jimmy's apartment one time.
42:05
Speaker 2: Oh how did that happen?
42:07
Speaker 3: When he lived in Seattle, when he was just a
42:11
Speaker 3: young guy before he blew the coop? You know. Yeah,
42:15
Speaker 3: just I was going to art college and somebody wanted
42:19
Speaker 3: to go pick up some weed or something, and we
42:22
Speaker 3: stopped at this little apartment and they went look around
42:28
Speaker 3: this is a famous apartment, you know. I mean the
42:31
Speaker 3: people who were living there then were not Jimmy. But
42:35
Speaker 3: look around. This place has much vibe, you know, yeah,
42:38
Speaker 3: trying to feel the.
42:39
Speaker 2: Vibe, Jimmy, that's so cool. What stands out in your
42:43
Speaker 2: mind when you think about the seventies or eighties? What
42:46
Speaker 2: was the biggest rock star moment that you had. Once
42:50
Speaker 2: the band started to pick up notoriety, we looked at
42:53
Speaker 2: maybe looked at Nancy, like, whoa, this is big time.
42:58
Speaker 3: As time goes along, you meet just about everybody. They
43:01
Speaker 3: usually end up just being people, but that doesn't mean
43:06
Speaker 3: they're disappointing. Meant a lot of cool people and some
43:10
Speaker 3: who yes, we're just folks, you know.
43:14
Speaker 2: Yeah.
43:14
Speaker 3: You think they're gonna be like so grand and everything,
43:18
Speaker 3: and then they're just like, hey, Hi, how are you.
43:22
Speaker 2: Well. I know that there was stories about you hanging
43:24
Speaker 2: out with Stevie Nicks. That's always seemed like.
43:27
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, she jumped on her plane for a few days.
43:31
Speaker 3: We had a number one record, that's what it was.
43:33
Speaker 3: That was The Magnetism, and we were playing in San Francisco.
43:37
Speaker 3: She came out to the show and got up on
43:41
Speaker 3: stage with us and with Grace Slick to sing on
43:46
Speaker 3: what About Love? And after the show she said, gee,
43:50
Speaker 3: I kind of hate to say goodbye to you guys.
43:52
Speaker 3: Where are you going next? And they said, well, we're
43:54
Speaker 3: going to Phoenix, And it just so happened that Stevie
43:56
Speaker 3: has another house in Phoenix. So she got on our
44:01
Speaker 3: plane the next day and we all went out to
44:04
Speaker 3: Phoenix and went to her house and hung out after
44:07
Speaker 3: our show. And that's an eye opener. It's cool because
44:14
Speaker 3: she's she's everything she says. I mean she's a white witch.
44:18
Speaker 3: I mean she's definitely got her her self image down
44:22
Speaker 3: and together. She's very smart, super creative.
44:27
Speaker 2: Did you get to sing with her at all?
44:29
Speaker 3: Just when she got up on stage with us?
44:31
Speaker 2: Okay, so when you're hanging out, you didn't sit around singing, And.
44:35
Speaker 3: No, we mostly listen to each other talk. I don't know.
44:40
Speaker 3: You don't have that much to say really that you
44:44
Speaker 3: don't all feel as a group because you are all
44:47
Speaker 3: going through the same experiences.
44:50
Speaker 2: How is that for you coming home in between stops
44:53
Speaker 2: on tour, when you would go home and see your
44:55
Speaker 2: parents and see your older sister Lynn, was it hard
44:59
Speaker 2: to relate to them and sort of come down from
45:01
Speaker 2: being on the road.
45:03
Speaker 3: Yeah, everyone tells you that you've changed and that you're
45:07
Speaker 3: faking it, you're not the same person, and you know,
45:10
Speaker 3: like everyone's always really disappointed in you because you're living
45:14
Speaker 3: on this big, inflated level. But that's how it gets.
45:18
Speaker 3: When you're out on those big doors like that, you
45:20
Speaker 3: live in a bubble of safety and security and you're
45:24
Speaker 3: protected from people just because, for one, you don't want
45:28
Speaker 3: to get sick, and for two, some people can be dangerous,
45:33
Speaker 3: so you have to have protection from all of that,
45:36
Speaker 3: you know, And you get used to it and you
45:39
Speaker 3: go home and you're kind of like, don't come near me,
45:41
Speaker 3: you know.
45:43
Speaker 2: Yeah, I imagine you need a couple of weeks to
45:45
Speaker 2: kind of reformulate.
45:47
Speaker 3: Yes, indeed, does that take.
45:50
Speaker 2: A lot of mental preparation for you to be removed
45:53
Speaker 2: from your space, from your home and know you'll be
45:56
Speaker 2: sort of a nomad.
45:57
Speaker 3: Takes a lot of relaxation out there. That's the main
46:01
Speaker 3: thing for me is just to relax enough to have
46:06
Speaker 3: fun with it and not get all freaked out, you
46:08
Speaker 3: know about not being home and being tired or whatever.
46:13
Speaker 3: Like the things that are hard about touring, which is
46:16
Speaker 3: the travel.
46:17
Speaker 2: Are you traveling on buses mostly when you're in the.
46:20
Speaker 3: US, Yes, on buses. However, over in Europe they don't
46:24
Speaker 3: do that anymore because of the European Union has broken up,
46:27
Speaker 3: so you can't just go from country to country on
46:30
Speaker 3: a bus. You have to go through customs and all that.
46:34
Speaker 3: The bus can't leave the country, you know, So it's
46:38
Speaker 3: much more complex now over there.
46:40
Speaker 2: After taking the five year break from touring with Heart,
46:44
Speaker 2: how did you and Nancy come back together? Why did
46:47
Speaker 2: you decide to tour now?
46:49
Speaker 3: It was time, There was no longer any reason to
46:53
Speaker 3: hold off on it. I spent pretty much all of
46:56
Speaker 3: last year touring with Trips that Are, and we did
46:59
Speaker 3: a hundred shows and seven months. I thought, well, the
47:04
Speaker 3: time is right. Let's see if we can bring back
47:07
Speaker 3: the big guns. And she was into it. We had
47:11
Speaker 3: some negotiations to do, who's going to be in the band,
47:14
Speaker 3: what type of a show we're going to do, but
47:17
Speaker 3: we we came to understandings and all that.
47:21
Speaker 2: I was looking through your Instagram and I saw that
47:23
Speaker 2: you have some scattered posts about meditation and quotes from
47:28
Speaker 2: Ramdas and other things. When you're talking about relaxation before
47:33
Speaker 2: the shows, what are some techniques that you use to
47:36
Speaker 2: get into a good headspace.
47:38
Speaker 3: I like to listen to music that is meditational, the
47:42
Speaker 3: space around a drone, you know, just calming down that way, breathing.
47:47
Speaker 3: I don't want to build up. I want to chill
47:50
Speaker 3: down before a show, so I walk out there completely
47:54
Speaker 3: calm and collected. And so those are the main things.
47:58
Speaker 3: Is just relax into it.
48:01
Speaker 2: And then when you make that transition from backstage to
48:04
Speaker 2: stepping out on stage in an arena filled with people,
48:08
Speaker 2: filled with energy, is it hard to make that switch
48:11
Speaker 2: for you?
48:12
Speaker 3: Well, it depends on how tired I am. I guess
48:17
Speaker 3: if it's a good night and everything's clicking and I
48:19
Speaker 3: feel good, then it's not hard. But if something's gone on,
48:24
Speaker 3: or you know, something's wrong within the band, like someone's
48:27
Speaker 3: sick or something like that, it's a little harder to
48:31
Speaker 3: go out there with all the engines, the resting.
48:34
Speaker 2: At what point in the tour would you say is
48:37
Speaker 2: the best to see heart Would it be in the
48:41
Speaker 2: beginning parts of the tour, the middle, the ladder.
48:44
Speaker 3: And Oh, that's impossible to say. I think it's different
48:49
Speaker 3: every tour. I don't know how this band is going
48:52
Speaker 3: to develop because It really is like a development over
48:55
Speaker 3: a tour. You go out and you're just you've fresh
48:59
Speaker 3: aut rearsal and everything's just all perfect, and then you
49:05
Speaker 3: start to open up like a big flower. Yeah, you
49:09
Speaker 3: figure out where it is that the audience and yourself
49:12
Speaker 3: really connect and grow with those places. So if you
49:17
Speaker 3: see us halfway through the tour, it's going to be
49:19
Speaker 3: different than the first couple of nights.
49:21
Speaker 2: Yeah. Do you have the same set list every show
49:24
Speaker 2: or does a set list change?
49:26
Speaker 3: It will change. We have a bunch of stuff worked
49:30
Speaker 3: out that we can interchange whenever we like, and sometimes
49:34
Speaker 3: we're writing so things can just be popped in. So yeah,
49:39
Speaker 3: it'll change definitely.
49:41
Speaker 2: Is there any sort of preview you can give us
49:43
Speaker 2: about what type of show it will be.
49:46
Speaker 3: It's gonna look beautiful. It is gonna be a combination
49:51
Speaker 3: of heart songs, no covers, all heart songs, and a
49:56
Speaker 3: couple of new songs, a new Nancy song and a
49:59
Speaker 3: new and song.
50:00
Speaker 2: Tell me about the last thing you've written that you're
50:03
Speaker 2: really excited about.
50:05
Speaker 3: Oh, I just got through making an album with Trips
50:09
Speaker 3: that is called Another Door and came out so good.
50:14
Speaker 3: That is what I'm really proud of. Right now, because
50:16
Speaker 3: I was the sole lyric writer on all the songs
50:21
Speaker 3: and it really taught me a lot. I learned a
50:25
Speaker 3: lot about how to do it and just when to
50:29
Speaker 3: edit myself and when not too. You know that's so important.
50:32
Speaker 2: Well, thank you so much for taking the time to
50:34
Speaker 2: talk today.
50:35
Speaker 3: Nice to talk to you. Thank you.
50:40
Speaker 1: Thanks Dan Wilson for talking about heart storied history. You
50:43
Speaker 1: can see Anna her sister Nancy on tour with Heart
50:45
Speaker 1: through December, and you can hear our favorite songs from Heart,
50:48
Speaker 1: along with their various side projects on a playlist at
50:51
Speaker 1: broken record podcast dot com. Subscribe to our YouTube channel
50:55
Speaker 1: at YouTube dot com slash broken Record Podcast, where you
50:58
Speaker 1: can find all of our new episodes. You can follow
51:01
Speaker 1: us on Twitter at broken Record. Broken Record is produced
51:05
Speaker 1: and edited by Leah Rose, with marketing help from Eric
51:07
Speaker 1: Sandler and Jordan mcmill. Our engineer is Ben Tollinday. Broken
51:12
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51:36
Speaker 1: Kenny Beats. I'm justin Richmond.